Comprehension:
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Perceptions of time have shifted greatly over the years and many of the novels I have read recently reflect a renewed concern with their passage. Anthony Powell’s Cycle A Dance to the Music of Time is one example. Its title, taken from Poussin’s painting, evokes the universal inability to control life’s unfolding rhythm. Powell’s work even includes a brief portrait of my predecessor in History Today, Peter Quennell.
Yet the novel that illuminates our era most, indeed, time itself - is one I revisited after more than a decade, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. It was written in a crisis and doubt. It was published in 1924 between two European catastrophes and after a pandemic. The very idea of fixed time had been unsettled by Einstein’s 1905 Theory of Relativity, which gave scientific weight to earlier philosophical explorations.
The novel follows Hans Castrop, a young marine engineer with a modest private income. He visits his tubercular cousin at the International Sanatorium above Davos. “Can one narrate time itself?”, Castrope wonders. Planning to stay for three weeks, he instead remains for seven years. Life in the sanatorium alters his sense of time’s tempo. Why hurry back to work when one can wander the mountains with cosmopolitans, pursue romance and explore art, the occult and the natural world? Doctors are happy to offer medical justification for his extended retreat and to separate him from his money but withdrawal has limits. Reality, Mann suggested, can be postponed only so long. The novel ultimately raises a question that resonates strongly today. Reality can not be put off forever.
Which of the following concepts has Not been discussed in the given passage concerning the novels mentioned?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → dealing with crisis
The passage speaks of crisis only as the time in which The Magic Mountain was written: it "was written in a crisis and doubt", "between two European catastrophes and after a pandemic". It never says that either novel deals with how to handle a crisis, so dealing with crisis is the concept not discussed.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: limited control over life events — Incorrect. True in the passage: Powell's title "evokes the universal inability to control life’s unfolding rhythm", and the passage ends: "Reality can not be put off forever."
Option 3: passage of time — Incorrect. True in the passage: the novels "reflect a renewed concern with their passage", and Hans wonders, "Can one narrate time itself?"
Option 4: benefits of living with nature — Incorrect. True in the passage: life at the sanatorium lets Hans "wander the mountains" and "explore ... the natural world", a pleasure that keeps him there for seven years.