大学生汉斯来到高山肺病疗养院探望表兄约阿希姆，不料自己也染上了肺病，只好留下治疗，疗养院里的人来自四面八方，性格迥然，思想各异。汉斯是个有理想的青年，可是同这些人交往后，思想变得混乱，精神变得消沉了；俄国女子克拉芙吉亚更使他神魂颠倒。他忘记了事业和重任，高山成了一座"魔山"，他深陷其中不能自拔。转眼七年过去了，表兄病死，克拉芙吉亚离去，那些交往甚密的朋友也各奔东西，生活把他的幻想一个个击得粉碎，使他感到痛苦和孤独。世界大战的炮火把他震醒，回首往事，汉斯觉得自己是在"魔山"上昏睡了七年，于是他毅然决然地踏上了奔赴前线的征途。(College student Hans, during his visit to his Joachim in a high-mountain sanatorium, got lung disease himself, and had to stay in the sanatorium for treatment. People in the sanatorium were from all over the world, in a variety of characters and holding different thoughts. Though being a young man with ideals, during the communication with these people, Hans become puzzled and depressed; Clavdia, a woman from Russia made him forget himself. His put his career and responsibilities behind, and the mountain become a Magic Mountain, trapping him inside. Seven years passed rapidly, after his cousin died of illness and Clavdia left, the friends he made here drafted apart, the life had just crashed all his imagination, leaving him only pain and loneliness. The gunfire of the World War wakened him suddenly, looking back the past years, Hans felt that he had been in a sleeping in this Magic Mountain for seven years. In the end he determinedly started his journey to the battlefield.)