Castorp

Castorp (2007) ? Paweł Huelle Translated edition from Serpent?s Tail | ISBN: 9781852429454 Condition: Good (structurally sound; existentially drafty) Breezily mis-shelved by: Crappy Old Books This is Castorp , the novel in which Paweł Huelle calmly commits one of the most highbrow acts of fan fiction imaginable: he takes a throwaway line from Thomas Mann?s The Magic Mountain and turns it into an entire book. Hans Castorp, future sanatorium loiterer and champion of prolonged rest cures, is here a young engineering student in Danzig/Gdańsk, allegedly studying shipbuilding and actually studying? distraction. ( Goodreads ) We join Hans in 1900-ish, before the mountain, before the snow, before the tuberculosis glamour. He is: A polite Hamburg bourgeois lad Away from home for the first time Supposedly learning serious practical things In reality spending a suspicious amount of time being confused by women, weather, and the East. The result is a prequel that reads like The Magic Mountain: The Uni Years : less lung disease, more damp boarding houses, beer cellars, and long walks in which not very much happens but metaphysically everything does. ( Words Without Borders ) What actually goes on (or does it?) Huelle picks up Hans at the polytechnic in Danzig and subjects him to: Boarding-house life with a landlady who knows more than she says and neighbours who really ought to draw their curtains. ( The Guardian ) A parade of slightly odd characters ? students, detectives, Poles, Germans ? all wandering through the cracks of a crumbling empire. ( The Independent ) Encounters with an enigmatic Polish woman and the ?lure of the East?, which turn out to be at least as infectious as any Alpine bacillus. ( Whichbook ) Hans himself remains the mild, impressionable creature Mann designed: politely bewildered while history, desire and other people?s politics swirl around him. Huelle pastiches Mann?s style just enough to make you smile, then quietly does his own thing: a slightly sly, gently comic Bildungsroman about a man not yet aware he is in one. ( Bibliotekarz Podlaski ) It works perfectly well even if you?ve never opened The Magic Mountain , but if you have, you?ll keep having small, smug moments of: ?Ah, so that?s where he picked that up.? About this particular copy Condition is Good , which in the sacred liturgy of used-book sales means: The cover is intact and presentable, with light edge-rubbing or a faint crease or two ? the sort of wear you?d expect from a book that has travelled at least one commute and possibly one mild identity crisis. The spine is in decent fettle. It may own a reading crease (or two), the physical sign of ?yes, someone actually read this rather than just gesturing at it on Zoom.? The pages are all there, firmly attached, and perfectly readable. You may see the usual gentle tanning that visits most 2000s paperbacks, but nothing alarming: just the bookish equivalent of a healthy farmer?s tan. No fluorescent highlighter rampages, no deranged biro commentary, no evidence that a previous owner tried to resolve the German-Polish question in the margins. Just a solid, good reading copy with the right amount of lived-in dignity. Why you might (secretly) want this For Magic Mountain people: You?ve lingered in Davos for 700 pages and would quite like to know what Hans was like before he discovered the erotic potential of thermometers and deckchairs. For prequel nerds: You enjoy the whole ?tiny canon detail ? entire novel? energy. This is basically the literary equivalent of expanding a footnote into a franchise. ( Dublin Literary Award ) For Mitteleuropa enjoyers: Early-20th-century Danzig, German student, Polish setting, shifting borders, lots of talk, not much resolved. It?s a very specific vibe, and Huelle absolutely nails it. For readers who like their novels chatty but clever: Reviewers keep describing it as both ?delightfully readable? and ?intellectually challenging?, which is rare and suspicious but, in this case.…