Word: peeperkorn
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...wishes to picture modern life as well as life in general. Lengthy talks and debates upon contemporary social and philosophic problems of the day immediately before the war are carried on by various patients, in particular the Italian humanitarian, Ludovico Settembrini, the clever Jesuit, Naptha, and the aristocratic Pieter Peeperkorn. These philosophisings may be realistic in that they are mediocre but certainly they are mediocre but certainly they are tiresome reading...
...second volume Hans Castorp comes down in time to fight in the World War. He is scarcely conscious of the masque in which he has been an actor. Yet he is no longer a total blank as on his arrival. He has listened to Settembrini talking democratic politics. Peeperkorn, who has won Madame Chauchat and dominated Castorp with the rest, is the first...
...sense all the persons of the story are symbols of certain ideas in the muddle that preceded the War. Peeperkorn personifies the strength, the glitter of royalty. What gives the metaphor power is the juxtaposition of death. Author Mann shows how men can adapt themselves to an environment of mortality by forgetting its existence. So countries squabble and chatter in the presence of catastrophe; so men, in the shadow of an enormous horror, pursue their silly and incongruous intrigues...
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