Ebook: Mann's Magic Mountain : World Literature and Closer Reading

This is the first study of Thomas Mann's landmark German modernist novel Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain, 1924) that takes as its starting point the interest in Mann's book shown by non-academic readers. It is also a case study in a cluster of issues central to the interrelated fields of transnational German studies, global modernism studies, comparative literature, and reception theory: it addresses the global circulation of German modernism,popular afterlives of a canonical work, access to cultural participation, relationship between so-called 'high-brow' and 'low-brow' culture, and the limitations of traditional academic reading practices. The study intervenes in these discussions by developing a critical practice termed 'closer reading' and positioningit within the framework of world literature studies. Mann's Magic Mountain centres around nine comparative readings of five novels, three films, and one short story conceived as responses to The Magic Mountain. These works...