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In this long-form conversation, Milo and Jack speak with translator Simon Pare about the challenge of translating The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann for Oxford World’s Classics.

This discussion explores the language, style, and enormous technical challenges behind bringing one of the greatest novels of the 20th century into English. Simon discusses his new 2026 translation of The Magic Mountain, the legacy of earlier translators, and the strange experience of living inside Mann’s vast novel while translating it.

Topics include:

• Why Thomas Mann is so difficult to translate

• The challenge of translating The Magic Mountain’s long German sentences

• Hans Castorp, time, and the atmosphere of Davos

• Translation choices, compromises, and literary voice

• Settembrini, Naphta, Behrens, and Peeperkorn’s speech styles

• The legacy of H. T. Lowe-Porter and later English translations

• Translation theory and literary translation in practice

• Switzerland, Thomas Mann, and the culture surrounding the novel

• The relationship between language, rhythm, and character

The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg) began as a short novella inspired by Thomas Mann’s visit to a Davos sanatorium and grew into a monumental meditation on time, illness, modernity, and European intellectual life before the First World War.

This interview focuses primarily on translation and language. A separate discussion with Richie Robertson on the novel’s themes and content will follow.

If you enjoy long-form literary conversations on literature, philosophy, translation, and European culture, please consider subscribing to Solomon & Smith.

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This long-form conversation explores the New Testament, the four Gospels, and the problem of biblical interpretation with New Testament scholar John Nelson. Together we examine contradiction, canon, authorship, apocalyptic expectation, and the strange literary texture of early Christian scripture.

A recurring theme throughout the discussion is the idea that contradiction may not weaken scripture, but deepen it. Rather than flattening the Gospels into a single harmonized account, we explore the possibility that their tensions, disagreements, and competing emphases are precisely what make them intellectually and spiritually alive. The Gospels become less a single voice than a conversation unfolding across texts, communities, and centuries.

We also explore:

The collapse of biblical literalism and reconstruction of faith

Why the Gospels disagree on the date of Jesus’ death

The “Messianic Secret” and why Jesus hides his identity in Mark

The strange anonymous figures of the Gospels, including the Beloved Disciple

Apocalyptic expectation in Jesus and Paul

How Christianity adapted after the delayed apocalypse

The development of the biblical canon and pseudonymous epistles

John’s Gospel, mysticism, and accusations of Gnosticism

Whether scripture should be read as history, theology, literature, or all three at once

From Mark’s abrupt ending to John’s cosmic theology, this conversation examines the New Testament as a dynamic and evolving body of texts—one shaped as much by interpretation and argument as by doctrine itself.

Whether you are interested in biblical studies, theology, literary interpretation, church history, or the philosophy of religion, this discussion provides a detailed and nuanced exploration of how the Christian scriptures were written, interpreted, and transformed.

00:00:00 Contradictions in scripture

00:00:55 Introduction

00:03:59 John Nelson and losing fundamentalism

00:12:04 Scripture, literalism, and reading historically

00:17:14 Why the Gospels disagree

00:27:32 The date of Jesus’ death

00:29:48 The strange mysteries of the Gospels

00:32:58 The Messianic Secret in Mark

00:41:05 Why Jesus hides his identity

00:47:21 Apocalypse and the end of the world

00:50:22 John’s Gospel and delayed eschatology

00:56:12 Canon, revision, and rewriting scripture

01:00:48 Gnosticism and non-canonical gospels

01:04:20 Can the biblical canon change?

01:10:47 Pseudonymous epistles and authorship

01:18:00 The Beloved Disciple

01:22:57 Closing poem and conclusion

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There is nothing more intimate than reading.

A book is not just paper, ink -- it isn't just an information-convoybelt. Somehow, through a handful of symbols, another consciousness begins speaking inside your mind. Across centuries, across languages, across death — reading allows one soul to inhabit another.

In this conversation, Professor Brian Cummings joins Jack and Milo to explore the strange power of books, writing, and reading.

What was intended as a discussion about the history of the book — from scrolls and manuscripts to Shakespeare’s First Folio — became something much richer and stranger: a philosophical exploration of consciousness, memory, religion, imagination, and why human beings treat books as almost sacred objects.

We discuss:

• Why reading feels like experiencing another soul

• Plato, Aristotle, and the philosophy of writing

• Shakespeare and the invention of literary immortality

• Why religions become “religions of the book”

• The mystery of language and symbols

• Tolkien, Dostoevsky, Milton, Borges, Beckett, and the first books that changed us

• Why owning books matters psychologically

• Whether books are humanity’s greatest technology

• The strange relationship between writers, readers, and consciousness itself

“If the soul is like a book, then reading is another person walking beside you.”