Most folks who read – for real, not just in passing, every once in a great while – probably don’t start a book and not finish it. If that does occur, some catastrophe could only explain the inability to complete a nominally easy task. So, my not finishing The Magic Mountain, since it was interrupted by some emergency, can only be explained by my lack of focus, or the boring nature of the book. That latter seems right, though.

Making it through Death in Venice was less than a memorable experience. In fact, it’d be difficult for me to recount the entirety of the plot. I do recollect an older gentleman coming into contact with someone much younger. Granted, that book was put down something like seven years ago, so having only a shadow’s impression of the plot isn’t surprising, but I didn’t particularly care for it. Not bad, just not engaging.

Stumbling over some reference to Mann’s The Magic Mountain counting as a cornerstone of Western literature, though, pretty much meant that the book would soon be sitting on a night stand, waiting to be finished. Well, it sat on a night stand.

The lengthy book was begun at an auspicious time – the beginning of a long road trip. And how apropos was it that the book began in the same manner. It seemed like a sign that what was to follow should have proven to be something like a religious experience – as understood through being a book geek.

However, at about three hundred pages in – not quite halfway through – pretty much nothing had happened apart from a gross of pontificating. And yeah, German literature does certainly take its time contemplating the meaning of life, but being granted entrance to Hans Castorp’s mind doesn’t make for a good read.

His back story should have been enough to grab any reader – (kinda) orphaned, but well off and provided for. Castorp was even headed up a mountain via train to visit a sick cousin. By the time he gets there, though, most of the narrative’s movement had been spent. And spent prematurely.

Upon Castorp’s arrival, there’s some faint desire to find a women. That aspect to the whole thing is amped upon over about a hundred or so pages with the main character devising ways to make contact with his assumed love interest. It got be too much. But if Mann’s other work was to your liking and your favorite books don’t need to have any sort of direction, give The Magic Mountain a shot.