As a book, certainly a very good one, although as a Great Book I found it a bit middling. It has a certain uniqueness that is intriguing, a story that wavers and a temporality that wanes - and occasionally waxes - I guess it really is a Magic Mountain. Hans Castorp’s journey to a sanitorium, to a lassitude and elongation of days, is at times all the things you need out of a book, deep and emotional and superficial and sad and light comedy and romantic and edifying or at least illustrative. Maybe it is that I took too much time reading it, but I think what it is missing is just not being lifechanging, at least for me. Certainly, though, a very good book.