A book that pulses with life in the midst of death, The Magic Mountain is a mammoth masterpiece of erudition and irony, sexual tension, and intellectual ferment. Mann utilises a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps, a community dedicated solely to illness, as a microcosm for Europe, which in the years prior to 1914 was already displaying the initial signs of its own terminal madness, in this dizzyingly dense novel of ideas. Death in Venice tells the tale of Gustav von Aschenbach, a successful but ageing writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfilment but instead leads to his erotic doom. It was published on the eve of World War I, ten years after Buddenbrooks had established Thomas Mann as a literary celebrity. Foreword - Track 1 Chapter 1. Arrival - Track 2 Chapter 2. Of the Christening Basin -Track 3 Chapter 3. Drawing the Veil - Track 4 to 6 Chapter 4. Necessary Purchases - Track 7 to 11 Chapter 5. Soup-Everlasting Part 1 - Track 12 to 16./ Soup-Everlasting Part 2 - Track 17 to 21. Chapter 6. Changes Part 1 - Track 22 to 25. / Changes Part 2 - Track 26 to 29. / Changes Part 3 - Track 30 to 32. Chapter 7. By the Ocean of Time Part 1 - Track 33 to 37. / By the Ocean of Time Part 2 - Track 38 ./ By the Ocean of Time Part 3 - Track 39 to 43.
