THOMAS MANN'S "THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN" AND ECCLESIASTES

In a previous post titled “Thomas Mann and the Bible,” I discussed the similarities between the novel The Magic Mountain and two of the Wisdom Books in the Bible: Proverbs and Job. You may want to read it first to get the gist of the plot of Mann's book. However, it can be simply summarized as the story of a simple and good-hearted German youth, Hans, during his seven years at a sanitarium in the mountains of Switzerland among a group of international patients, each with his or her individual quirk.

While there are certainly influences in Mann's novel coming from Proverbs and Job, the closest similarities by far are found in considering the book of Ecclesiastes. I will discuss them in a somewhat random manner.

One of the overarching themes in Magic Mountain, according to Mann himself, is the nature of time: how we perceive it vs. objective time, as well as what we do to fill it. Similarly, it must be a prime concern of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes since there are paired poetic passages near the start and conclusion of the book dealing with time. The first is the famous poem of Eccles. 3:1-8, which begins: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Then matching these verses regarding what we do with time, the poetic descriptions of what time does to us during old age are enumerated in Eccles. 12:1-8.

Toward the start of his extended stay on the mountain, Hans soon learns that there is one subject that is strictly taboo for the residents; that is the subject of death. In fact, when a person dies, they remove the body secretly at night, fumigate the room, and welcome the next patient without anyone openly remarking on the fact. To give Hans credit, he questions the wisdom of this policy with words which remind us of Ecclesiastes 7:2: “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting; for this is the end of everyone, and the living will lay it to heart.” But it appears that no one in the sanitarium wishes to be reminded of their coming death. So instead they occupy their time in meaningless pursuits which do not bring them any closer to coping with life or death.

One minor theme running throughout Mann's book is that of chance and its effect on people. That idea pops up in odd ways, from the seemingly random variations in a patient's daily temperature (which have to be carefully measured and noted at regular intervals) to Hans' later preoccupation with the chance cards which show up in his numerous games of solitaire. As the Teacher (call him Solomon if you wish) notes in Ecclesiastes 9:11, “Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill, but time and chance happen to them all.”

At one point in the story Hans is caught outside in a snowstorm and falls into a dream-like state. When he awakes from it, he says to himself, “I hereby declare that I have a prescriptive right to lie here and dream these dreams. For in my life up here I have known reason and recklessness.” This pronouncement is not that far from that of the Teacher: “My mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I have applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly.” (Eccles. 1:16-17)

Teachings on the danger of sloth are found in Ecclesiastes 10:18; 11:4 as well as in Proverbs and can certainly apply to the way the residents of the hospital well fed with five hearty meals a day and told to spend an inordinate time resting in their specially designed reclining chairs. In that manner, even the previously industrious Hans passes seven whole years without once expressing any interest in returning to his planned career as a ship-building engineer.

Hans' one female passion at the sanitarium is a beautiful married Russian woman who proceeds to steal his heart and then leave Switzerland (twice no less!) without a parting word. As the Teacher proclaims in Eccles. 7:26, “I found more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters.”

Ecclesiastes begins with the Teacher setting before himself the challenge to see if ultimate truth can be discovered through any purely human activity. He says in 1:17-2:1; 7:25 – “I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind...I said to my self, 'Come now, I will make a test of pleasure.' But behold, this also was vanity.”

In a similar manner, Hans decides to apply himself to various pursuits while at the sanitarium. And he starts by attempting to learn wisdom from two very learned companions he meets there. Some of the longest and most difficult chapter in the book consist of the philosophical meanderings of and arguments between these two mentors. At the end, Hans rejects the ideas of these exceptionally garrulous scholars as “chaos.” He could just as well have said “vanity.” Hans says to himself, “They are both talkers...Their quarrels and counter-positions are...a confused voice of battle, which need trouble nobody who keeps a little clear in his head and pious in his heart.” Both these would-be mentors are prime examples of two statements found in Ecclesiastes:

        “A fool's voice comes with many words.” (5:3)

        “A fool multiplies words.” (10:14)

The many pursuits of the Teacher include:

    Great Building Projects (2:4-5) – Paradoxically, by escaping his chosen profession of ship-building, Hans has cut himself off from this one useful pursuit. There is little opportunity for any sort of real accomplishments up on the mountain, but that does not stop a few of the residents from trying anyway. For example, one of the scholars is in the midst of a long-term project of writing a major article for a planned encyclopedia which never materializes. Another resident almost drives himself crazy with trying to accomplish the impossible mathematical task of squaring the circle. I am reminded powerfully of the Teacher's admonition in Ecclesiastes 12:12b: “Of the making of many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.”

    Accumulation of Wealth (2:7-11) – There is one major character in The Magic Mountain who appears in the last third of the book. He is a retired sea-captain who has amassed a great deal of money as well as a beautiful mistress. He appears to have everything, but he is rapidly approaching death. And in one of the most touching moments in the book, he confides privately to Hans that despite his great wealth he has never had a truly close friend. And so the two of them pledge friendship shortly before the man dies.

    Pursuit of Pleasure (2:8b,10a) – This same sea-captain represents the epitome of this sort of activity and is even compared several times in the book to a sort of Bacchus. At one point he announces, “Let us make a little company, play, and eat and drink.” And he then proceeds to overwhelm his friends with rich food and fine wine. But this pursuit proves to be just as much a dead end for him as the other ways of wasting one's time.

After this character's death, the residents of the sanitarium begin going through a whirlwind of different games and fads in vain attempts to distract themselves from grim reality. These include meaningless parlor games, amateur photography, stamp collecting, silly drawing exercises, fanciful financial schemes, and learning the artificial language of Esperanto.

I had been waiting throughout the book for the third part of the common trilogy: wine, women, and song. But at last it came when the management presents the residents with a brand new gramophone complete with a whole collection of records to go with it. Hans becomes entranced with this new toy and spends almost every free minute arranging, cataloguing, and playing the records for others and then privately by himself after everyone else has gone to bed.

From this point on, life on the mountain begins to rapidly disintegrate, and Hans observes, “Everything appeared to have gone permanently and increasingly awry, as though a demonic power – which had indeed for a long time given hints of its malign influence – had suddenly taken control...Hans Castorp looked about him. He saw on every side the uncanny and the malign...life without life, life without care or hope, life as depravity, assiduous stagnation; life as dead.”

And it is no wonder that this happened. Through Mann's whole book, there is virtually no one who speaks up for God even though several of the characters are able to readily quote Scripture on the spur of the moment. And of all the people we meet, only Hans himself at one brief point becomes a minister of mercy for those who are badly suffering and thus follows the Second Great Commandment. But he soon tires of that activity.

Thus, as the Teacher concludes in his book: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14) And we see that judgment on evil playing out in The Magic Mountain first in loud verbal quarrels between the residents, progressing to physical fighting, a deathly duel, and culminating in World War I as the book ends.

Mann has managed to craft a salutary parable that exposes the truth that all human activity which leaves God out of the equation is bound to be ultimately meaningless.