![]() I thumbed through the pages with an Aperol Spritz in hand as gondolas sailed past on cliched canals. I delved into Thomas Mann’s magnum opus I was alone in Venice nine years ago just days after submitting my PhD thesis. This isn’t the first time I’ve visited the world of The Magic Mountain. ![]() June carried me up to The Magic Mountain just as the lavender began to flower. March became a month decorated with almond blossoms and the bawdy tales of the Decameron April turned into a binge of Nabokov’s most significant works (that were not Lolita ) perfumed by the scent of blooming lilacs and acacias roses and wildflowers flowered in May as I fell into the intense friendship of Narcissus and Goldmund in Hermann Hesse’s best book. I soon began to measure time by the changing vegetation and the books I consumed. Audiobooks and walks replaced the surrealist parties, literary readings, and late nights in dingy bars, as my body clock shifted to a time when morning dew sat on the spring blossoms, and it was easier to avoid people actively. With Budapest in lockdown, my only contact with the outside world was my daily hikes up Gellért with an audiobook to keep me company the way Hans Castorp did as he accompanied his consumptive cousin Joachim Ziemssen on his daily constitutional up into the Swiss Alps. ![]() Reading Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain in the Time of CovidĪs I reached the top of Gellért Hill, Hans Castorp got out of the carriage at the Berghof Sanatorium in the first chapter of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. ![]()
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