The fictional “International Sanatorium Berghof” is probably not modeled on the Schatzalp. “It’s always a small wonder for me, because of the umlaut.” Luckily, App was able to locate a word-searchable version of the book’s text through a university in Japan. Guests have wanted to know about everything from the romantic symbolism of blue flowers to how often the book alludes to “Maria Mancini,” the brand of cigar that Castorp smokes (not to be confused with the sanatorium’s “quicksilver cigars,” used for taking patients’ temperatures). “But I’m confronted with many questions.” “It’s always a difficult task to read from page one to page, I don’t know, one thousand fifty-four,” said App. But it is also a journey to the underworld, undertaken as he strives to understand the meaning of life and death.įor all the alpine clarity of its prose-even minor characters come completely to life-the book is not a light read. The extremely likable Castorp’s sojourn involves butter and milk and getting his blood drawn. Castorp contracts a mild fever on arrival and, with the collusion of doctors who are perhaps as interested in the sanatorium’s bottom line as they are in the health of their patients, comes to the conclusion that a life revolving chiefly around extravagant meals, daily rest cures, love affairs, walks in the woods, philosophical discussion, and plenty of free time to learn about botany, opera, and the occult suits him better than office work. It is the story of a young engineer, Hans Castorp, who travels to Davos to visit his sick cousin at a luxurious tuberculosis sanatorium, and, instead of three weeks, ends up staying for seven years. Instead, this “odd entertainment,” as Mann called it, went on to become one of his greatest successes. The Schatzalp is the only sanatorium mentioned by its real name in Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain.” In the novel’s opening pages, it is described as “the highest of the sanatoriums,” built so far up the mountain that “they have to bring their bodies down on bobsleds, in the winter.” Each year, the hotel draws a small but dogged cohort of “Magic Mountain” pilgrims.Įven Mann didn’t think “The Magic Mountain” would find more than a few hundred readers.

What he didn’t realize was that a literary degree would have been helpful, too. App, who is hale and good-humored, knew that he would get to put his engineering degree to use dealing with antiquated electrical systems and the property’s old-fashioned ski lift.

The magic mountain mann