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The Magic Mountain

Thomas Mann

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Total reviews: 85 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Al Gore, Yassar Arafat, and Magic Mountain... 1 out of 5 stars.
7 of 18 people found this review helpful.

...What are three reasons why the Nobel Prize is utterly meaningless Alex!


Holy crud, I just finished reading Magic Mountain about 5 minutes ago and want to get this review out while I still have the taste in my mouth. There's some great 1-star reviews for this book that I doubt I'll ever be able to top...but I'll try anyways.

What the book lacks in character development, ideas, and psychological analysis it more than makes up for in utter pointlessness. A more unfeeling, disinterested, atomized novel you will not find. Mann writes like a man detached from the world; he's incapable of giving a cohesive structure to multiple ideas and moving them in a single direction. In a word, it's a novel without purpose, more or less a collection of seemingly random, meaningless events that occur over a seven year period within a sanatarium high in the German Alps.

Maybe this disjointed style of narrative was somehow meant to be just an avenue through which Mann could pretentiously lecture the reader about the nature of time. Sure! I mean, time is such an easily definable concept that it certainly can be casually woven into what allegedly is an already highly complex storyline - and of course Mann possesed the Astrophysics Ph.D to make any of this time talk relevant, right? Not a chance.

Nothing it seems is able to pry the protagonist Hans Castorp away from his life as a spineless worm. Even the more notable events enjoy just a short twilight before they fizzle out, leaving Hans Castorp the same detached, unthinking, and cowardly individual on DAY 1 as he is in YEAR 7. Is this a true portrait of the character and psychology of a human being? Maybe in this mood equalizer culture of ours it is, which is probably at least part of the reason for the novel's popularity in the Anglo-American world.

Outside of that it's difficult to imagine an individual (or if one did indeed exist why such a wretched existence should be made the focus of a lengthy novel) who - could continuously witness death first-hand, go through a series of near death experiences himself, have intimate relationships with intellectuals (though admittedly the Settembrini-Naphta dialogues are just dramatized pseudo-philosophical ramblings) - without every experiencing any notable change in his psychology or behavior. How would Mann justify this ridiculously unrealistic, unfeeling outlook on the development of what is commonly known as character, spirit, or soul? Assuming we were able to actually locate someone like Hans Castorp would there be any purpose in digging beneath the surface of a man who is so fundamentally disinterested in anything that isn't completely about him?

I think what happened here was that Mann looked at mankind's desire for comfort, then jumped a whole bunch of steps and concluded that the man who simply wants to "stay warm" would be able to easily insulate himself from ideas and withdraw himself from society. That just isn't the case though. I don't deny that modernity can create a sense of detachment and social isolation in many individuals, but these feelings are not at all easily accepted by those same people. Indeed, even the people who personally decide to isolate themselves either do so because of, or cannot do so without severe emotional trauma and despair. Thus, if Hans Castorp is indeed supposed to be representative of this sort of Nietzchean "herd animal" than he is able to live this way with a stunning and completely unrealistic sense of ease.

Finally, what was up with the ending? Out with a whimper indeed! What an incredibly sick view of life this book expresses. Not only was this nearly the most worthless thing I've ever read, but I also have an added sense of shame at having initially given this book to someone as a birthday gift! It's little wonder they never bothered to read it. Run far, far away from this lifeless pseudo-philosophic nonsense.

Worst Novel of the 20th Century.

Editorial Review:

In this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Mann uses a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps--a community devoted exclusively to sickness--as a microcosm for Europe, which in the years before 1914 was already exhibiting the first symptoms of its own terminal irrationality. The Magic Mountain is a monumental work of erudition and irony, sexual tension and intellectual ferment, a book that pulses with life in the midst of death.

The Meaning of Life

Terry Eagleton

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The phrase "the meaning of life" for many seems a quaint notion fit for satirical mauling by Monty Python or Douglas Adams. But in this spirited, stimulating, and quirky enquiry, famed critic Terry Eagleton takes a serious if often amusing look at the question and offers his own surprising answer.
Eagleton first examines how centuries of thinkers and writers--from Marx and Schopenhauer to Shakespeare, Sartre, and Beckett--have responded to the ultimate question of meaning. He suggests, however, that it is only in modern times that the question has become problematic. But instead of tackling it head-on, many of us cope with the feelings of meaninglessness in our lives by filling them with everything from football to sex, Kabbala, Scientology, "New Age softheadedness," or fundamentalism. On the other hand, Eagleton notes, many educated people believe that life is an evolutionary accident that has no intrinsic meaning. If our lives have meaning, it is something with which we manage to invest them, not something with which they come ready made. Eagleton probes this view of meaning as a kind of private enterprise, and concludes that it fails to holds up. He argues instead that the meaning of life is not a solution to a problem, but a matter of living in a certain way. It is not metaphysical but ethical. It is not something separate from life, but what makes it worth living--that is, a certain quality, depth, abundance and intensity of life.
Here then is a brilliant discussion of the problem of meaning by a leading thinker, who writes with a light and often irreverent touch, but with a very serious end in mind.
"If you were to ask what provides some meaning in life nowadays for a great many people, especially men, you could do worse than reply 'football.' Not many of them perhaps would be willing to admit as much; but sport stands in for all those noble causes--religious faith, national sovereignty, personal honor, ethnic identity--for which, over the centuries, people have been prepared to go to their deaths. It is sport, not religion, which is now the opium of the people."

William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism

Robert D. Richardson

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Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

For A Popular Audience, Too 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I need not repeat the summaries set forth below by other reviewers, since these explain both Richardson's method -- to tell the life story through the work -- and the essentials of James' theories. What I will say is that, even if you have no background in philosophy or psychology, you should read this brilliant, passionate biography. James wrote for a popular as well as a professional audience; he was open and curious to all experience, and wished to be inclusive rather than exclusive in disseminating his ideas. Richardson is clear and succinct in explaining James theories -- often in the man's own, crisp, evocative language and clarifying analogies. Moreover, the concepts that James developed have in many cases become part of our popular vocabulary, including through organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous, which Richardson reports took inspiration from James' Gifford lectures, published in the U.S. as "The Varieties of Religious Experience."

I had not read James for many years but, since reading this biography, have purchased a collection of his writings and am re-reading many of his works. You will come away from "In the Maelstrom of American Modernism" with a better understanding of both American values and ideals, and the history of U.S. higher education. Most importantly, however, you will come away with enormous admiration for the radiant personality that was William James, or as Richardson exclaims (using italics, not caps) at the end of this great work, for "the SPIRIT the man." When I finished reading, I not only wanted to read William James; I was sorry that I had not known him or had him as a teacher. That's how good this book is -- for every reader.

Editorial Review:

Pivotal member of the Metaphysical Club, author of The Varieties of Religious Experience, older brother of extraordinary siblings Henry and Alice, the remarkable William James put an indelible stamp on psychology, philosophy, teaching, and religion -- on modernism itself. In this thought-provoking and moving biography, James emerges as an immensely complex and fascinating man. Through passionate scholarship, Robert D. Richardson illuminates James's life and hugely influential works: the Varieties, Principles of Psychology, Talks to Teachers, and Pragmatism. At last, in this definitive work William James is given his due as a man whose influence resonates in innumerable areas of modern life.

The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths

Rosalind E. Krauss

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Co-founder and co-editor of October magazine, a veteran of Artforum of the 1960s and early 1970s, Rosalind Krauss has presided over and shared in the major formulation of the theory of postmodernism.

In this challenging collection of fifteen essays, most of which originally appeared in October, she explores the ways in which the break in style that produced postmodernism has forced a change in our various understandings of twentieth-century art, beginning with the almost mythic idea of the avant-garde. Krauss uses the analytical tools of semiology, structuralism, and poststructuralism to reveal new meanings in the visual arts and to critique the way other prominent practitioners of art and literary history write about art. In two sections, "Modernist Myths" and "Toward Postmodernism," her essays range from the problem of the grid in painting and the unity of Giacometti's sculpture to the works of Jackson Pollock, Sol Lewitt, and Richard Serra, and observations about major trends in contemporary literary criticism.

Rosalind E. Krauss is Professor of Art History at Hunter College.

God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art (Cultural Exegesis)

Daniel A., Siedell

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Painting and Saint Paul 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

(This review first appeared at firsttthings.com)

In a recent book assessing the state of evangelical scholarship, Mark Noll refers to "a boomlet in evangelical art history [that] rests squarely on the work of the Dutch Reformed scholar Hans Rookmaaker." Had Noll seen Daniel Siedell's book God in the Gallery, he might have thought differently. Siedell is a long way from Rookmaaker, and his book--whether or not it can be called evangelical--is no boomlet. God in the Gallery is an impressive detonation in and of itself.

The Christianity-and-art conversation is gridlocked. The stalled traffic includes those who are profoundly suspicious of the art world, and those who are infuriated enough by this unforgivably "conservative" suspicion that they, in turn, write contemporary artists a theological blank check. A book capable of broaching this impasse has long needed to be written--but who would have suspected it would be this good? What makes God in the Gallery noteworthy is that it addresses another gridlock as well, that of contemporary art. The traffic in this case involves those liberated by the end of modernity to explore spiritual directions, and those committed to keeping art a staunchly secular enterprise. "The art world," insists Siedell, "is growing increasingly uncomfortable with its collective unbelief."

Siedell's qualifications enable him to address both these dilemmas. He is a firmly ecclesial Lutheran with deep--one might say overriding--sympathies for the Orthodox Church. In addition, Siedell holds a Ph.D. in contemporary art (he studied with noted critic Donald Kuspit), and he is a seasoned curator with a decade of gallery experience.

Simply put, God in the Gallery succeeds by dividing, that is, by clearly distinguishing the sanctuary from the salon. The author has no interest in churches aping galleries or galleries playing church. But what keeps Siedell from merely erecting a Jeffersonian wall of separation between church and gallery is his unflinching insistence that the church's aesthetic framework, grounded in the ecumenical warrant for icons, is strong enough to inform, shape, and underwrite the practice of contemporary art. "The church's aesthetics and poetics . . . is the ground of all aesthetics and poetics." And the direction of influence "goes from the church outward toward culture, not from culture to a passive, inert, irrelevant church."

To buttress his argument, Siedell quotes Christoph Cardinal Schönborn: "A Church that in her liturgy, in her very life, draws vitality from the sense of awe in facing the mystery, will provide breathing space for any art whose primary purpose is not a breathless pursuit of outward success." In order for this vision to be realized, however, "Protestant approaches are simply not expansive enough" for Siedell. Only "the `economy' of the icon can provide an important foundation on which to rethink modern and contemporary art." Byzantine insights from the eighth century are marshaled to fortify the twenty-first.

All these are serious claims, and Siedell has done the work necessary to back up them up. The book offers a brief survey of modern art, an introduction to the condition of and key players in contemporary art, a summary of the academic-populist divide in art criticism, a diagnosis of the Christianity-and-art conversation, and a primer on recent theological trends. Though of course one book can't do all these completely, this one does them all surprisingly well.

Most interesting in my view is Siedell's ambitious attempt to solve a major crisis in the discipline of art history--the status of the term art. For Siedell, the development of art as a Western concept is something we should accept. "Not all products of modernity are theologically and spiritually suspect." But, while Siedell accepts art's institutional reality, he does not accept the narrow range of activities the term art currently represents.

Instead, Siedell borrows from the philosopher Paul Crowther and suggests defining art as "common (universal) human practice of making and experiencing" whose primary goal, Siedell adds, is to "seek communion with God." The most effective example of this has been the Byzantine icon. "Nicene Christianity does not merely tolerate images in the church. It requires them." While it certainly needs to be developed further, Siedell has suggested a Copernican revolution in the artistic solar system that makes the Christian icon the governing sun. Christianity, therefore, "in all its myriad cultural and material manifestations is never absent from the modern artist."

Siedell even manages to pull recent, stranger trends of contemporary art into this iconic orbit. In the shift from modern to postmodern art, Siedell sees a "transcendence in transition" from "modernity's disembodied purity to one that is sought in and through embodiment, tradition, cultural practice, and the material world." This resonates with, without being equivalent to, the Christian sacramental tradition. High is the pile of sophisticated recent books on theological aesthetics. God in the Gallery might enable such labor to actually reach where it is needed most--plunging from the ethereal heights of the seminaries deep into the streets (even the gutters) of contemporary art.

The modern artist Mark Rothko (1903-1970) provides an example of how Siedell's vision plays out. Initially, the mystical ambition of Rothko's large, figureless fields of paint might be considered direct competition to Christian faith--vying for the very transcendence that religion has already achieved. Siedell neither gives in to this suspicion, nor does he offer unqualified endorsement. Instead, he secures a complex middle ground: Mark Rothko's brooding paintings "function ambivalently as icons; or rather, the content of their iconicity is underdetermined. But this does not mean that they do not participate in some way in the reality of the icon."

Not all of Siedell's interpretations, however, are as successful as his take on Rothko. Siedell is uncritical of Janine Antoni's Gnaw, where the sculptor chews on massive cubes of chocolate and lard. This is similar, Antonini says, to "receiving the host from the priest in the old-fashioned way." In defense of the sculptor, Siedell claims that the complex relationship between tasting and seeing "can be expressed outside the divine liturgy only through the aesthetic complexities of art." (What about restaurants?) Siedell is celebratory of German artist Wolfgang Laib, who considers the attempt to create beauty a futile pursuit. He sees Robert Gober's headless Christ installation as an attempt for an alienated Catholic to create an alternative "sacred space." Another artist writes directly on his work that his piece is in fact a meaningless failure. While Siedell suggest we look deeper, some might wish to take the artist at his word. At some points Siedell's interpretations were convincing, at others, readers might share my sentiment: "I believe, help my unbelief." Nevertheless, Siedell "does not claim to offer the Christian explanation of these works of art," and he does not suggest--as have some--that they infiltrate the liturgy. Siedell errs on the side of charity because he aims to prompt the skeptic to take another look, and to critique the way Siedell carries out his vision is not to dismiss the vision itself.

Still, at times Siedell is burdened by unhelpful terminology pulled straight from the paradigms he has done so much to overcome. He refers to the "neoconservative captivity" of art criticism, and is sharply critical of New Criterion editor Hilton Kramer's conservative political agenda. Indeed, politics can affect art and art criticism for the worse. But Siedell breathes not a word of criticism for the leftist agenda that--it takes willful effort not to see--has overtaken so much contemporary art and art criticism. Because it is this agenda that Kramer is attempting to counter, one would have at least hoped for "a pox on both your houses" from Siedell. (His reference, albeit in a footnote, to "Christian anarchism" without critical distance is unsettling). Like it or not, a healthy art world may depend on a stable free world. There is a reason that Enrique Martínez Celaya, the Cuban-born artist whom Siedell lionizes, is flourishing here and not in, say, Cuba.

It is tempting to suggest that Siedell expends so much charity to the art world that he has little left for his Christian colleagues. Though he is never belittling or rude, Siedell hits his co-religionists hard. Gregory Wolfe, editor of the religion and art journal Image, is criticized for not differentiating clearly enough between the institutional framework of the church and the world of art. Cutting edge innovation does not belong in the liturgy, where recognition by the faithful is essential. On the other hand, Siedell is frustrated with those who have tried to establish an alternative, Christian art world through a network of Christian college art departments and organizations. Siedell berates what we might call this Hauerwasian model of Christian art enclaves. He prefers instead what could fairly be called a more Neuhausian engagement of Christians in art's public square.

The model for Siedell's art criticism is no one less than the apostle Paul at Athens (Acts 17). Art can function as an "altar to an unknown God," and the Christian art critic can say, with Paul, "that which you worship as unknown, I proclaim to you" (Acts 17:23). There is indeed a remarkable parallel between first-century Athenian pagans and the twenty-first-century art world, and Siedell could have perhaps taken it further. Both Athenians and art enthusiasts, for example, "spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new" (Acts 17:21). But there is also, of course, a great divide between then and now. The Athenians knew nothing of Christianity. Contemporary artists do, and remind us of that fact by intentionally mixing Christian imagery, often with deliberate offense, into their work. The point is important because Paul makes much of it. "While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). Siedell might avoid this criticism by suggesting that the contemporary artists' alienation from traditional Christianity by either injury or ignorance functions as a second naiveté.

But Paul's vision goes further. The altar to an unknown God was not the only altar in Athens. In fact, we read that this was only one in a city packed with idols which "greatly distressed" the apostle (Acts 17:16). Engagement with contemporary art sometimes leads to this conclusion, which is equally Pauline. Noting that art has failed as a rival religion does not necessarily indicate "neoconservative captivity" (and if it does, then count Nietzsche a neocon). Is it necessarily philistine to point out the unfortunate condition of contemporary art? Take for example, the abortion art catastrophe at Yale, or Banks Violette's recent show at the Whitney that meditates on Satanic ritual murders, or Damian Hirst's sadistic stations of the cross. Sadly, there is only more evidence today to support the reformed art historian Hans Rookmaaker's 1970 thesis, "Modern Art and the Death of a Culture." (A thesis, it is important to note, that Rookmaker complemented with daringly positive reviews of countless avant-garde exhibitions as well.)

Still, as Siedell explains, the art world is extremely complex, and wholesale dismissals are entirely unwarranted. Many of the artists Siedell has worked with are also frustrated with the art world, and Siedell's iconic vision is a needed strategy for that world's renewal. Christians who consider contemporary art an unpleasant mystery will find this book an effective primer to genuine engagement. God in the Gallery infuses the Protestant art historical tradition with the broader insights of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, and it appropriately segregates liturgical and contemporary art, with the former underwriting the latter. "The church is not a religious sphere separated from the realities of the world but reveals the world's true meaning and significance." Siedell's vision of contemporary art inspired by the Christian icon is a compelling one. At least for now, it is a reality in Orthodox cultures much more than our own.

Editorial Review:

Is contemporary art a friend or foe of Christianity? Art historian, critic, and curator Daniel Siedell, addresses this question and presents a framework for interpreting art from a Christian worldview in God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art. As such, it is an excellent companion to Francis Schaeffer's classic Art and the Bible. Divided into three parts--"Theology," "History," and "Practice"--God in the Gallery demonstrates that art is in conversation with and not opposed to the Christian faith. In addition, this book is beautifully enhanced with images from such artists as Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Enrique Martínez Celaya, and others. Readers of this book will include professors, students, artists, and anyone interested in Christianity and culture.

The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)

Pericles Lewis

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Editorial Review:

Must-have guides designed to introduce students and teachers to key topics and authors. More than a century after its beginnings, modernism still has the power to shock, alienate or challenge readers. Modernist art and literature remain thought of as complex and difficult. This introduction explains in a readable, lively style how modernism emerged, how it is defined, and how it developed in different forms and genres. Pericles Lewis offers students a survey of literature and art in England, Ireland and Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century. He also provides an overview of critical thought on modernism and its continuing influence on the arts today, reflecting the interests of current scholarship in the social and cultural contexts of modernism. The comparative perspective on Anglo-American and European modernism shows how European movements have influenced the development of English-language modernism. Illustrated with works of art and featuring suggestions for further study, this is the ideal introduction to understanding and enjoying modernist literature and art.

Modernism (The New Critical Idiom)

Peter Childs

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Editorial Review:

The modernist movement radically transformed the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literary establishment, and its effects are still felt today. Modernism introduces and analyzes what amounted to nothing less than a literary and cultural revolution.

In this fully updated and revised second edition, charting the movement in its global and local contexts, Peter Childs:

• details the origins of the modernist movement and the influence of thinkers such as Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, Saussure and Einstein
• explores the radical changes which occurred in the literature, drama, art and film of the period
• traces 'modernism at work' in Anglophone literatures, especially in writings by a range of key figures including James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, Nella Larsen, Gertrude Stein, Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot, and many others
• reflects upon the shift from modernism to postmodernism.

At once accessible and critically informed, Modernism guides readers from first steps in the field to an advanced understanding of one of the most important cultural movements of the last centuries.

Unknowing: The Work of Modernist Fiction

Philip Weinstein

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Editorial Review:

Philip Weinstein explores the modernist commitment to "unknowing" by addressing the work of three supreme experimental writers: Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, and William Faulkner. In their novels, the narrative props that support the drama of coming to know are refused. When space turns uncanny rather than lawful, when time ceases to be linear and progressive, objects and others become unfamiliar. So does the subject seeking to know them. Weinstein argues that modernist texts work, by way of surprise and arrest, to subvert the familiarity and narrative progression intrinsic to realist fiction. Rather than staging the drama of coming to know, they stage the drama of coming to unknow. The signature move of modernism is shock, just as resolution is the trademark of realism.

Kafka, Proust, and Faulkner wrought their most compelling experimental effects by undermining an earlier Enlightenment project of knowing. Weinstein draws on major Enlightenment thinkers to identify constituent components of the narrative of "coming to know"—the progressive narrative underwriting two centuries of Western realist fiction. The book proceeds by framing modernist unknowing between prior practices of realist knowing, on the one hand, and, on the other, certain later practices—postmodern and postcolonial—that move beyond knowing altogether. In so doing, Weinstein proposes a metahistory of the Western novel, from Daniel Defoe to Toni Morrison.

Modernism: An Anthology (Blackwell Anthologies)

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Extensive & Informative 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

It is truly a shame that most people who pick up this anthology will probably read it as an addendum for a class they are taking. In that respect, it is both a veritable well of knowledge and a framework for ongoing debate on the merits (or shortcomings?) of modernism. But for the casual reader, the one piqued by Eliot or Woolf or Williams, this anthology is extraordinary. The sheer depth and breadth of information encapsulated in essays, poems, excerpts, and short pieces should shed light on the difficulty of explaining-even categorizing-Modernism. Those who don't feel forced to read these revolutionary writers-even those who do-will surely glean some insight into the various modes of 20th century literary expression.

What is especially intriguing about this anthology is the manner in which it is compiled. Four so-called "Continental Interludes" situate theories of Dadaism, Futurism, Surrealism (along with the Frankfurt School cabal) within the Modernist context. The various writers are placed according to the mode of thought they espoused (or rejected). If you choose to read this 1,000 page tome in a linear fashion, you will gain a greater appreciation for the evolution and infrastructure of Modernism. Which doesn't necessarily mean to say you will completely understand Modernism at the end-though I firmly believe this convolution adds to the general appeal.

Whether you are interested in the mythic structures of Yeats, Joyce's utterly idiosyncratic style, Gertrude Stein's avant-garde detachment, or simply Modernism as a whole, this book is quite informative. The amount of cross-referencing and cohesion is astounding: Williams writing about Joyce, Loy writing about Stein. It's all here. Annotations are immensely helpful, as are the (sometimes) extensive biographies. I especially enjoyed the section on Pound and his essay on the linguistic and poetic superiority of Chinese characters. There's something here for everybody.

Editorial Review:

Modernism: An Anthology is the most comprehensive anthology of Anglo-American modernism ever to be published.

• Amply represents the giants of modernism - James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, Samuel Beckett.


• Includes a generous selection of Continental texts, enabling readers to trace modernism’s dialogue with the Futurists, the Dadaists, the Surrealists, and the Frankfurt School.
  
• Supported by helpful annotations, and an extensive bibliography.
  
• Allows readers to encounter anew the extraordinary revolution in language that transformed the aesthetics of the modern world .