"Der Zauberberg" and the pleasures of immersive reading

<p>This is the first study of "Der Zauberberg" written from the perspective of its non-academic readers. It will be of interest to scholars of Thomas Mann, transnational German studies, comparative literature, and reception studies. Starting from the observation that literary scholar...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Watroba, K
Other Authors: Morgan, B
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
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author Watroba, K
author2 Morgan, B
author_facet Morgan, B
Watroba, K
author_sort Watroba, K
collection OXFORD
description <p>This is the first study of "Der Zauberberg" written from the perspective of its non-academic readers. It will be of interest to scholars of Thomas Mann, transnational German studies, comparative literature, and reception studies. Starting from the observation that literary scholarship almost never engages with the experience of non-academic readers, I argue that this is a serious limitation, since our very rationale for studying books is that they belong to human culture and matter to their readers. This is a particularly pressing problem for the study of "Der Zauberberg" because the novel portrays Hans Castorp’s gradual immersion in culture: in other words, it thematizes the very process of reading, reception, and the value and relevance of culture. In this study, I discuss hundreds of records of reading experiences – preserved in parentheses and asides and between the lines of traditional academic studies, on Internet fora and blogs, in reviews, essays and memoirs, marketing brochures from Davos and advertizing copy used to sell the novel, Mann’s fan mail and his replies to it, and in books and films, whether popular, famous or half-forgotten. The reading records that I have brought together span the century since the novel’s publication, as well as numerous languages and several continents, and testify to an energetic confrontation with "Der Zauberberg" outside the ivory tower of academia. Using the common metaphor of immersion in a book, I discuss different examples of how and why non-academic readers have engaged with the novel and what it has meant to them, and what academic readers have missed by not attending to this wealth of untapped material. Through case studies of different responses to "Der Zauberberg", I ask what it means to interact with culture, and argue that this is precisely what the novel is all about.</p>
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spelling oxford-uuid:9a83c7cb-3f92-473b-89ee-8bcb738bf6152024-01-03T11:51:50Z"Der Zauberberg" and the pleasures of immersive readingThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:9a83c7cb-3f92-473b-89ee-8bcb738bf615German literatureThomas MannReceptionDer ZauberbergThe Magic MountainComparative LiteratureEnglishORA Deposit2019Watroba, KMorgan, B<p>This is the first study of "Der Zauberberg" written from the perspective of its non-academic readers. It will be of interest to scholars of Thomas Mann, transnational German studies, comparative literature, and reception studies. Starting from the observation that literary scholarship almost never engages with the experience of non-academic readers, I argue that this is a serious limitation, since our very rationale for studying books is that they belong to human culture and matter to their readers. This is a particularly pressing problem for the study of "Der Zauberberg" because the novel portrays Hans Castorp’s gradual immersion in culture: in other words, it thematizes the very process of reading, reception, and the value and relevance of culture. In this study, I discuss hundreds of records of reading experiences – preserved in parentheses and asides and between the lines of traditional academic studies, on Internet fora and blogs, in reviews, essays and memoirs, marketing brochures from Davos and advertizing copy used to sell the novel, Mann’s fan mail and his replies to it, and in books and films, whether popular, famous or half-forgotten. The reading records that I have brought together span the century since the novel’s publication, as well as numerous languages and several continents, and testify to an energetic confrontation with "Der Zauberberg" outside the ivory tower of academia. Using the common metaphor of immersion in a book, I discuss different examples of how and why non-academic readers have engaged with the novel and what it has meant to them, and what academic readers have missed by not attending to this wealth of untapped material. Through case studies of different responses to "Der Zauberberg", I ask what it means to interact with culture, and argue that this is precisely what the novel is all about.</p>
spellingShingle German literature
Thomas Mann
Reception
Der Zauberberg
The Magic Mountain
Comparative Literature
Watroba, K
"Der Zauberberg" and the pleasures of immersive reading
title "Der Zauberberg" and the pleasures of immersive reading
title_full "Der Zauberberg" and the pleasures of immersive reading
title_fullStr "Der Zauberberg" and the pleasures of immersive reading
title_full_unstemmed "Der Zauberberg" and the pleasures of immersive reading
title_short "Der Zauberberg" and the pleasures of immersive reading
title_sort der zauberberg and the pleasures of immersive reading
topic German literature
Thomas Mann
Reception
Der Zauberberg
The Magic Mountain
Comparative Literature
work_keys_str_mv AT watrobak derzauberbergandthepleasuresofimmersivereading