All 5 Uses of
banal
in
The Magic Mountain
- Two rooms furnished in banal bourgeois style, one opening into the other and separated only by portieres, looked toward the valley: a dining room done in "antique German"; a combination living room and office, with sofa and chairs, bookcases and heavy wool carpets, a fraternity cap and crossed swords hung above a desk, plus a small smoking alcove, done in "Turkish" style.†
Chpt 5.6banal = uninteresting due to a lack of anything original or unusual
- Otherwise it is merely a pleasant banality, good for singing calm little songs down on the plains.†
Chpt 5.9 *banality = something that is uninteresting due to a lack of anything original or unusual
- He ridiculed the philanthropist's reluctance to shed blood, his reverence for life, claimed that such a reverence for life belonged to only the most banal rubbers-and-umbrellas bourgeois periods, but that the moment history took a more passionate turn, the moment a single idea, something that transcended mere "security," was at work, something suprapersonal, something greater man the individual—and since that alone was a suite worthy of mankind, it was, on a higher plane, the normal state of affairs—at that moment, then, individual life would always be sacrificed without further ado to that higher idea, and not only that, but individuals would also unhesitatingly and gladly risk their own li†
Chpt 6.6banal = uninteresting due to a lack of anything original or unusual
- Banal freethinkers would have had reason to think so, It was a time when our own priests wanted to breathe the spirit of Catholic hierarchy into Freemasonry, and there was even a flourishing Jesuit lodge at Clermont, in France.†
Chpt 6.8
- Good God, I'm speaking in banalities, but when one is young, everything is, of course, new—new and astounding.†
Chpt 7.4banalities = things that are uninteresting due to a lack of anything original or unusual
Definition:
uninteresting due to a lack of anything original or unusual
Pronunciation: Banal is correctly pronounced differently by various educated speakers of American English.