Mountainous Magic

As the final pages of "The Brothers Karamazov" approach, I have been contemplating my life, post-Karamazov. Will there be a void and, if so, how will I fill it? It's only been a year since I brought Karamazov out from the back of the bookshelf and into my everyday life, but it seems (much, much) longer. I've grown accustomed to living each day with barely comprehensible literature. I don't know if I want to go back to my old ways; the desolate, easily comprehended wasteland, filled with crappy television, readable prose and the ever present temptation to set up my old PlayStation (maybe even buy the latest version...Nooooooooo!!!).

So I've decided that I can't let this word-insanity end. But don't panic! I'm not going to re-read Karamazov. Instead, I've chosen another (hopefully) barely comprehensible masterpiece of literature to read in the same fashion as Karamazov (2-6 pages per day): The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. I don't have too much knowledge about either the novel or Thomas Mann (other than that Thomas Mann won a Nobel prize (for literature - Duh!) and the novel was written in German (but, thankfully, it has been translated, as my German is about as good as my Russian, ie scheiss*)). I've decided not to do any research prior to reading so as to form my own impressions (I might look into things afterwards). There is, of course, the possibility that the novel is comprehensible, even a 'page turner', however, I strongly suspect this won't be the case. Other novels I've read by Nobel prize winners required varying degrees of "slow reading" in order to be with the comprehending.

So why The Magic Mountain? Why choose a novel I know very little about? How did this all come about? WTF??? Ummm...'cos it sounded pretty?

Well, it does (sound pretty). But, in actual truth, I came across the novel about 6 months ago whenst I googled "Magic Mountain" and there it was, and I thought unto myself: "I shall read this novel, one day...hmmm...why don't I read it after I've finished Karamazov. Groovy!". Of course, this begets the question: "Why were you googling Magic Mountain in the first place, pumpkin?". The reason, rose-petal, I was googling such words, is that, due to my having given the name "Magic Mountain" to a completely incomprehensible poem I wrote, and, thinking that the name sounded familiar, I wondered if there was a famous poem of the same name (there doesn't seem to be). And lo!, amongst adds for Magic Mountain Resorts and Magic Mountain Fun Parks, I beheld one Magic Mountain Novel. Oh, happy day! So I clicked onto the link (yes, it was to wikipedia), did a quick eye-to-brain scan of the entry and was immediately drawn to the novel's Incomprehensible Potential.

And so it continues...



* shit (in German)