Reading Groups

Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain with Kannan Mahadevan

Once a week Wednesdays, 6:30 pm EDT - 8:00 pm EDT July 26 to September 13, 2023

Online via Zoom

The ‘With Book’ option includes a copy of The Magic Mountain at a 10% discount from our Bookstore.

Meeting Dates:
7/23–9/13; Eight Weekly Sessions
Online via Zoom

Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, with its snowy Alpine setting and its cast of convalescents, has been called the ultimate winter read. But somehow, its languid premise—a short visit stretching into a seven year stay as Hans Castorp, our ‘perfectly ordinary young man,’ settles into the hypnotic rhythm of life in the sanatorium—seems also to suit the interminable dog days of summer. As we read this monumental novel of ideas, perhaps we too will experience its timeless quality: both as an enduring classic, and as a work in which time itself—that is, the routine time of the world ‘down below’, governed by clocks and calendars, workdays and schedules—disappears. Given the novel’s length, supplementary materials and lecture will be limited.

Participants should read the following in advance of the first meeting: Foreword–Part 3 (pgs. xi–90)

What to expect from this reading group: The class will center participants’ responses to the text and proceed in the form of an ongoing, leisurely conversation.

Led by

Kannan Mahadevan

Kannan Mahadevan

Kannan Mahadevan is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he earned an MFA in Fiction. He has taught creative writing workshops for the University of Iowa and the Berlin Writers’ Workshop, and in the fall of 2022 ran a Don Quixote reading group for The Center for Fiction. He lives in Brooklyn.

About this series

Reading Groups

Whether you’re looking to catch up on great novels or you’re interested in exploring a new writer or literary period, our reading groups offer high-level literary discussion led by experts in the field.

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