Can anyone describe to me this particular subplot or the gist of it? I’ve been looking for this book that has a character’s first infatution and posted about it in ‘where is book’ type subreddit. The primary character is based on one of my distant family members and the incredible description of the love ‘affair’ subplot that I got makes me wonder what actually happens between them? It was described as ‘he falls in love, cluelessly doesn’t know it, finally comes to realize this is romantic-sexual love and desire, disavows the feeling or state or concept of ‘love’ at the end, walks away.’ I just got this newsletter in my email and this has got to be the book that was described to me (from a longer piece about Freud):
- Freud claimed that a climax of his life was being praised by Thomas Mann, whose magnificent novel “The Magic Mountain” features Hans Castorp, a German bourgeois “problem child,” who arrives at a Swiss sanatorium, where two ailing pedagogues attempt to educate him. But his true education takes place through his love affair with Clavdia Chauchat (or “chaud” [hot], “chatte” [pussy]), whose bluish-grayish-greenish eyes and broad cheekbones conjure up memories of the classmate Hans was once infatuated with, from whom he borrowed—ahem—a pencil. The problem child, uncivilized by death and desire, emerges as an apostle of love in all its creative glory and destructive power.*
by ioweittothegirls