The Magic Mountain - by Thomas Mann

The young Hans Castorp travels from Hamburg to Davos to visit his sick cousin in the lung sanatorium. He plans to stay for three weeks, but it turns into seven years.

"Castorp's story is the story of a simple hero. In the feverish hermeticism of the Magic Mountain, he is made capable of moral, spiritual and sensual adventures that he would never have dreamed of in the past." - Thomas Mann

Mann's characters in The Magic Mountain take a break from real life. We see people who submit to the routine of everyday sanatorium life quite voluntarily and sometimes with relish.
And then, with a thunderclap, the First World War is just around the corner - and this same society wonders how it could have come to this. And while they are still wondering, the war catapults them from the beautiful Magic Mountain into reality.
And so the war engulfs not only the protagonist Hans Castorp, but also his (our?) entire era!

A divided society, existential fears, the spectre of war... One hundred years after its first publication, The Magic Mountain is frighteningly topical. Thomas Mann treats the serious themes of his novel with humor, his characteristic irony and his unparalleled linguistic brilliance.