The trick to reading and enjoying The Magic Mountain, and perhaps almost anything written by Thomas Mann, is to allow yourself to be completely immersed in the novel. Immersion in this novel is particularly important because so much of it is a meditation on time, and it is written as if we were living through every minute by minute experience of the main character, Hans Castorp. I read the book over about a two and a half month period, and I read small sections at a time so that I could focus completely without being distracted, and without starting to worry about the "time" it was taking to read it. 
 This book was written and published on the heels of World War I. Just before I read The Magic Mountain, I read Mann's Doctor Faustus, which was written right after World War II. I wish I had read them in the reverse order, Magic Mountain first then Doctor Faustus, because I would have had the incredible experience of Mann's developing and evolving understanding of the German psyche and the causes of war. That is not a spoiler, there is nothing that blatant or obvious about either of the two novels, it is just what I've found among all the other threads of meaning that Mann provides. 
 As with Doctor Faustus, perseverance is rewarded in the end. It was worth the wait.