The high point of The Magic Mountain takes place after this. Castorp, depressed and alone for the first time in his life and forced as a result to face his own existence, dons a pair of skis and goes out on the mountain, into the pure white snow that has surrounded the sanitarium all along but that he has never paid any real attention to before. He is not a bad skier, but these are real mountains and he soon becomes lost. The sun is a blazing light in the sky, and the snow all around reflects its cruel clarity and brilliance. Castorp becomes confused and begins to see visions. They are extraordinary. The twenty or so pages that describe Castorp’s snowbound epiphany are a high point, not just of The Magic Mountain, but of Western literature in our time.
The book does not end there. Hans Castorp survives his ordeal and returns to the sanitarium. Surprisingly, he seems to be better; the director soon notices this and informs him that he will be allowed to go home soon. In the meantime World War I has broken out, and Castorp must leave anyway, whether well or ill, for he thinks it necessary to fight for his country. When he descends into the darkling plain he never looks back at the magic mountain, shining in the sun.
EDITH WHARTON
1862–1937
The House of Mirth
The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton was born in New York of a distinguished and wealthy New York family. She was educated privately at home and in Europe, and she was married in 1885. The marriage was not happy, and she and her husband were divorced in 1913. But she had long since begun to write both novels and stories, together with travelogues describing her life in France and Italy, which were luxurious and interesting.
I don’t know when she first met Henry James, but they became fast friends. His novels influenced her greatly and perhaps she also influenced his last novels or at least appreciated them better than most. She wrote several “Jamesian” novels that in some ways are better than his, partly because they are more accessible. They deal with similar themes but somehow reach deeper into the souls of her main characters. This is especially true of The House of Mirth, her first novel, published in 1905.
The story is striking, memorable, and painful in the extreme. I have read it only once because I can never forget it, scene by scene, conversation by conversation. Lily Bart suffers from her social ambitions, which would be solved if she had any money, but she doesn’t. She comes close, very close, but her desires are always thwarted, her hopes always dashed. She is loved by an ineffectual man who is never quite able to tell her he wants her for his wife, although in fact he does; only when he discovers that he can ask her to marry him does he learn that it’s too late. I realize I am being very guarded in describing the plot of this fine book, but that’s because I don’t want to spoil it for you. Read it, please, despite my statement that it’s painful. It’s a good pain, and you won’t forget it either.
The Age of Innocence is another story of thwarted love and desire. In this case it is the man who suffers. Newland Archer, a successful New York lawyer, falls in love with a Polish countess who is separated from her husband. Archer is married too, but his wife is determined to keep him for herself and never gives up her campaign to come between her husband and the woman she knows he loves instead of her. No one can win in such a complex game—except fate steps in and arranges things so they can. Archer’s wife dies, and the countess’ husband dies too. Archer learns she is living in Paris, his son visits her there and realizes that his father’s love is returned. Archer then goes to Paris ostensibly to join her, but … Once again I am concealing the ending of a fine book. Once again, please forgive me and read it.
Edith Wharton wrote another well-known novel, a short, bitter, New England story called Ethan Frome. It was successful but somehow—in my view—not as interesting as the two novels described above. You may want to read it anyway; in fact, you may have already read it in school because, being short, it is often included in high school literature classes.
WILLA CATHER
1873–1947
The Song of the Lark
My Ántonia
Willa Cather was born in Virginia in 1876 but moved to Nebraska when she was eight and spent the rest of her life there and in New Mexico. Her discovery of the fascination of Santa Fe imbues one of her best-known books, the historical novel Death Comes for the Archbishop. It’s a good book but not, I think, her best. She wrote many other novels, but I particularly like and remember The Song of the Lark and My Ántonia, both of them written early in her career.
The Song of the Lark is the story of Thea Kornberg, a Colorado girl who likes to sing and realizes, thanks to a neighbor, that she has a fine voice. He tries to teach her, but, knowing he can’t take her beyond his limited expertise, he arranges for her to go Chicago for professional lessons. The account of her train journey across the prairie, of her first sight of the first city she has ever seen and only dreamed about, and her introduction to her first teacher—all these experiences are described with great skill and in just the right kind of language for the girl she still is. The beginning of the novel is the best part, but her great success as a diva, though perhaps not entirely credible, is nevertheless very satisfying. She becomes an international celebrity and of course becomes involved with the wrong kind of people, especially men. But this isn’t important. The novel is really fine and I don’t know of anyone who has read it who has ever forgotten it, especially that train ride.
The Song of the Lark was published in 1915, My Ántonia three years later. It is the story of an immigrant girl from Bohemia who lives on the family farm in Nebraska. Her family loses its farm, and she has to go to work as a “hired girl” in the city, which she hates. A young man named Jim Burland falls in love with her, but neither his family nor hers approves of the match. Jim is the narrator, and he describes his sadness when she returns to the farm and shortly afterward marries another immigrant and has many children. Ántonia is a strong and determined woman who supports her husband—who is physically strong but not as determined. She teaches her children English—their father speaks only Czech—and sees to it that they have more education than she did. Ántonia holds her family together through thick and thin and, in short, lives the kind of life we may all think our forebears did in this country that was new in those old days. I hope it still is but I’m no longer sure. In any case I recommend this novel with my heart and expect you will fall in love with Ántonia, just as I did.
Willa Cather wrote many other novels, one of which, Death Comes for the Archbishop, published at the end of her career, is noteworthy. It is the story of two devoted French priests who bring civilization and religion to New Mexico in the middle of the nineteenth century. It is moving but also sad, as all of her books are. They were all touched by memories of her childhood and youth in the pioneer country of Nebraska, memories that were fading the longer she lived (she died in 1947). The epigraph of My Ántonia, is a quote from Virgil’s Aeneid—Optima deis … prima fugit: “The (memories of the) best days are the first to go.”