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the right one. Considering this
as Mann’s viewpoint, the whole
purpose of the book as a novel of
education is revealed to be parody.
Deep down, the Bildungsroman
genre had always been an earnest
enterprise and it is this that Mann
is making fun of. For example, the
narrator maintains an aloof attitude
toward Castorp himself, thereby
reminding the reader that he is a
mediocre young man. And whereas
the Bildungsroman hero should be
fully formed by the end of the book,
in fact Castorp emerges with no
real sense that he has learned
anything from the lessons in life
and philosophy he has received
over the course of seven years.Adrift in time
Mann undercuts the purpose of
the Bildungsroman in other ways,
in particular in regard to the theme
of time and its relation to narrative
progression. The passage of time
is a crucial matter to those who
are sick and dying, and yet in the
hermetically sealed environment of
the sanatorium time is something
that is very hard to keep track of.
The patients calculate the amount
of time that has passed only in
units of one month. Any past event,
however long ago, is said to have
happened “just the other day”—a
habit Castorp himself eventuallyadopts. It is important to our idea of
a Bildungsroman that an education
should be an ongoing process, a
story told in sequence. Yet Mann
deprives Castorp (and the reader)
of this structure, or perspective on
events. Incidents are loose in time,
and we cannot pin them down:
each successive chapter covers
an increasing amount of time,
from one day to six years.
The Magic Mountain is thus
deeply disparaging toward its own
genre. It contains all the contents
of a Bildungsroman while showing
them (in the cold light of Modernist
thought) to be a sham, or that their
benefits are at best impossible to
calculate. It is not surprising, then,
that the book has inspired relatively
few imitators; it is too much like the
last word in the genre, and perhaps
too grand and brilliant in scope and
sweep, for anyone to want to follow
in its footsteps.
Writers have nonetheless
continued to find new uses for
the genre, exploring themes that
range from postcolonialism and
modern history (as in Salman
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children) to
sensual and sensory awakenings
(Perfume by Patrick Süskind). ■BREAKING WITH TRADITION
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was born to
a wealthy family in Lübeck,
northern Germany, in 1875.
He first came to attention
with his early masterpiece
Buddenbrooks, published
when he was just 26, a novel
about the decline of a wealthy
family much like Mann’s own.
In 1905 he married Katia
Pringsheim, the daughter of a
wealthy Jewish industrialist;
they had six children, three
of whom became writers.
In 1929, Mann was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In 1933, Mann left Germany
for Switzerland, and on the
eve of World War II he moved
to the US, where he taught at
Princeton University before
settling in California and
becoming an American
citizen. During the war he
made a number of anti-Nazi
speeches recorded in the US
and broadcast from Britain to
Germany. After the war he
returned to Europe; he died in
Switzerland in 1955, at 80.Other key works1901 Buddenbrooks
1912 Death in Venice
1933–43 Joseph and
His Brothers
1947 Doctor FaustusChronically ill patients at high-
altitude sanatoria in the Swiss Alps
lived in a rarefied atmosphere, with
events in the world “down there”
barely impinging on their lives.It is love, not reason, that
is stronger than death.
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