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Illness in literature
文學(xué)中的疾病
Climb every mountain
攀爬每一座山
A classic German saga of high-altitude sickness is oddly uplifting
一篇關(guān)于“高原”病的德國經(jīng)典傳奇故事，奇怪地令人振奮
When Hans Castorp makes a midsummer visit to Davos, where his tubercular cousin, Joachim, is being treated, he expects to be there for three weeks. A job at a shipbuilding firm awaits Hans, the unassuming son of a merchant family from Hamburg. But he develops a fever, and ends up staying in the Swiss Alps for seven years. In the mountains, time moves elastically— days lengthen and years hurry past—as it can in a lockdown.
漢斯·卡斯托普在仲夏時訪問達(dá)沃斯，當(dāng)時他患有結(jié)核病的堂兄阿希姆正在那里接受治療，他預(yù)計會在那里呆三個星期。漢斯出身盧森堡的一個商人家庭，作為家中不愛出風(fēng)頭的兒子，他正在一家造船公司找工作。但他發(fā)燒了，最后在瑞士阿爾卑斯山住了七年。在山里，時間有彈性地推移——日復(fù)一日，歲月匆匆流逝——就像是在封鎖期。
The action of “The Magic Mountain”, wrote Thomas Mann in a foreword, takes place “a very long time ago”— and even though his novel, published in 1924, is set in the preceding decade, it evoked a vanished world. It refers to a Germany not yet crushed by the first world war and the subsequent reparations, a country that still has an empire, as well as strict hierarchies and conventions. These are scrupulously observed by the pan-European characters in the story, a Bildungsroman and dark comedy of manners in which even the dining tables are classified by social status.
托馬斯·曼恩在前言中寫道，“魔山”的故事發(fā)生在“很久之前”——盡管這篇小說出版于1924年，以前十年為背景，但它喚起了一個消失的世界。它指的是一個尚未被第一次世界大戰(zhàn)及其后的賠款所摧毀的德國，一個仍然擁有帝國、嚴(yán)格的等級制度和傳統(tǒng)風(fēng)格的國家。故事中的泛歐人嚴(yán)格遵守著這些，這是一部成長小說和黑暗的禮儀喜劇，甚至餐桌也是按照社會地位分類的。
Mann’s fictional sanatorium, the Berghof, is probably modelled on the Schatzalp, a mansion reachable only by foot or funicular, which today is a hotel. Practically the whole cast of his novel have tuberculosis, which at the turn of the 20th century killed one in seven people in Europe and America. He presents the symptoms unflinchingly, including “a coughing that had no conviction and gave no relief, that did not even come out in paroxysms, but was just a feeble, dreadful welling-up of the juices of organic dissolution”.
曼恩小說中的療養(yǎng)院，伯格霍夫療養(yǎng)院，很可能是仿照沙茨阿爾卑建造的，這是一座只有步行或纜車才能到達(dá)的豪宅，現(xiàn)在成為了酒店。實(shí)際上，他這部小說的所有角色都患有肺結(jié)核，在20世紀(jì)之交，在歐洲和美國有七分之一的人死于肺結(jié)核。他毫不猶豫地提出了這些癥狀，包括“這是一種奄奄無生氣的咳嗽，它不是陣發(fā)性的，而像是某種有機(jī)溶液的粘稠物質(zhì)一陣陣無力而令人嫌惡地泛上來”
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