In my 20s, the slow pace of Hans Castorp’s life in the Alpine sanatorium peppered with philosophical discussions and existential musings of time didn’t resonate with my fast-paced life in bohemian Madrid when I was a scientist by day and an aspiring writer by night. I believe that many books are meant to be read twice, as we gain something new from them once we’ve lived more of life. So, I decided a pandemic was a good a time as any to return to The Magic Mountain. Once you’ve been to the Berghof, chances are you’ll come back. Īfter almost a decade, I felt a pull back to the Berghof, much like many of the consumptive patients who eventually returned over the course of the novel. Much like the content of my PhD thesis nine-years later in a life of post-physics recovery, I forgot much of The Magic Mountain. Sometimes you remember an impression, the atmosphere, a memorable character or a single scene, but your brain erases the book’s memory after a time to make room for more information. At the time, I had been immersed in its prose, but some books leave you with a kind of narrative amnesia. I was exhausted from researching the nuclear structure of tin isotopes, and even though I had this strange curiosity in the sciences the way Hans Castorp did, I am ashamed to admit until recently I forgot the core plot of the book. I thumbed through the pages with an Aperol Spritz in hand as gondolas sailed past on cliched canals. I delved into Thomas Mann’s magnum opus I was alone in Venice nine years ago just days after submitting my PhD thesis. This isn’t the first time I’ve visited the world of The Magic Mountain. June carried me up to The Magic Mountain just as the lavender began to flower. March became a month decorated with almond blossoms and the bawdy tales of the Decameron April turned into a binge of Nabokov’s most significant works (that were not Lolita ) perfumed by the scent of blooming lilacs and acacias roses and wildflowers flowered in May as I fell into the intense friendship of Narcissus and Goldmund in Hermann Hesse’s best book. I soon began to measure time by the changing vegetation and the books I consumed.
Audiobooks and walks replaced the surrealist parties, literary readings, and late nights in dingy bars, as my body clock shifted to a time when morning dew sat on the spring blossoms, and it was easier to avoid people actively.
With Budapest in lockdown, my only contact with the outside world was my daily hikes up Gellért with an audiobook to keep me company the way Hans Castorp did as he accompanied his consumptive cousin Joachim Ziemssen on his daily constitutional up into the Swiss Alps. Reading Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain in the Time of CovidĪs I reached the top of Gellért Hill, Hans Castorp got out of the carriage at the Berghof Sanatorium in the first chapter of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain.
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