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The Magic Mountain
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
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Publisher's summary
It was The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg) that confirmed Thomas Mann as a Nobel prizewinner for literature and rightly so, for it is undoubtedly one of the great novels of the 20th century.
Its unusual story - it opens with a young man visiting a friend in a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps - was originally started by Mann in 1912 but was not completed until 1924. Then, it was instantly recognised as a masterpiece and led to Mann’s Nobel Prize in 1929.
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912, and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure, and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, some of whom have been there for years, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
Among them are Hofrat Behrens, the principal doctor, the curiously attractive Clavdia Chauchat and two intellectuals: Ludovico Settembrini and Leo Naphta with their strongly contrasted personalities and differing political, ethical, artistic and spiritual ideals. Hans Castorp’s stay is extended, once, twice and still further, as he appears to develop symptoms which suggest that his health, once so robust, would benefit from the treatments and the mountain air.
As time passes, it becomes clear that the young man, with a particular interest in shipbuilding and not much else, finds his outlook and knowledge broadened by his mountain companions, his intellect stretched and his emotional experience deepened and enriched. Hans Castorp is changing, day by day, month by month, year by year, sometimes imperceptibly, sometimes with a sudden advance, as he encounters the varied range of sparkling characters, their comedies and tragedies, their aspirations and their defeats.
The Magic Mountain is a classic bildungsroman, an educational journey of growth - a genre that began with an earlier novel in the German tradition: Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. It is presented here in the acclaimed modern translation by John E. Woods and is told by David Rintoul with his particular understanding for Thomas Mann as displayed in his widely praised Ukemi recording of Buddenbrooks.
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Frederic Moreau is a law student returning home to Normandy from Paris when he first notices Mme Arnoux, a slender, dark woman several years older than himself. It is the beginning of an infatuation that will last a lifetime. He befriends her husband, an influential businessman, and their paths cross and re-cross over the years. Through financial upheaval, political turmoil, and countless affairs, Mme Arnoux remains the constant, unattainable love of Moreau’s life.
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When Crimes of Passion Were All the Fashion
- By W Perry Hall on 03-12-17
By: Gustave Flaubert
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Bel Ami
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- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
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Guy de Maupassant is revered for his naturalistic fiction, which brilliantly captures flesh-and-blood characters as it evokes the most telling details of everyday life. Considered one of the finest French novels ever written, Bel Ami follows journalist Georges Duroy and his increasing stature among the Paris elite. With an immense thirst for power, Georges is not above an almost gleeful use of wealthy mistresses to achieve his ends.
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Bel Ami or how to socially climb in 1885 Paris
- By Neil Chisholm on 12-03-13
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Crome Yellow
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- Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
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One of the greatest prose writers and social commentators of the 20th century, Aldous Huxley here introduces us to a delightfully cynical, comic, and severe group of artists and intellectuals engaged in the most free-thinking and modern kind of talk imaginable. Poetry, occultism, ancestral history, and Italian primitive painting are just a few of the subjects competing for discussion among the amiable cast of eccentrics drawn together at Crome, an intensely English country manor.
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Bloomsbury in a blender, 1922
- By Adeliese Baumann on 01-02-17
By: Aldous Huxley
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Nausea (New Directions Paperbook)
- By: Jean-Paul Sartre
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
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Sartre's greatest novel and existentialism's key text, now introduced by James Wood, and read by the inimitable Edoardo Ballerini. Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form, he ruthlessly catalogs his every feeling and sensation.
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Glad to have existed to enjoy reading this book!
- By mohammed on 08-11-21
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The Man Without Qualities
- By: Robert Musil
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 60 hrs and 30 mins
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In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
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An unmatched intellectual epic
- By Delano on 06-23-22
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Steppenwolf
- By: Hermann Hesse
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- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
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Harry Haller is a sad and lonely figure, a reclusive intellectual for whom life holds no joy. He struggles to reconcile the wild primeval wolf and the rational man within himself without surrendering to the bourgeois values he despises. His life changes dramatically when he meets a woman who is his opposite, the carefree and elusive Hermine.
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Save this Hesse novel for your midlife crisis.
- By Darwin8u on 03-02-14
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The Age of Innocence
- By: Edith Wharton
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
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Countess Ellen Olenska, separated from her European husband, returns to old New York society. She bears with her an independence and an awareness of life which stirs the educated sensitivity of the charming Newland Archer, engaged to be married to her cousin, May Welland. Though he accepts the society's standards and rules he is acutely aware of their limitations. He knows May will assure him a conventional future but Ellen, scandalously separated from her husband, forces Archer to question his values and beliefs.
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Narrated to Perfection
- By Ilana on 09-18-12
By: Edith Wharton
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Night and Day
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
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Written before she began her experiments in the writing of fiction, Virginia Woolf's second novel, Night and Day, is a story about a group of young people trying to discover what it means to fall in love. It asks all the big questions: What does it mean to fall in love? Does marriage grant happiness? What is happiness? Night and Day is a conventional novel; however, it maps out for us the world of Virginia Woolf in its wondrous prose: For her it was the beginning, leading on to a prolonged engagement with her search for the means to express the "inner life".
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"After all, what is love?"
- By Eman Abd Allah on 12-13-16
By: Virginia Woolf
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The Setting Sun
- New Directions Book
- By: Osamu Dazai
- Narrated by: June Angela
- Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the early postwar years, it probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. Ozamu Dazai died, a suicide, in 1948. But the influence of his book has made "people of the setting sun" a permanent part of the Japanese language, and his heroine, Kazuko, a young aristocrat who deliberately abandons her class, a symbol of the anomie which pervades so much of the modern world.
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MORE OSAMU DAZAI TRANSLATIONS PLEASE!!!!!
- By Lucky on 10-19-22
By: Osamu Dazai
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In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
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This collection contains two of Thomas Mann’s classic works: Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain.
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Chapters missing, divisions make no sense
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What listeners say about The Magic Mountain
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Pretzelcuatl
- 12-07-20
Thank God it finally came to audiobook
I’ve intended to read The Magic Mountain since high school, but no day was ever quite the day to lift it off the shelf. Once I got into audiobooks I periodically looked for it, but it was several years before it finally appeared.
Decades after first learning about it, TMM did not disappoint. So subtle, so sly, even witty. Like certain works of Beethoven, it feels primal, like it was forever waiting for its historical moment to be discovered by this great writer.
And the performance is flawless. I’ve thought about this book constantly since when I started reading it during the COVID quarantine until long after finishing. I hope my life is long enough to read it again some day.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 02-18-23
sublime
it will change your life - and with a modicum of good luck your death too
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2 people found this helpful
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- Rodrigo D.
- 07-23-21
Fantastic!
Absolutely one the best narrations and performance ever! The story is incredibly translated by John Woods and amazingly narrated by David Rintoul.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Yankee Bookworm
- 09-07-21
"My good engineer"
Can't imagine being Mann and dealing with this monumental work. At once humorous and mystical, he doesn't so much write it as build it. An incredible masterpiece for the author and journey for the reader. David Rintoul's reading is perfection.
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- Christopher
- 03-04-21
Worth the effort!
Great narration of a challenging but undeniable classic. Grand themes of life and death are explored, debated, thrashed over and agonized about. Turgid at times but stick with it.
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- Theloniusphere
- 04-01-21
Interesting but somewhat laborious
This is my first read/listen of Mann except for a short story many years ago. When Mann was writing it, the themes and settings were contemporary for him. We read it out-of-time, so to speak.
The protagonist, Hans Castorp, is a young man in his early 20's, when the story begins. The time period is the early 1910's. The Magic Mountain is actually an international TB sanatorium located in the Swiss Alps, or the sanatorium is on the "magic mountain," which is not "magic" at all. It is merely a place of rest.
It is apparently a time when such sanatoriums were common. Tuberculosis had not yet been subdued by modern medicine, and cures were unclear.
The novel weaves a tapestry of colorful characters around Castorp - his austere cousin, an elusive love, the director and doctor of the sanatorium, and two eventual anti-heroes - an Italian humanist and am unorthodox Jesuit.
There are a number of sub-plots, but Mann resolves them all satisfactorily.
I kept wanting to compare Mann with Dostoevsky because Mann is a skilled writer whose breadth is comparable, including his character development. But in the end, Mann's sub-plots are more disjointed. They could be short stories without detracting from the whole.
However, I do recommend this audiobook because of the overall story and the skill of the narrator.
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- elizabeth craven
- 04-02-22
A Book for Our Age
I confess to almost abandoning this masterwork on several occasions. The sheer density of language and philosophy requires all of one’s attention. So I left, came back, left again until these confabulations became my walking companion and a meditation. All I can say is this recording was worth the time because the virtual life embodied within these words so deftly spoken by our reader. The Magic Mountain is just thus: majestic, resplendent, utterly human and filled with questions for the ages. Should civilization perish, such a book will amply describe our time on this earth.
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- Eric
- 10-10-22
Brilliantly narrated
David Rintoul’s narration vividly brought this masterpiece to life. Mann’s book is one of the greatest and entertaining novels ever written. Be prepared to be captivated by its humor, irony and imagery.
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- daniel J.conley
- 03-07-23
Great
Rintoul’s performance is surpassingly brilliant, worthy of this great book. His rendering of the characters captures their essence, and as the omniscient narrator his tone is perfect..
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- Nick Maurer
- 02-28-23
Really good
A novel of extremes but written with such subtlety. A Bildungsroman that accounts for much of western philosophy. Great performance. The first half was a bit of a slog but the second half gets more eery and surreal and poignant.
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