Abstract
"Thomas Mann once told Susan Sontag that he considered The Magic Mountain to be his greatest novel. And few in his own day doubted the preeminence of this modernist classic. But many have argued that the age of literary modernism has passed. If this is so, how might we best understand Mann's masterpiece now? In this book of wide-ranging and original essays, which also includes a memoir of Thomas Mann by Susan Sontag, various scholars and critics explore the meanings of The Magic Mountain for the contemporary imagination."--Publisher's description.
Transfiguration in silence: Hans Castorp's uncanny awakening / Joseph P. Lawrence -- Mann's ethical style / Stephen D. Dowden -- Thomas Mann's comic spirit / Eugene Goodheart -- War as mentor: Thomas Mann and Germanness / Ülker Gökberk -- From muted chords to maddening cacophony: music in the Magic mountain / David Blumberg -- Ambiguous solitude: Hans Castorp's Sturm und Drang nach Osten / Edward Engelberg -- Mortal illness on the Magic mountain / Stephen C. Meredith -- Beyond Naphta: Thomas Mann's Jews and German-Jewish writing / Michael Brenner -- Technology as desire: X-ray vision in the Magic mountain / Karla Schultz -- Distant oil rigs and other erections / Kenneth Weisinger -- Pilgrimage / Susan Sontag.