Death in Venice

A lot of veiled homoerotic imagery, much of which today would be considered borderline pedophilia. Bogged down by repetitive illusions to the Greek ideals of beauty. Not on narrative par with Buddenbrooks or The Magic Mountain. Best suited for those who wish to say they've read all of Thomas Mann's work.

Thomas Mann's stories written in German simply do not translate into English. It is not possible in many cases to even guess what the author is saying when translated, much less an illustration the author's reputation as a superb writer.

Can anyone recommend a better translation that shows this author's skill??

I am interested in reviewing his work. I went to school where his son taught in English during the 1950's and Golo Mann was fluent in expressing his thoughts in English.

thanks

I ordered "Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories" and I got "Death in Venice" without the other stories. Close, but not the same. I kept it because I have to read Death in Venice, but I also have to read Tony Krieger (one of the seven stories missing) which I'll have to find elsewhere. Oh well..

I'm a decently smart, well-educated lady working on my second degree and capable of expressing myself thoughtfully. 100 years old or not, why would anyone want to endure to this man's narcissism for 100 pages?! I call that torture, and I would rather choke on my own vomit than finish this book.

If you Google the plot summary, the first 2 chapters of this book can be summed up in one sentence: "The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous author in his early fifties who has recently been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (and thus has acquired the aristocratic "von" to his name)." And God is he effing proud of himself! Most of his sentences are small paragraphs unto themselves, mainly consisting of adjectives. By the time you reach the end of a sentence, you've forgotten what its subject is! The only word this guy doesn't know is "concise".

This short novel by Thomas Mann has become a classic on its own merit first and then because he has been adapted to the cinema and the stage quite many times. The best known adaptations are Visconti’s film in 1971 and the opera by Benjamin Britten in 1973.

This book was also written at the end of Thomas Mann’s life and though it cannot really be said to be autobiographical, which anyway has no value to discuss and appreciate it, it is obvious that Thomas Mann has had that kind of experience first hand: becoming old, feeling death crawling and creeping behind the wings closer and closer, and attaching his dream of a second youth to the first youth one meets and sublimates into a fancy of beauty as an aesthetic dimension to cover up the deep psychological need to find a recipient for the mission of continuing the exploration of the world, mental and physical, intellectual and material, that one has done all along their life.

This need, this desire, this quest is universal among all artists and intellectuals, maybe among all human beings as the survival instinct of the mind. It cannot be fulfilled genetically. It does not lead to anything hormonal which could be seen as unethical, and would have been seen as unethical in Thomas Mann’s time: it would have been pedophilic love, since Tadzio is hardly 15, probably less. It is symbolical, spiritual, mental maybe psychical.

Apart from and beyond this personal existential remark, the book has tremendous qualities.

The first one is its shortness. The subject – in a way it is an artistic testament – is treated in very few pages with very little action but always precisely stated and clearly described. No useless embellishment on the action itself. That enables the author to concentrate on the sole mind of the main character who is a successful German author who has preached all his life the separation of arts from life, from passion, from sentiments, from feelings. Arts are supposed to cultivate beauty in themselves and to look for beauty in the world.

Gustav von Aschenbach is trapped by his own aesthetic ambition and practice when in his old age he meets with his eyes, and that will never be a meeting on any other level, and when his mind relays that vision into a deep reflection on what life is, what beauty is, what purity is. His eyes meet a young Polish youth that can be deemed to be 15 or less years old.

The main character is attracted to this “Knabe” as he calls him in German, “boy” as is translated in English, visually, hence by the only vision of the boy’s body since he cannot understand Polish and that foreign language becomes some kind of music. The shape of the body, the proportions, the flexibility and articulations of that body that is fit without being athletic, still young and not wrapped up in too much muscle and fat.

He is attracted by the face and the hair of this young teenager and at this level no one can describe the “beauty” of a face. Words can eventually describe the face but they cannot capture the beauty itself which is a very complex conglomerate of elements. The last attractive element is the light, very light indeed before the First World War, “nudity” of the young teenager since he is mostly on a beach in some bathing suit, which is a suit really. It only liberates or “undress” the arms and the legs from the knees down, maybe half thigh down. Visconti makes the boy bathe in the sea is some kind of swimming trunks that denude his body from the waist up. I am not sure at all that was standard in 1911.

This first quality of the book is amplified tremendously by the Greek mythical references all along the pages. I am not going to list them all but systematically they refer to love (probably identified as identical to intercourse) that leads to death in a way or another. Some of these gods or semi-gods are messengers of death or have the power of saving someone who is close to death or dying, like Zeus taking Dionysus in his thigh, or Zeus against and others turning some victims of jealousy into stars and constellations. These references establish a full parallel between the main character and these victims of love and jealousy.

But he goes one step further by referring to Socrates and Phaedo, particularly the death scene in Plato’s text, The Death Scene from the Phaedo, [...] The death of Socrates drinking his hemlock to which he had been sentenced is to be set in parallel with the death of Gustav von Aschenbach in the story. Note here how the name of the character is conveying the idea of death: a river of ashes. A close study of these references and their mapping in the story would show how symbolical they are.

But let me give you one example of how the main character’s wording of his approach of beauty is also symbolical and of what. The original for “The happiness of writers is the thought that can be entirely emotion and the emotion that can be entirely thought,” is “Glûck des Schriftstellers, der ganz Gedanke, der ganz Gefühl, das ganz Gedanke zu werden vermag.“ Apart from the fact that I find the translation less concise, less poetic and more abstract in its use of the generic plural “writers” or the generic philosophical definite article in “the thought” or “the emotion” and even “the happiness” where Thomas Mann had used the adjective “ganz” to particularize what thought or emotion he was speaking of, the thought and the emotion that the author was constructing or experiencing right now, hence the necessary singular of “Schriftsteller”

But the translation misses something more important: the symbolic music of the sentence. The first alliteration in /g/ seven times and the closing semi-alliteration in /w-v/ at the end bringing that seven to nine and the first alliteration in fact is one /g/ plus then alternating /ganz/ - /Gedanke/ - /ganz/ - /Gefühl/ - /ganz/ - /Gedanke/ which is a perfect David’s Star or number of Solomon, three adjectives-three nouns all carrying the same alliteration and alternating. It is obvious that the very deep and ancient wisdom of Solomon expanded into the seven days of the week of creation (6 days of work and one day of rest) or the seven days of the Holy Passion ending with the death and resurrection of Jesus in the last three days are turned into a diabolical reference to the Apocalypse, the Beast, the end of this world and life, and maybe salvation at Doomsday. The English translation is far from carrying that kind of symbolism.

This novella should be analyzed from that original German version to understand how Thomas Mann is a symbolical mind that sees beauty in those patterns, “Gestalten” would be the German plural word, that are both the symbols and the expression of the mind and the conception of beauty it develops or constructs. If we take this novella as being in the tradition of symbolism in German arts we find out that the death of Venice is also the death of Gustav von Aschenbach, and this latter death does not enable him to actually transmit the mission of continuing his work to Tadzio. The transmission is expressed at the end in the last look but in the reverse order: it is Tadzio who becomes Hermes and by looking back at Gustav from the sea and locking his eyes onto Gustav’s eyes takes him into the infinity of death and Gustav dies in his chair on the beach. Tadzio becomes the psychopomp of Gustav von Aschenbach into the immensity of space and death.

That is a phenomenal vision of mental and sqpiritual survival and the failure that Thomas Mann wants to express as for Gustav von Aschenbach who just did not have the courage to confront and brave social conventions and norms and establish contact and communication with Tadzio. This contact, this communication with a younger character who becomes the surrogate of his own youth and the continuation of his own life after his own death was close at hand but he did not choose it, he did not have the courage of surviving intellectually, spiritually by committing his remaining years of life to a pure and spiritual friendship that is love without the hormonal side of things. But this reveals an important element in Thomas Mann German psyche: he cannot imagine any friendship of this type in his society because he would be convicted (in a court of justice if necessary) of improper behavior. Just think of Oscar Wilde.

That sure is a masterpiece but its magnitude can only be captured in German. Just try to get it there:[...], many standards available.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

This short novel by Thomas Mann has become a classic on its own merit first and then because he has been adapted to the cinema and the stage quite many times. The best known adaptations are Visconti’s film in 1971 and the opera by Benjamin Britten in 1973.

This book was also written at the end of Thomas Mann’s life and though it cannot really be said to be autobiographical, which anyway has no value to discuss and appreciate it, it is obvious that Thomas Mann has had that kind of experience first hand: becoming old, feeling death crawling and creeping behind the wings closer and closer, and attaching his dream of a second youth to the first youth one meets and sublimates into a fancy of beauty as an aesthetic dimension to cover up the deep psychological need to find a recipient for the mission of continuing the exploration of the world, mental and physical, intellectual and material, that one has done all along their life.

This need, this desire, this quest is universal among all artists and intellectuals, maybe among all human beings as the survival instinct of the mind. It cannot be fulfilled genetically. It does not lead to anything hormonal which could be seen as unethical, and would have been seen as unethical in Thomas Mann’s time: it would have been pedophilic love, since Tadzio is hardly 15, probably less. It is symbolical, spiritual, mental maybe psychical.

Apart from and beyond this personal existential remark, the book has tremendous qualities.

The first one is its shortness. The subject – in a way it is an artistic testament – is treated in very few pages with very little action but always precisely stated and clearly described. No useless embellishment on the action itself. That enables the author to concentrate on the sole mind of the main character who is a successful German author who has preached all his life the separation of arts from life, from passion, from sentiments, from feelings. Arts are supposed to cultivate beauty in themselves and to look for beauty in the world.

Gustav von Aschenbach is trapped by his own aesthetic ambition and practice when in his old age he meets with his eyes, and that will never be a meeting on any other level, and when his mind relays that vision into a deep reflection on what life is, what beauty is, what purity is. His eyes meet a young Polish youth that can be deemed to be 15 or less years old.

The main character is attracted to this “Knabe” as he calls him in German, “boy” as is translated in English, visually, hence by the only vision of the boy’s body since he cannot understand Polish and that foreign language becomes some kind of music. The shape of the body, the proportions, the flexibility and articulations of that body that is fit without being athletic, still young and not wrapped up in too much muscle and fat.

He is attracted by the face and the hair of this young teenager and at this level no one can describe the “beauty” of a face. Words can eventually describe the face but they cannot capture the beauty itself which is a very complex conglomerate of elements. The last attractive element is the light, very light indeed before the First World War, “nudity” of the young teenager since he is mostly on a beach in some bathing suit, which is a suit really. It only liberates or “undress” the arms and the legs from the knees down, maybe half thigh down. Visconti makes the boy bathe in the sea is some kind of swimming trunks that denude his body from the waist up. I am not sure at all that was standard in 1911.

This first quality of the book is amplified tremendously by the Greek mythical references all along the pages. I am not going to list them all but systematically they refer to love (probably identified as identical to intercourse) that leads to death in a way or another. Some of these gods or semi-gods are messengers of death or have the power of saving someone who is close to death or dying, like Zeus taking Dionysus in his thigh, or Zeus against and others turning some victims of jealousy into stars and constellations. These references establish a full parallel between the main character and these victims of love and jealousy.

But he goes one step further by referring to Socrates and Phaedo, particularly the death scene in Plato’s text, The Death Scene from the Phaedo, [...] The death of Socrates drinking his hemlock to which he had been sentenced is to be set in parallel with the death of Gustav von Aschenbach in the story. Note here how the name of the character is conveying the idea of death: a river of ashes. A close study of these references and their mapping in the story would show how symbolical they are.

But let me give you one example of how the main character’s wording of his approach of beauty is also symbolical and of what. The original for “The happiness of writers is the thought that can be entirely emotion and the emotion that can be entirely thought,” is “Glûck des Schriftstellers, der ganz Gedanke, der ganz Gefühl, das ganz Gedanke zu werden vermag.“ Apart from the fact that I find the translation less concise, less poetic and more abstract in its use of the generic plural “writers” or the generic philosophical definite article in “the thought” or “the emotion” and even “the happiness” where Thomas Mann had used the adjective “ganz” to particularize what thought or emotion he was speaking of, the thought and the emotion that the author was constructing or experiencing right now, hence the necessary singular of “Schriftsteller”

But the translation misses something more important: the symbolic music of the sentence. The first alliteration in /g/ seven times and the closing semi-alliteration in /w-v/ at the end bringing that seven to nine and the first alliteration in fact is one /g/ plus then alternating /ganz/ - /Gedanke/ - /ganz/ - /Gefühl/ - /ganz/ - /Gedanke/ which is a perfect David’s Star or number of Solomon, three adjectives-three nouns all carrying the same alliteration and alternating. It is obvious that the very deep and ancient wisdom of Solomon expanded into the seven days of the week of creation (6 days of work and one day of rest) or the seven days of the Holy Passion ending with the death and resurrection of Jesus in the last three days are turned into a diabolical reference to the Apocalypse, the Beast, the end of this world and life, and maybe salvation at Doomsday. The English translation is far from carrying that kind of symbolism.

This novella should be analyzed from that original German version to understand how Thomas Mann is a symbolical mind that sees beauty in those patterns, “Gestalten” would be the German plural word, that are both the symbols and the expression of the mind and the conception of beauty it develops or constructs. If we take this novella as being in the tradition of symbolism in German arts we find out that the death of Venice is also the death of Gustav von Aschenbach, and this latter death does not enable him to actually transmit the mission of continuing his work to Tadzio. The transmission is expressed at the end in the last look but in the reverse order: it is Tadzio who becomes Hermes and by looking back at Gustav from the sea and locking his eyes onto Gustav’s eyes takes him into the infinity of death and Gustav dies in his chair on the beach. Tadzio becomes the psychopomp of Gustav von Aschenbach into the immensity of space and death.

That is a phenomenal vision of mental and sqpiritual survival and the failure that Thomas Mann wants to express as for Gustav von Aschenbach who just did not have the courage to confront and brave social conventions and norms and establish contact and communication with Tadzio. This contact, this communication with a younger character who becomes the surrogate of his own youth and the continuation of his own life after his own death was close at hand but he did not choose it, he did not have the courage of surviving intellectually, spiritually by committing his remaining years of life to a pure and spiritual friendship that is love without the hormonal side of things. But this reveals an important element in Thomas Mann German psyche: he cannot imagine any friendship of this type in his society because he would be convicted (in a court of justice if necessary) of improper behavior. Just think of Oscar Wilde.

That sure is a masterpiece but its magnitude can only be captured in German. Just try to get it there:[...], many standards available.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

This short novel by Thomas Mann has become a classic on its own merit first and then because he has been adapted to the cinema and the stage quite many times. The best known adaptations are Visconti’s film in 1971 and the opera by Benjamin Britten in 1973.

This book was also written at the end of Thomas Mann’s life and though it cannot really be said to be autobiographical, which anyway has no value to discuss and appreciate it, it is obvious that Thomas Mann has had that kind of experience first hand: becoming old, feeling death crawling and creeping behind the wings closer and closer, and attaching his dream of a second youth to the first youth one meets and sublimates into a fancy of beauty as an aesthetic dimension to cover up the deep psychological need to find a recipient for the mission of continuing the exploration of the world, mental and physical, intellectual and material, that one has done all along their life.

This need, this desire, this quest is universal among all artists and intellectuals, maybe among all human beings as the survival instinct of the mind. It cannot be fulfilled genetically. It does not lead to anything hormonal which could be seen as unethical, and would have been seen as unethical in Thomas Mann’s time: it would have been pedophilic love, since Tadzio is hardly 15, probably less. It is symbolical, spiritual, mental maybe psychical.

Apart from and beyond this personal existential remark, the book has tremendous qualities.

The first one is its shortness. The subject – in a way it is an artistic testament – is treated in very few pages with very little action but always precisely stated and clearly described. No useless embellishment on the action itself. That enables the author to concentrate on the sole mind of the main character who is a successful German author who has preached all his life the separation of arts from life, from passion, from sentiments, from feelings. Arts are supposed to cultivate beauty in themselves and to look for beauty in the world.

Gustav von Aschenbach is trapped by his own aesthetic ambition and practice when in his old age he meets with his eyes, and that will never be a meeting on any other level, and when his mind relays that vision into a deep reflection on what life is, what beauty is, what purity is. His eyes meet a young Polish youth that can be deemed to be 15 or less years old.

The main character is attracted to this “Knabe” as he calls him in German, “boy” as is translated in English, visually, hence by the only vision of the boy’s body since he cannot understand Polish and that foreign language becomes some kind of music. The shape of the body, the proportions, the flexibility and articulations of that body that is fit without being athletic, still young and not wrapped up in too much muscle and fat.

He is attracted by the face and the hair of this young teenager and at this level no one can describe the “beauty” of a face. Words can eventually describe the face but they cannot capture the beauty itself which is a very complex conglomerate of elements. The last attractive element is the light, very light indeed before the First World War, “nudity” of the young teenager since he is mostly on a beach in some bathing suit, which is a suit really. It only liberates or “undress” the arms and the legs from the knees down, maybe half thigh down. Visconti makes the boy bathe in the sea is some kind of swimming trunks that denude his body from the waist up. I am not sure at all that was standard in 1911.

This first quality of the book is amplified tremendously by the Greek mythical references all along the pages. I am not going to list them all but systematically they refer to love (probably identified as identical to intercourse) that leads to death in a way or another. Some of these gods or semi-gods are messengers of death or have the power of saving someone who is close to death or dying, like Zeus taking Dionysus in his thigh, or Zeus against and others turning some victims of jealousy into stars and constellations. These references establish a full parallel between the main character and these victims of love and jealousy.

But he goes one step further by referring to Socrates and Phaedo, particularly the death scene in Plato’s text, The Death Scene from the Phaedo, [...] The death of Socrates drinking his hemlock to which he had been sentenced is to be set in parallel with the death of Gustav von Aschenbach in the story. Note here how the name of the character is conveying the idea of death: a river of ashes. A close study of these references and their mapping in the story would show how symbolical they are.

But let me give you one example of how the main character’s wording of his approach of beauty is also symbolical and of what. The original for “The happiness of writers is the thought that can be entirely emotion and the emotion that can be entirely thought,” is “Glûck des Schriftstellers, der ganz Gedanke, der ganz Gefühl, das ganz Gedanke zu werden vermag.“ Apart from the fact that I find the translation less concise, less poetic and more abstract in its use of the generic plural “writers” or the generic philosophical definite article in “the thought” or “the emotion” and even “the happiness” where Thomas Mann had used the adjective “ganz” to particularize what thought or emotion he was speaking of, the thought and the emotion that the author was constructing or experiencing right now, hence the necessary singular of “Schriftsteller”

But the translation misses something more important: the symbolic music of the sentence. The first alliteration in /g/ seven times and the closing semi-alliteration in /w-v/ at the end bringing that seven to nine and the first alliteration in fact is one /g/ plus then alternating /ganz/ - /Gedanke/ - /ganz/ - /Gefühl/ - /ganz/ - /Gedanke/ which is a perfect David’s Star or number of Solomon, three adjectives-three nouns all carrying the same alliteration and alternating. It is obvious that the very deep and ancient wisdom of Solomon expanded into the seven days of the week of creation (6 days of work and one day of rest) or the seven days of the Holy Passion ending with the death and resurrection of Jesus in the last three days are turned into a diabolical reference to the Apocalypse, the Beast, the end of this world and life, and maybe salvation at Doomsday. The English translation is far from carrying that kind of symbolism.

This novella should be analyzed from that original German version to understand how Thomas Mann is a symbolical mind that sees beauty in those patterns, “Gestalten” would be the German plural word, that are both the symbols and the expression of the mind and the conception of beauty it develops or constructs. If we take this novella as being in the tradition of symbolism in German arts we find out that the death of Venice is also the death of Gustav von Aschenbach, and this latter death does not enable him to actually transmit the mission of continuing his work to Tadzio. The transmission is expressed at the end in the last look but in the reverse order: it is Tadzio who becomes Hermes and by looking back at Gustav from the sea and locking his eyes onto Gustav’s eyes takes him into the infinity of death and Gustav dies in his chair on the beach. Tadzio becomes the psychopomp of Gustav von Aschenbach into the immensity of space and death.

That is a phenomenal vision of mental and sqpiritual survival and the failure that Thomas Mann wants to express as for Gustav von Aschenbach who just did not have the courage to confront and brave social conventions and norms and establish contact and communication with Tadzio. This contact, this communication with a younger character who becomes the surrogate of his own youth and the continuation of his own life after his own death was close at hand but he did not choose it, he did not have the courage of surviving intellectually, spiritually by committing his remaining years of life to a pure and spiritual friendship that is love without the hormonal side of things. But this reveals an important element in Thomas Mann German psyche: he cannot imagine any friendship of this type in his society because he would be convicted (in a court of justice if necessary) of improper behavior. Just think of Oscar Wilde.

That sure is a masterpiece but its magnitude can only be captured in German. Just try to get it there:[...], many standards available.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Thomas Mann's collection of novellas and short stories, published under the title Death in Venice, is not for everyone. While the selections are beautifully written and thematically variable, they are focused, for the most part, on the interior lives of members of the German upper class and upper middle class during the period that encompassed World War I and the onset of the Great Depression. Though none of the stories refers directly to these catastrophic events, we are often reminded that characters and their families may be leading lives less luxurious and eventful than those to which they had once been accustomed. In short, they are living in difficult times. In only one instance, however, do economic factors prove decisive in producing tragically unhappy outcomes, something that might be due to the lack of business acumen among those most harmfully affected. For the most part, the lives of Mann's characters proceed much as one would expect of those occupying their elevated statuses.

Since I don't know German, I am not in a position to evaluate the adequacy of H. T. Lowe-Porter's translation. However, in English each of the stories is masterfully written by a remarkably accomplished prose stylist. The language is clear, concise, to the point, and descriptively brilliant. My favorite story, A Man and His Dog, is replete with finely detailed renderings of an overwhelming variety of plants, animals, climatic phenomena, and encounters between species. From one season to another, Mann gives us overwhelming evidence of powers of observation that have taught him to see and report the natural and man-made physical world in terms so accurate, detailed, and multi-layered that one imagines he must have been a Renaissance Man of the observable biological sciences and the modifications that men seek to impose their environment. In this regard, I think that Mann's smooth flowing observations masterfully surpass even the self-consciously precise efforts of John Updike. Quite an accomplishment.

Mann, in each of his stories, gives us one or more well-developed characters, for the most part people with whom we can identify and who give rise to favorable assessments and even affection. With the exception of the story Tristan, moreover, Mann accomplishes this with little or no dialogue. Each story is narrated by the protagonist or, less frequently, the omniscient author. In either case, the emphasis is on how characters think and feel, their understanding of the kind of world in which they find themselves as they live out their lives.

Typically, characters are struggling with matters of the intellect, given to scholarly or artistic pursuits that demand their best efforts. Some are conventionally successful, such as Dr. Cornelius in Disorder and Early Sorrow and Bashan's master in A Man and His Dog. Others are fond of correctly reminding themselves that they are famous and influential, including Gustave Aschenbach in Death in Venice and Tonio Kroger in the story of the same name. Still others, such as the novelist Spinell in Tristan, have little to show for their creative labors, and one wonders how they support themselves, paying their way in a private facility for troubled souls.

Whatever their attainments, not all characters are immune to having their creative and scholarly worlds turned upside down, challenged and redefined by encounters with overwhelming temptations that grow in strength until they become obsessions, exactly the sort of motives and desires that people such as Aschenbach were convinced could not undo them. If there is a protagonist so self-absorbed and arrogantly certain of his judgments and of the inferiority of those who may find him devoid of appealing characteristics, it is Aschenbach as we first encounter him. However, as time passes and he loses his way, we can at least feel the pitiful longing and lack of control that make him more human, even if pathetically so.

Not all the stories in the collection, however, are fraught with heart-rending heaviness. Felix Krull sometimes has a tough way to go, but he is by nature an ingenious rascal whose escapades are often quite humorous, and for some of us may bring back memories of the interesting ways we contrived to avoid school and otherwise make a dull and unsatisfying world a good deal more fun and unregimented. Bashan, the four-legged, good-hearted, and not unduly clever source of many mundane but happy adventures in A Man and His Dog provides us with the most wholesome, unself-conscious, and ingratiating humor, often at the forgiving, even appreciative, expense of his master. And Tonio Kroger shows us what it means to stop taking one's self quite so seriously and appreciate the happiness of others.

It's hard to imagine an author more skillful, wise, and yet accessible than Thomas Mann. While this collection of novellas and short stories will not appeal to all readers, I think everyone who reads it will recognize Thomas Mann's extraordinary talent.

Michael Henry Heim’s translation breaths fresh air into Thomas Mann’s great novella. The prose reads as it should—stable, though not lacking in mystery. Death in Venice is the very allegorical story of Gustav Aschenbach, a famous writer (not unlike Mann) who has fallen into lethargy and spiritual ennui. He takes a holiday in the decadent city of Venice, where he is enchanted first by the city, but in the end by a Polish youth. For some, Mann’s mobilization of allegorical figurations will doubtless be a bit stiff. There is of course the theme of Europe’s decline in the wake of the great war, the relation of artistic production to isolation, the intangibility of love, and the universality of death. Exploring the tortured indifferentiation of eros and thanatos, Mann’s gorgeously compressed story sets the stage for much of modern literature to follow.

This review has been crossposted from my blog at The Cosy Dragon.com. Please head there for more in-depth reviews by me, which appear on a timely schedule.

'Death in Venice' is an assigned text for one of my literature classes. It is a collection of short stories by Thomas Mann, including his possibly most famous - the same titled Death in Venice. Mann is the perfect example of a Modernist writer, and by no means are his works comfortable to read. But read on!

The title story, Death in Venice, is about Aschenbach, an aging writer who falls in lust with a younger boy when taking a holiday. The work is resplendent with images and symbols, and to be fair, it is a very good text to analyse. I didn't particularly enjoy it, but it wasn't bad either.

I couldn't tell you whether it is a great example of Modernism - but it is according to my tutor. The story lacks a concrete feeling to the ending, which is something I personally hate. I'm also not very fond of short stories, as I feel like I never get to know the characters well before they are killed off. This story is more like a short novella though, and there is room for some 'plot' development.

Although not required for my class, I read a number of the other short stories in the book. I found them all to expand on the same themes of death and wanton destruction, and felt like once you had read one, you would expect the ending of the next to be the same (and indeed it is, with some subtle twists).

This book of short stories is certainly not suitable for younger readers. Adults may struggle with the uncomfortable, and often graphic, contents of the novel. This is not something I would normally read, and I probably wouldn't seek out any of his other works.

** spoiler alert ** Thomas Mann's famous novella tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, an internationally renowned writer who travels to Venice and becomes erotically obsessed with a young boy. This obsession leads eventually, as the title would suggest, to his death, both metaphorically and literally.

The character of Aschenbach is a fascinating one; he is brilliant, devoted to his work, and he sees the world through the eyes of a learned artist who lives entirely in the mind. Given Mann's interest in Freudian psychology, it is difficult not to see this as the story of the return of the repressed: his ascetic and discipline lifestyle -- the key to his literary success and reputation -- finally cracks as the libidic (is that a word?) energies so long sublimated into artist endeavors take control, manifesting in his pederastic desire for the young Polish boy, Tadzio, a representative, perhaps, to Aschenbach of his own lost, fragile sexuality, childish and immature in its development. At the same time, Aschenbach's sexual desires are bound up with a death drive; his trip to Venice is spurred by an imposing and frightening figure staring at him from a cemetery, and Tadzio himself is described as delicate and sickly. Through Aschenbach's obsessive pursuit of Tadzio -- a pursuit that, despite its passion, remains physically unconsummated -- Mann explores the paradoxical connections between Eros and Thanatos, the drive to experience and express life in a moment of passion and the desire to abandon that life, the loss of self in erotic union.

Because the narrative operates from the perspective of Aschenbach (although it is not a first-person narrator), the writing is extremely erudite. Aschenbach is an intellectual, and even in his most passionate moments sees the world through the lens of his artistic and philosophical pursuits. The novella is filled with allusions to and discussions of classical myth and thought, in particular Plato's works on love and desire. The extremely refined art and artifice of the work is in keeping with Aschenbach's character, although it also means that the work often feels rather detached; we don't inhabit Aschenbach's mind, we understand it intellectually, through the conceptual vocabulary he himself has built up through his life. That's not to say that it is not compelling, but it isn't a "page-turner" in any traditional sense. As a reader, I felt motivated not by passion, but by the intellectual interest to study Aschenbach's passion, to understand it and find out how it would resolve (or not resolve) itself. It works, definitely -- it reproduces in the reader the mind of its central character and with its attendant conflicts, tensions, and flaws -- but it isn't a work that I would see myself returning to repeatedly to read for enjoyment. It is, I think, literature as philosophy, and as such, it requires a thoughtful, philosophical, and somewhat detached mood.

This book was assigned for a college course that I ended up dropping but I had already purchased the book. I decided to keep it because the book buyback/refund was ridiculous and because Mann's work is hailed as a quintessential part of German literature as well as insight on the concept of literature as art and of the relation between art and reality/humanity. Now years later, I finally picked the book up and worked through the dozen stories it contains.

From a high level I can say that I found the stories very evocative, descriptive and full of detailed emotion. A common tone that I felt throughout the reading was one not necessarily of despair but of longing...of a desire or yearning for something more. The exact focus varied somewhat from story to story but generally speaking we were usually presented with a protagonist who was an artist of some kind and who is struggling with balancing his passion and desire with the mundane and disappointing real world around him. That tone produced an overaching depressive feel that lingered throughout my entire reading. Even the happy and vibrant moments had a shadow of sadness behind them that I just couldn't escape.

A lot of the depressive nature came from the conflict between the desire and the ability to fulfill on those desires. In most cases, the yearning of the character in question was for something inaccessible or forbidden. Specifically, in the title story the artist/writer is an older man who is having romantic longings towards a younger boy...thus a yearning that is taboo and forbidden on multiple levels. By making these desires more taboo or forbidden, I felt less directly tied to the protagonist but Mann still presented the situation in a way that allowed me to feel the oppressive emotions of the strugle. In other cases the struggle is just one between a desire to create that great artistic masterpiece and the feeling of constantly falling short. It's hard to be an artist and it's easy to be hard on yourself as an artist.

Random review interlude -- A couple of favorite quotes:
"We are only as old as we feel in our hearts and minds."
"Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd."

I certainly appreciated the artistry of the story and I was impressed by the depth and detail added to the environments, characters and stories of this book. Some of the stories were a bit more engaging to me than others but generally I felt a bit disjointed from the stories and had a hard time really appreciating the various plots. What I probably enjoyed most (beyond some of the beautiful descriptions) were the semi-frequent existential and philosophical moments. Mann puts together some interesting thoughts that sat with me after closing the book. Mostly he left me feeling unsettled and disatisfied and like I should get out and do something productive and worthwhile. To that extent, I applaud the effort of the book. Otherwise, this is a bit of classical literary artistry that I can appreciate but really don't feel like it was a "must read" or that my life is significantly improved by reading. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it. Overall, it just sort of exists on a menial plane for me.

***
3 out of 5 stars

While visiting Venice with his wife in 1911, Thomas Mann caught glimpses of a young boy, who was staying with his family in the same hotel and who evoked a "Greek sculpture of the noblest spirit." Mann transformed his own fascination with this boy (eleven years old in life--much younger than Tadzio in the book) into the obsession of Gustav von Aschenbach, the writer who is the main character of "A Death in Venice."

Although Aschenbach is in his early fifties, Mann was only thirty-six during his stay in Venice. Nevertheless, there are other parallels between Mann's life and his character, and it is tempting to read the novella as his "Portrait of the Artist as an Older Man." As British critic Erich Heller has pointed out, several of the works that made the fictional Aschenbach famous were, in fact, books or essays planned for Mann's real-life future--some that he would write, some that would survive in draft. Yet again, according to Heller, the protagonist's appearance (not to mention his first name) evokes the composer Mahler, who had died that year and whom Mann had recently met. And, even more: Mann later acknowledged that an original inspiration had been the real-life story of Goethe falling in love, in his seventies, with a nineteen-year-old woman.

So we know that Mann was imagining a fictionalized version of his future self, and that, inspired by Goethe's biography, he was morphing this vision with the late Gustav Mahler--what of it? Mann's use of autobiographical elements was hardly unique to "A Death in Venice"--and it's hardly unique to him. Where this novella transcends the use of biography, however, is how the appearance of the young and beautiful Tadzio, whom Aschenbach never actually meets, unleashes a passion that breaks through a case of writer's block and allows the author (like Mahler, like Goethe, and like Mann himself) to harness this ardor into art.

Yet this very passion, which serves so energetically as a creative force, also has the capacity to destroy; he was "astonished, terrified even, by the really godlike beauty of this human child." The same love of beauty (and the beauty of love) that stimulates Aschenbach will deteriorate into the unhealthy obsession of desire; the self-possessed Apollo loses out to the dissolute Dionysus--a mythic battle that becomes "literal" in a dream. He gradually begins to resemble the appalling travesty he had seen among a group of youths at the outset of his vacation: an old man, wearing a wig and "bright, foppish clothing" and sporting a dyed mustache and cheap dentures. Aschenbach, who has spent his entire life learning to contain his passions and channel them into his art and intellect, loses his grip.

The novel (which I read in the older, lyrical Kenneth Burke translation) is simple in plot yet complex in its numerous literary and mythological allusions, many of which I'm sure escaped me. It pays re-reading; the mirror-like structure reveals itself more readily the second time around. And, ultimately, the book's fun-house aspect is self-referential: unlike his fictional counterpart, Mann is able to corral his own fascination of beauty into this classically influenced work of art; while Aschenbach spins out of control, his creator keeps it together. Much more than a story about obsession, "A Death in Venice" is about the conflict between the creative impulse and the zealous devastation it is capable of setting loose.

This book is the story of Gustav Von Aschenbach, a career-controlled 50-ish widower, professor, novelist whose Apollonistic pursuit of artistic fame became so dominating that the Dionysian dimensions of his (and everyone's) life were totally submerged until, seeking a break from his oppressive academic labors, he decides to take a vacation.

His first stop was Trieste, which he detested, so, bathed in memories from his past, he sets off for Venice, a city the romantic qualities of which begin to set off the emotional explosion which becomes the soul of this magnificent novella.

Gustav becomes fixated and obsessed with a 14 year old Polish boy, Tadizo, who is vacationing with his mother and sisters at the same hotel where he, Gustav, is staying....Over the course of the the second half of this tale, Gustav becomes ever more obsessed with the young man - an obsession which gradually takes such complete control of his entire life that every other dimension of his selfhood is completely and totally effaced.

In the end, this is the story of the progressive domination and destruction of a personality built on one ideal (Apollonistic) that is totally taken down by the chaotic Dionysian forces and powers that inhabit us all.

Nothing less than a masterpiece.

The architecture, art, light, water and variety of each which one encounters in Venice are mind expanding. The magical qualities of the streets and waterways of the city can not be easily ignored.

And yet Mann's protagonist, Aschenbach, manages to.

This, it seems to me, is the most significant point of the story. Aschenbach, we learn, has lived a highly structured and productive existance, determined to impose order. He falls apart in Venice.

We are told at the beginning of Death in Venice that Aschenbach has been a diciplined producer of order and reason. However, what we witness through the following pages is a man reduced to obsessive observation and incapable of taking action. His compulsive fascination with the fourteen year old boy and his complete inability to save himself or even warn others foreshadows his diminuation.

From the moment when he glimpses the poser in the yellow suit and panama hat on the boat carrying him toward Venice, Aschenbach is drawn into a impotent struggle with all which surrounds him. His pointless dispute with the gondolier and his aimless wandering though the city in unconsumate pursuit of the polish youth resembles the futile actions of Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock.

The plague which destroys him comes from within. One short ferry ride, one taste of passion, one hint of forbidden fruit, and he crumbles. Aschenbach can live with reason; even the possibility of passion overwhelms him.

I read Death in Venice after years of hearing about it. It was worth the wait. It is a book which leaves an impression on the reader.

Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous German author, travels on holiday to Venice, where he meets and becomes obsessed with Tadzio, a beautiful teenage boy whose Polish family are staying in the same hotel. During his stay, Aschenbach discovers that cholera has broken out in the city but that the authorities, fearful of losing income from tourism, are trying to keep the outbreak a secret. Despite this discovery, Aschenbach neither leaves the city nor warns his fellow-guests, as either course of action would mean his being separated from Tadzio, with whom he has fallen in love.

This was a daring theme in 1912, and "Death in Venice" was one of the earliest works of mainstream literature to deal with the subject of homo-erotic desire. Thomas Mann was himself bisexual, and the story is based upon his own experiences while visiting Venice the previous year, when he had himself been fascinated by a handsome young Polish boy. The depiction of Aschenbach also draws upon Mann's memories of the composer Gustav Mahler, whom he had known and who had died in 1910; he shares the same first name and Mann's description of his physical appearance would also have fitted Mahler. (It was for this reason that when Luchino Visconti filmed the book in 1971 he made Aschenbach a composer rather than an author and made use of Mahler's music).

"Death in Venice" can be understood on two different levels. On a personal level it is a character-study. Aschenbach is a widower in his early fifties whose wife died many years earlier and who has never remarried. He has striven to live an ascetic life, governed by discipline, restraint and reason, and has endeavoured to express this attitude to life in his literary works. He initially tries to rationalise his feelings for Tadzio as Platonic admiration for an ideal of beauty, but gradually comes to recognise his desires as sexual. He is horrified by this realisation, but is too fixated on the boy to tear himself away, and his character begins to change under the influence of his desires. He starts to dye his hair and to use cosmetics in a desperate attempt to make himself look younger, even though he had previously despised men who behaved in such a way. He becomes selfish, putting both himself and others at risk because of his feelings for Tadzio. Despite the strength of those feelings, however, he never touches the boy or even speaks to him. (A physical relationship between them certainly would have been a forbidden topic in 1912).

There is more to the novella, however, than a psychological portrait of a pederast. On a philosophical level it can be read as symbolising the contrast between two different attitudes to life, the Apollonian life of reason and the Dionysian life of passion. Mann's imagery makes many references to Greek mythology, and he saw Aschenbach as a follower of Apollo, the god of reason, whose life is thrown into confusion by the sudden irruption of the forces of Dionysus, the god of wine who came to symbolise passion and unreason. The contrast between Apollo and Dionysus is also found in the writings of the philosopher Nietzsche, by whom Mann was influenced.

The weather plays an important role; when Aschenbach first arrives in Venice it is dull, overcast and cool with fine, mistlike rain, but it soon becomes unseasonably hot and oppressive- as it had been in Munich. (The story takes place in May, before the star of the main tourist season). Mann's descriptions of the sultry, listless atmosphere of the city give rise to a sense of foreboding and impending doom even before the theme of the epidemic is first introduced. This sense is reinforced by Mann's imagery. In the opening scene, set in Munich, Aschenbach catches sight of a mysterious stranger who arouses in him the desire to travel. The man's dress- straw hat and staff- gives him the air of a pilgrim, but, ominously, Aschenbach meets him outside a cemetery, perhaps a sign that his own voyage will be a pilgrimage towards death. Upon arrival in Venice, he is taken for a ride in a gondola, described as "black as nothing else on earth except a coffin".

"Death in Venice" is a brief novella, but despite its brevity it is a work of considerable complexity in which Mann is able to deal with some weighty moral, philosophical, social and artistic issues. It is one of those books where every word counts as the moves swiftly towards its inevitable and inexorable conclusion. Its reputation as one of the major works of twentieth-century German literature is well-deserved.

It is interesting to see how people respond to stories differently. Here is another work of literatre that does not engage me emotionally, but is fascinating as a work of art. Mann the author as well as the narrator seemed to desire the reader to maintain a critical distance from the main character rather than to identify and sympathize with him.

Readers interested in a romantic experience, being wrapped up in the story, transported away from their mundane lives, and so on had probably better turn elsewhere. But readers willing or eager to work out a complicated allegory of the artist's quest for perfection will appreciate this cerebral work.

I suppose I've said enough; I don't intend to summarize the plot and I'm not sure I can offer a very insightful interpretation of the allegory yet. I'm probably a couple readings away from being able to do that. It's enough for now to alert prospective readers that the bare plot is not the heart of the matter, that this story is really all about its symbolism and the intellectual experience you will have working it out rather than the emotional experience you will have identifying with the joys and pains of the characters: most people probably won't, and I'd like to relieve you of the obligation of trying to. If you do have a strong reaction, it probably won't be pleasant. Either way, you will get a lot more out of the work if you keep its intellectual project in mind.

The one thing I can say is that the Norton Critical Edition is more than satisfactory for me. I might pick up another edition sometime; I'm interested in the introduction that so offended other readers. But the NCE comes with a few very nice little essays, so if you think you might read them I'd say it's worth the trouble to seek it out.

Finally, I'd suggest reading The Magic Mountain first. Although it is at least ten times as long as Death in Venice, I think most readers will enjoy it more, and on more levels; regardless of enjoyment, I'd frankly argue that The Magic Mountain is a more complete work of art and a more important cultural and intellectual experience. That kind of comparison may not be welcome to some people: by all means, read both in either order and make up your own mind! However, if you're only going to read one, read TMM; and if you haven't liked DiV, read TMM nevertheless. (And more than once!)

Death in Venice is a novella published in 1911, The work has inspired an opera by Benjamin Britten and has been filmed. In it Mann tells the story of famous author Gustav Von Aschenbach. He is jaded, disillusioned with fame finding that writing has become difficult. He decides to visit Venice. In that decaying city he goes to the beach each morning. While there he discovers a young Polish lad who is named Tadzio., The two make eye contact and there is a homoerotic element in the relationship though they do not converse. The novella ends as Aschenback dies of the cholera epidemic sweeping the Italian city of canals.
Underneath this taut and beautifully written story there are many themes which resonate. We see how Venice is a symbol of death and decadence. All of the city is filled with disease, death and foul odors permeate the tale and town. The novella was published in 1911 as the old Europe of peace, relative prosperity and staid middle class morality was about to explode with the roaring of the guns of August igniting the Great War and the end of nineteenth century civilization. Mann often links love and death as he also does in his short story "Tristan." As in
"Tonio Kroger" we see in this tale the way an artist/intellectual is asked to relate to a society hellbent on business success and the accumulation of wealth. Aschenbach is a surrogate for Mann who was cold and reserved as a man but was a cauldron of seething Freudian emotions underneath the surface of his frigid persona.
This collection of short stories is a good introduction to the sober art of Mann whose long sentences and literary references will keep an alert reader's attention. Mann is not everyone's cup of tea but he is an important writer whose works should be wider read in America.

The long novels of Thomas Mann can prove challenging, not unlike those of Henry James. Fortunately, this varied collection - Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories - offers an easier way to become acquainted with Mann's intellectual, psychologically complex literature.

Thomas Mann's lengthy sentences and complex grammatical structures markedly complicate the task of translation. H. T. Lowe-Porter's translation is considered the most accessible version, although at the expense of subdividing many of Mann's sentences. (For comparison with an excellent literal version, look at Stanley Appelbaum's translation of Death in Venice, Dover Publications, 1995).

Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories was first published by Vintage Books in 1954. My edition was printed by Vintage International in 1989; it has neither an introduction nor explanatory notes.

Death in Venice (1911): While vacationing in Venice, the aging, highly respected author Gustave Ashenbach becomes mesmerized by a young boy staying at the seashore with his Polish aristocratic family. Although intellectually aware of his growing obsession, Ashenbach is unable to break away. This somber portrayal of a troubled man is a masterpiece of subtle nuances that illustrates Thomas Mann's ability to create layers of meaning.

Tonio Kroger (1903) is perhaps more biographical as it explores a writer's internal conflict between his desire to be accepted, that is to fit in to a bourgeois life, and his contradictory need to follow his artistic temperament wherever it might lead him.

Mario and the Magician (1929) is more explicitly political, depicting in the guise of an unscrupulous hypnotist a Mussolini-like character. The ending of this intriguing account is a surprise.

The setting in Disorder and Early Sorrow (1925) is Munich, less than a decade after World War I, amid rampant inflation and social upheaval. The narrator, Professor Cornelius, is saddened by the loss of tradition, exemplified by modern art, music, and dance forms so popular with his older children, now young adults. He finds refuge in his study of history. Early sorrow refers to an incident involving his five year-old daughter, Ellie.

A Man and His Dog (1918) is personal, humorous, and almost idyllic, quite different from the more serious topics addressed in the other stories in this collection.

The Blood of the Walsungs (1905) is the most disturbing story in this collection. The two key characters exhibit an aristocratic arrogance and elitism that culminates in incest. In an opera scene Mann draws a close parallel between his two protagonists and Siegmund and Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walkure.

Tristan (1902) has been described as a retelling of the legend of Tristan and Isolde set in a sanatorium. Detlev Spinell, a tuberculosis patient staying in the Dr. Leander's medical facility, becomes infatuated with another patient, Herr Kloterjahn's wife. Spinell is a largely unsuccessful writer, one that has difficulty relating to others.

In Felix Krull (1911) the narrator is a self-serving, unscrupulous, amoral, confidence man that is somehow likeable. The story ends abruptly, leaving the reader wondering what happens next. Forty years later Thomas Mann resumed work on this story and in 1954 he published the novel The Confessions of Felix Krull, a light, often hilarious account of a man who wins the favor and love of others by enacting the roles that they desire of him.

Thomas Mann was born in Germany in 1875. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. He left Germany in 1933, living primarily in Switzerland and the United States until his death in 1955.

Although his very name is synonymous with notoriously long novels such as "Buddenbrooks" and "Magic Mountain", Thomas Mann was prorific short story writer,too. he worked diligently and very punctually in quite disciplinary manner. Of course, above mentioned two book are true essense of his long literary life.However "Death in venice" and other short story that included in this book can be extremely helpful jumping point to explore this great but complext human being. There have been many authors whose works are basically nothing other than narration of their lives. But , in my humble opinion , no one could possibly surpass Thomas Mann. All his works are closely related to his reflections, experiences and his miseries( many might know what I mean),perhaps that's way he so merticulously kept his diary and put all his minute thought without self censoring .Among his numerous works, none are so confessional than "Tonio Kroger" and "Death in Venice". It is well known fact that "Tonio Kroger" was Thomas Mann's favorite work , despite there have been many severe critics , including his own son Golo Mann. Golo Mann, who was a prominent historian wrote unforgettable book on "Wallenstein", remarked on this work " the most terrible work among my father's works and also the worst short story in the 20th centry German literature". In addition to Golo Mann's invective to his own father, there have been numerous critics who , in my opinion, severely disparage "Tonio Kroger". There are not many works that bring almost bi-polarized reaction from readers. Please judge yourself. It's worth it.
In addition to "Tonio Kroger", perhaps most famous Mann's short story " Death in Venice" is also highly recommened to read. the works will cause some outrage, disgust or utter boredom. But, it is unequivocally supreme work of art that should be free from scathing attack from both dilettanttes and philistines. other short stories are also fairly interesting works . "Mario and the Magician" , that show Mann's penetrating insight of the nature of Fascism, "Tristan", the work of cruel irony and grotesque humor,and "Felix Krull" , story that represent how Mann irony targetting himself.
Overall, the book delivers memorable experience.

.
An awesome book that reveals the Dionysus which lives in all of us. One can read about the controlled organized and stable self verses the chaotic center, but it is a story as this that artistically conveys the idea in subjective terms. An older, well respected man in his 50's, one of reputable character, in that of an intellectual and artist, a man who lives and represents the Apollonian man of stability and chiseled living succumbs to his inner chaotic self. It's not that Aschenbach was a fraud or false, yet in a sense he was, as all of us are, whether we are willing to admit it to ourselves or not. Then there are many of us who have ceased to experience our Dionysus since many years, however it lives dormant in us as a part of our true selves.
An so this respectable, reliable, stable man falls in love with an image or eros, that of a 14 year old boy staying at the same hotel as his. He never speaks to the boy, nor has any direct contact other than a handful of eye contact glances that seem to acknowledge each other and his loving adoration for his object of beauty. And that is it: the beauty of this boy was the highest of expression of the intellectual, the eros. His beauty, grace and movement took over Aschenbach's logic of the Apollonian side, exposing his internal turmoil to the point that he followed the boy and his family just to watch and dream, to feel the feelings that come from internal chaos and adulation.
The story itself has much meaning, the writing style is prose and lives as a classic. Amazing how such was written at the time of such repression, but despite all perceived advancements in human tolerance and understanding, there exists little difference today in those of repressive Apollonian character and those of the extreme contrast in Dionysus living.

Thomas Mann lived during the golden age of "La Belle Epoque" (this novel was published in 1913). Europe was a place free of wars, at the same time that outstanding scientists and artists were producing great achievements. It seems then that "our" rational behaviors and good social practices make people happy, wealthy and healthy. But people feel inner conflicts (Mr. Freud created a new science of the spirit those times). They are taking values and practices from former generations, these ones which created capitalism and rational political orders. Those who just have arrived to that time don't have their urgencies nor their fears. They are heirs of a heavy legacy but they don't have the same passion. They miss a freedom of privacy and life style that doesn't belong to that time. The world wars would stop these concerns for almost 40 years.
Von Aschenbach lived under the rules he believed right, but his human nature doesn't fit the ideals other people created. His life doesn't have energy, but tireness. He could had lived like this if he hadn't been an artist, someone who needs the freedom of the spirit. That fact explains Von Aschenbach's resistance and anxiety and tireness towards his work. His work is a cause of his occasional sufferings.
Venice is symbol of freedom, under-development, and exotism, near home, near to europe's heart. And his moral defeat under the force of his passion for Tadzio a terrible example of what happens when our ideals of behavior are not based on our inner-reality but on the other's judgement of what is proper and right.
But he is loyal to himself until the end. Von Aschenbach's search for beauty finds other path watching Tadzio.His moral fall is a matter of point of view. He is an artist until the last moment. What goes to bankruptcy are his social practices and social conventions, not his quest for beauty.
I wonder myself about our times. It seems that we are free to choose, to be satisfied, to get happiness. If it is like that, why the increasing mass of drug consumers and lonely people?. Can we say, honestly, that we are OK, and that our inner- self is happy?.
I think that our quest for happiness meets the same odds and troubles Von Aschenbach's search for beauty met in this story. Our time requires another Thomas Mann (actually, we have some), to tell us stories at which our search lead us to return to our nature and the awareness of our values, of the real ones.
Thanks Mr. Mann. A short,beautiful, plenty of meanings, and perfect story.

This is a remarkable short story classic that will stay with you a few days after you finish reading it. Thomas Mann, the author, in a well reknown German-born author who gained success from his novellas. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929. He left Hitler's Germany in 1933 & settled in the US in 1938 until he eventually returned to Europe & died in Switzerland in 1955. This 'Death In Venice' story had a curious draw for me at is was referenced in the book Density Of Souls by Christopher Rice and in another book I'd read. The story is short and very philosophical about an aging artist on vacation in Venice, Italy. It is literally a beautifully written 'escape'. You feel the aura of Venice as you conjure mythic images in what the artist sees as beautiful. It really is a magical book in more ways than one. I loved reading the following lines in the book (just to pick a few): To persevere through all, however, had always been his motto.; To know is to forgive.; Art-understood as personal experience, too--is life raised to the higher power.; ...the foreign tongue turned the boy's speech to music...; Ultimately, we are only as old as we feel in our hearts and minds.; ...passion is our inspiration, and our true longing must always remain a desire for love. So...as you can tell, this short novella can be as deep as you make it. Excellent!!!

This is my first time reading Thomas Mann, save for the few excerpts that appear in college literature studies. Thomas Mann is notorious for his lengthy sentences and his never-ending novels, so I picked this as a gentle introduction to his works.

Even just flipping through the short stories will give an impression of how versatile and varied Mann's writing styles could be. Death in Venice, while being his most famous work in this book, is also one of the more difficult ones to read. This was Thomas Mann at his best - his sentences, long and tortuous, rolls through the imagination paragraphs at a time. Felix Krull, on the other hand, is short and succinct, with almost a feel of modern satire permeating through it.

The translation reads pretty clean and straightforward. While this probably probably loses a bit of feel in terms of grammar and structure of the sentences, Mann's styles and the suitability of the German language to this task means that a direct translation would have less flow and may seem cumbersome.

Overall I would say this is a nice illustration of Mann's literary prodigy, without overwhelming those who are not yet initiated into reading his full-sized novels.

Death in Venice (1912) is a disturbing story, one that is not easy to forget. It is also exceptional literature, a classic of the twentieth century. Thomas Mann's Death in Venice might be best compared to the subtle, psychologically complex fiction of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

In Munich the aging, highly respected author Gustav Aschenbach is in need of change, rest in a new setting, to overcome his growing fatigue that is impacting his writing. While recovering in Venice, Aschenbach slowly, but inexorably, becomes mesmerized by a young Polish boy staying at the seashore with his aristocratic family. Aschenbach is intellectually aware of his growing obsession, but he is seemingly unable to break away. Thomas Mann's somber portrayal of this troubled man is a masterpiece of subtle nuances and psychological intensity.

Thomas Mann's lengthy sentences and complex grammatical structures severely complicate the task of translating Death in Venice. I have read two excellent and yet substantially different translations. The most faithful translation is by Stanley Appelbaum (in this Dover edition, 1995) that tries to be as literal as possible, carefully preserving the comparative length of the original sentences as well as the internal sequence of each original German sentence. Contrastingly, the H. T. Lowe-Porter translation (found elsewhere) is less literal, but is considered the most delightful and readable version, although at the expense of subdividing many of Mann's lengthy sentences. Lowe-Porter's version has been the standard translation for many years.

The Dover edition provides an excellent 10-page commentary, including footnotes.

I was given "Death in Venice" by a close friend. Scary how well she knows me. It was the perfect gift.
"Death in Venice" is a collection of eight of Thomas Mann's best short stories. Usually, I'm not really one for short stories, as most times I find myself hanging at the end and disappointed in the development of the plots and characters. I was not disappointed with this book.
Through his eight stories, Mann explores many aspects of human nature...most notably love. Each story has a different theme, but there is an underlying passion for life and meaningful relationships that fills each tale with beauty and a bittersweet longing. Topics in this collection range from a look at the world from the view of a young artist, a man's respect for the family pet that worships him, a stark look at an incestuous relationship between twins, a family trip to Venice gone awry, and many others.
My only difficulty is that the language used is a bit more obscure than most of us are used to. I hadn't realized how important commas were, and there usefulness was proven by the lack of them in Mann's work. Usage and structure was different at the time of these writings, however, and not much time is needed to adjust.
I would recommend "Death in Venice" to anyone who enjoys classic literature, or who enjoys reading the work of someone who is passionate about what they do and how they live. It is definitely worth the time invested.

Thomas Mann has taken an ages old theme, the attraction of an older, worn out man for a youthful boy, dressed it up in a series of classical allusions, and details how this attraction merely accelerates the decay of the man whose decline began long before he first saw the boy. In DEATH IN VENICE, Gustave von Aschenbach is a German writer living in pre-World War I Europe, who has been trying to balance the struggles involved in maintaining his hard-worn writing laurels with the demands those struggles have placed on his life, his health, and his emotional keel. He has become an ascetic, denying himself the pleasures of the flesh. His muse is a jealous one and demands his attention full time. Over the years, he has willingly paid the price, but the true cost becomes apparent to him only as he turns fifty years of age. He senses a void in his life. He does not know what it is or how to compensate, so he decides that travel in the answer. One of the ironies of Mann's novella is that Aschenbach's readers undoubtedly give him credit for the worldly-wise sophisticate that his many literary works of art suggest he must be. But the truth is that because of his rigorous denial of himself, in terms of maturity and emotional serenity, he is a greenhorn. He tends to view the world as he does through his books, which are laden with an abundance of classical erudition. But the real world is not Plato's Republic reborn. It is a testing ground which favors those whose feet are firmly grounded in the world of the body. Early on, as Mann subtly alludes to Aschenbach's mental and physical infirmities, his fate is a doom foretold.

Aschenbach is puzzled by the continual appearance of a weird looking old man who pops up at convenient moments to glare at him in a puzzling manner. The first time that Aschenbach sees him, he pays him scant attention, but as the visits increase in his trips around Europe, both Aschenbach's and the reader's wonderment grow. After a while, the old man begins to assume allegorical--or at least mystical--proportions. One can almost see a misty haze envelop both during their encounters. It is tempting to treat these visitations as unreal hallucinations of a mind slowly unhinging with Aschenbach seeing a version of himself, following him around Europe, as if to remind him of his looming mortality.

While in Europe, he notices a good looking Polish boy of about fourteen. Aschenbach begins to fantasize about him but dares not do more than just gaze at him from a distance. As if in a rush, the years of ascetic self-denial rupture, opening the door to his latent homosexual tendencies. Mann cleverly avoids calling a spade a spade. Instead he dresses up this fantasy in terms of Aschenbach's limited social background that had been fueled by a lifetime of classical learning. The boy, whose name is Tadziu, is described as a young Adonis, an Apollo, and other such. The only words that pass between then occur at the very end, when Aschenbach sees the boy tormented by bullies and almost, but not quite, intervenes. Aschenbach locks eyes with the boy and in that moment he knows the forbidden joy that, in a different universe might have been his. He dies, possibly of the plague, happy and decidedly ignorant of who he himself really was. Mann passes no moral judgments against Aschenbach. This is no gay bashing novel nor does he hold it up as a trumpeting to engage in illicit activities, but in the ending of what-might-have-been, Mann suggests that life's choices and future happiness might better be served with a clearer moral vision of who we are, what we want, and where we are going.

Thomas Mann wrote "Death in Venice" in 1911. The protagonist, formerly a self-controlled and respectable public figure, gives himself over to obsessively stalking a 14-year-old boy for whom he has erotic feelings. While these feelings would be unacceptable to most people in our era, it is still difficult for us to appreciate the degree of condemnation they would have attracted when this story was written. Yet, Sigmund Freud had published The Interpretation of Dreams a decade earlier, and German intellectuals like Thomas Mann were aware that censurable urges lurk beneath conscious notice within all of us. Through this story, the author was surely struggling to come to terms with his own homoerotic urges. Judging from what he wrote, these were deeply troubling to him: corruption, decay, and condemnation are the themes he presents to us. While the images conveyed through this story are repugnant and shocking, the writing is beautiful and affecting.
Several of the other stories in this volume are of similar quality, and similarly deal with troubling themes ("Mario and the Magician," "The Blood of the Walsungs"). Yet, Mann was also capable of an extended and sincerely felt appreciation of the more benign and wholesome aspects of our world ("A Man and His Dog").
These stories are worth reading and re-reading. Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929, and these stories, if not Nobel prize quality, at the very least show Mann to be an engaging and entertaining writer.

Thomas Mann was one of the most elegant writers of our century. His prose dances off the page with a fluidity that is all too rare in today's world of literature, and his narrative style is always compelling. This little volume is a collection of twelve short stories. For the most part, the stories are enjoyable, though a couple of them are downright disturbing. Many of them feature dejected and misunderstood people who are desperately struggling to be understood and accepted in the world, and a great deal of the main characters are artists.

But there is much more here than just stories. In fact, nearly all these tales contain deep and complicated questions. What is art? What constitutes legitimate art? Is it true that true art brings pain, and that true artists can never live or enjoy life? These and many other questions are considered throughout this work.

As I said, some of these stories are a bit disturbing, and a couple are downright creepy. I recommend proceeding with caution. It might even be best to start with one of Mann's novels (like Buddenbrooks, for example). Still, if you are willing to brave this one out, it promises to be a richly rewarding experience, both in its quality of narrative and in the message that each of these short tales is meant to convey.

For those legions of readers who consider Thomas Mann's DEATH IN VENICE one of the pinnacles of 20th Century literature, welcome to the feast! Michael Henry Heim has restudied and again translated this brief but poignant novella with an English version more in tune with Mann's novella and certainly, finally free from all the societal homophobic restrictions that have shrouded previous translations. This is the tale of a writer - Gustav von Aschenbach - in his fifties who feels the need for exotic travels to break his writer's block, and after many aborted attempts to find the right place, comes to Venice and not only falls under its spell but also finds his sublimated desires for pure beauty as focused on young men awakened in his encounter with the young Polish boy Tadzio. This story has been translated into other languages, transformed into film by Luchino Visconti and made into the last opera of Sir Benjamin Britten. But though the simple story has captivated our minds for many years, it has never been presented in so eloquent a fashion as in this Heim translation. To wit: "On a personal level, too, art is life intensified: it delights more deeply, consumes more rapidly; it engraves the traces of imaginary and intellectual adventure on the countenance of its servant and in the long run, for all the monastic calm of his external existence, leads to self-indulgence, over refinement, lethargy, and a restless curiosity that a lifetime of wild passions and pleasures could scarcely engender." When he first encounters Tadzio "...he was infused with a paternal affection, the attraction that one who begets beauty by means of self-sacrifice [a writer] feels for one who is inherently beautiful." And "Was it not common knowledge that the sun diverts our attention from the intellectual to the sensual? It benumbs and bewitches both reason and memory such that the soul in its elation quite forgets its true nature and clings with rapt delight to the fairest of sun-drenched objects, nay, only with the aid of the corporeal can it ascend to more lofty considerations."

Once von Aschenbach accepts the fact that he is in love with the idea of Tadzio he sets about to quash rumors of the threat that cholera is invading Venice to keep his Polish lad from leaving the city (and von Aschenbach) with his family. "Thus the addled traveler could no longer think or care about anything but pursuing unrelentingly the object that had so inflamed him, dreaming of him in his absence, and, as is the lover's wont, speaking tender words to his mere shadow. Loneliness, the foreign environment, and the joy of a belated and profound exhilaration prompted him, persuaded him to indulge without shame or remorse in the most distasteful behavior, as when returning from Venice [to the Lido] late one evening he had paused at the beautiful boy's door on the second floor of the hotel and pressed his forehead against the hinge in drunken rapture, unable to tear himself away even at the risk of being discovered and caught."

Has Heim 'changed' Mann's story in to a more titillating one? No, indeed not! But he has rescued it from the mere Apollonian/Dionysian rhetoric with which other translations have cloaked the sensual aspects of the story. Here von Aschenbach becomes a fully three-dimensional character, one whose life up to the entry into Venice is understood and appreciated as a writer of brilliance, and one whose epiphany of the Eros submerged in this intellectual psyche blossoms in the most credible, tender way that far from being transformed into a 'pedophile', he is instead in that wondrous plane where awakened emotions of love and longing dwell.

Michael Cunningham has written a beautiful introduction to this new translation and, as we have come to expect from this contemporary gifted man of letters, his words are warm and befitting his admiration for this work by Thomas Mann. This is a book to be read and read again, and should you have other versions of DEATH IN VENICE in your library, that is all the more reason to pleasure your mind with the genius of this translation. Highly recommended! Grady Harp, December 09

For those legions of readers who consider Thomas Mann's DEATH IN VENICE one of the pinnacles of 20th Century literature, welcome to the feast! Michael Henry Heim has restudied and again translated this brief but poignant novella with an English version more in tune with Mann's novella and certainly, finally free from all the societal homophobic restrictions that have shrouded previous translations. This is the tale of a writer - Gustav von Aschenbach - in his fifties who feels the need for exotic travels to break his writer's block, and after many aborted attempts to find the right place, comes to Venice and not only falls under its spell but also finds his sublimated desires for pure beauty as focused on young men awakened in his encounter with the young Polish boy Tadzio. This story has been translated into other languages, transformed into film by Luchino Visconti and made into the last opera of Sir Benjamin Britten. But though the simple story has captivated our minds for many years, it has never been presented in so eloquent a fashion as in this Heim translation. To wit: "On a personal level, too, art is life intensified: it delights more deeply, consumes more rapidly; it engraves the traces of imaginary and intellectual adventure on the countenance of its servant and in the long run, for all the monastic calm of his external existence, leads to self-indulgence, over refinement, lethargy, and a restless curiosity that a lifetime of wild passions and pleasures could scarcely engender." When he first encounters Tadzio "...he was infused with a paternal affection, the attraction that one who begets beauty by means of self-sacrifice [a writer] feels for one who is inherently beautiful." And "Was it not common knowledge that the sun diverts our attention from the intellectual to the sensual? It benumbs and bewitches both reason and memory such that the soul in its elation quite forgets its true nature and clings with rapt delight to the fairest of sun-drenched objects, nay, only with the aid of the corporeal can it ascend to more lofty considerations."
Once von Aschenbach accepts the fact that he is in love with the idea of Tadzio he sets about to quash rumors of the threat that cholera is invading Venice to keep his Polish lad from leaving the city (and von Aschenbach) with his family. "Thus the addled traveler could no longer think or care about anything but pursuing unrelentingly the object that had so inflamed him, dreaming of him in his absence, and, as is the lover's wont, speaking tender words to his mere shadow. Loneliness, the foreign environment, and the joy of a belated and profound exhilaration prompted him, persuaded him to indulge without shame or remorse in the most distasteful behavior, as when returning from Venice [to the Lido] late one evening he had paused at the beautiful boy's door on the second floor of the hotel and pressed his forehead against the hinge in drunken rapture, unable to tear himself away even at the risk of being discovered and caught."
Has Heim 'changed' Mann's story in to a more titillating one? No, indeed not! But he has rescued it from the mere Apollonian/Dionysian rhetoric with which other translations have cloaked the sensual aspects of the story. Here von Aschenbach becomes a fully three-dimensional character, one whose life up to the entry into Venice is understood and appreciated as a writer of brilliance, and one whose epiphany of the Eros submerged in this intellectual psyche blossoms in the most credible, tender way that far from being transformed into a 'pedophile', he is instead in that wondrous plane where awakened emotions of love and longing dwell.
Michael Cunningham has written a beautiful introduction to this new translation and, as we have come to expect from this contemporary gifted man of letters, his words are warm and befitting his admiration for this work by Thomas Mann. This is a book to be read and read again, and should you have other versions of DEATH IN VENICE in your library, that is all the more reason to pleasure your mind with the genius of this translation. Highly recommended!

These short stories and the novella "Death in Venice" are a mini course in Thomas Mann. His themes and style are in miniature, because Thomas Mann may be an acquired taste in literature. He himself admitted that he had great difficulty knowing when to stop. Buddenbrooks, his autobiographically-based novel of a Northern German merchant family before WWI was supposed to be a short book of about 250 pages, like a Scandinavian novel. Well, it is far, far longer, and if you like Mann, you are glad of it. But to start, this book is probably the best one to get to know Mann.

Tackling The Magic Mountain, with its long philosophical discourses, or other Mann novels is a lot easier if you begin with these short works. (Short is relative; Death in Venice was supposed to be a short story and ended up, predictably, a novella.) The themes in these works show up again in Mann's other writings; Tristan in particular, is a sketch for The Magic Mountain (thumbnail sketch, to be sure.) Tonio Kroger resembles Buddenbrooks in the autobiographical details and setting. The theme of sexual perversion and decadence heading to destruction (supposedly a metaphor for the society of pre-war Germany) appear in both Death in Venice and Blood of the Walsungs.

If you are new to Thomas Mann, these works are a wonderful place to start. If you grow to love his writing, re-reading these is always a pleasure.

For those legions of readers who consider Thomas Mann's DEATH IN VENICE one of the pinnacles of 20th Century literature, welcome to the feast! Michael Henry Heim has restudied and again translated this brief but poignant novella with an English version more in tune with Mann's novella and certainly, finally free from all the societal homophobic restrictions that have shrouded previous translations. This is the tale of a writer - Gustav von Aschenbach - in his fifties who feels the need for exotic travels to break his writer's block, and after many aborted attempts to find the right place, comes to Venice and not only falls under its spell but also finds his sublimated desires for pure beauty as focused on young men awakened in his encounter with the young Polish boy Tadzio. This story has been translated into other languages, transformed into film by Luchino Visconti and made into the last opera of Sir Benjamin Britten. But though the simple story has captivated our minds for many years, it has never been presented in so eloquent a fashion as in this Heim translation. To wit: "On a personal level, too, art is life intensified: it delights more deeply, consumes more rapidly; it engraves the traces of imaginary and intellectual adventure on the countenance of its servant and in the long run, for all the monastic calm of his external existence, leads to self-indulgence, over refinement, lethargy, and a restless curiosity that a lifetime of wild passions and pleasures could scarcely engender." When he first encounters Tadzio "...he was infused with a paternal affection, the attraction that one who begets beauty by means of self-sacrifice [a writer] feels for one who is inherently beautiful." And "Was it not common knowledge that the sun diverts our attention from the intellectual to the sensual? It benumbs and bewitches both reason and memory such that the soul in its elation quite forgets its true nature and clings with rapt delight to the fairest of sun-drenched objects, nay, only with the aid of the corporeal can it ascend to more lofty considerations."
Once von Aschenbach accepts the fact that he is in love with the idea of Tadzio he sets about to quash rumors of the threat that cholera is invading Venice to keep his Polish lad from leaving the city (and von Aschenbach) with his family. "Thus the addled traveler could no longer think or care about anything but pursuing unrelentingly the object that had so inflamed him, dreaming of him in his absence, and, as is the lover's wont, speaking tender words to his mere shadow. Loneliness, the foreign environment, and the joy of a belated and profound exhilaration prompted him, persuaded him to indulge without shame or remorse in the most distasteful behavior, as when returning from Venice [to the Lido] late one evening he had paused at the beautiful boy's door on the second floor of the hotel and pressed his forehead against the hinge in drunken rapture, unable to tear himself away even at the risk of being discovered and caught."
Has Heim 'changed' Mann's story in to a more titillating one? No, indeed not! But he has rescued it from the mere Apollonian/Dionysian rhetoric with which other translations have cloaked the sensual aspects of the story. Here von Aschenbach becomes a fully three-dimensional character, one whose life up to the entry into Venice is understood and appreciated as a writer of brilliance, and one whose epiphany of the Eros submerged in this intellectual psyche blossoms in the most credible, tender way that far from being transformed into a 'pedophile', he is instead in that wondrous plane where awakened emotions of love and longing dwell.
Michael Cunningham has written a beautiful introduction to this new translation and, as we have come to expect from this contemporary gifted man of letters, his words are warm and befitting his admiration for this work by Thomas Mann. This is a book to be read and read again, and should you have other versions of DEATH IN VENICE in your library, that is all the more reason to pleasure your mind with the genius of this translation. Highly recommended!

"Death in Venice" is so many wondrous treasures. It is the sound of a great heart breaking. And the search for beauty which is the sensuous pathway to something beyond us that enriches and restores. It is the aloof serene study of regalness and Tadzio who is blessed or cursed with being more than the other boys.. It is a soft claret smile in the middle of autumn harvest. It is the need to find direction to something more than stasis. It is sublime and fine. It is thoughtful and singing, as it gets inside the bones, as it soars above a world of plague and access denied. It is about giving up everything, literally, to watch a godling on the shore point the way to heaven. Tadzio and Von Aschenbach share so much in simply only their gazes at each other. A tossing of soft words inside. All that is needed.. The heart that does not want to touch too closely to beauty of Tadzio, or Tadzio touching too closely to beauty of himself. For it would spoil the romance. It would make of their shared unknown secret all the drowsy leaves cleared from the beaches of one's youth, denying the presaging of one's age, and saying everything is in a straight line. Cause and effect are all. Which is not so.
"Death in Venice," with no sexual passages, has supreme sexuality. Sensuousness. Delirious feasts at the molten center of everything. It is a sinecure that was struck into a prosaic world in the early part of the last century. It is sun umbrellas and long dining halls and eyes secretly turned toward the only reason for life, and mist and dank smelling Venice canals. It is doom messenger and prognosticator of the stars that seem to have been residing in a timeless golden boy all along, stirring inside himself, he not knowing how to handle it, other than to be a young frail god come from the sea, housed in perfection that is flawed only by poor teeth that Von Aschenbach notes means the boy shall not
live long, and there is shameful comfort for the man in that. "Death in Venice" is the pure sweet long note of love, the kind that Von Aschenbach has been using to call down through his life, even when he did not know the ultimate poetry in him was to reside in this last hope, cast as a sun bronzed boy beamed into the existence
of a man who remembers, in a newly familiar way, his own childhood, and stirs the flames of it, making it complete somehow, at long last.
Von Aschenbach, sitting in a beach chair, alone, so close to Tadzio, alone, and writing of beauty, of Greek myths, of a lad loved by jealous gods, of all the magicality that a mind in limbo, in tiredness of selling his early talent to be packaged in boxes, now sees this boy inside his own mind, sees the fine clean limbs, the perfect arrangement of them in standing and walking and being, the proud head of Tadzio turned just so, sees all those dreams which he tempered and denied and flattened and hid and thought the worth of a man was in what he could twist into something that was not. Von Aschenbach, so musing that the reading public should not know what goes into creation of a work, of this man lost in delirium, in the need to remake his life, to paint himself up with wax and curled hair and the unnecessary beads, like those of that mad clown who he has seen so terribly terrifyingly up close. And in cholera ridden Venice, he comes to death as he did once to life. With forlorn joy. To press his head against Tadzio's closed room door. To warn, if he could, the boy never to smile at him or anyone that smile that is of a lad looking into his own forest well of the ultimate sun. To strain the wings of eternity and to rush to it willingly, renouncing fog and dense conjecture left on a far horizon like a black cloud brackish and unwanted ever again
"Death in Venice" is precise, mystical, dizzying in its complexities. The stately comely song of man and it comes out giddy and filled with opera and huzzahs and such bleeding sadness that it has taken this long for Von Aschenbach to piece together the strands and mosaics that he knew all along, all this time, without knowing. It is presentment and miracle. It is Thomas Mann's grandiloquent usage of the words that heads devise and that hearts hold in trust. There is much in Tadzio and Von Aschenbach that compliment each other. Artistically. Beatifically. Angelically. Tadzio, out of his time, on the wrong planet, fought with by another boy, his servant, tossed to the ground, this godlet, by the boy who must hate him for a million known and unknown reasons. Then giving Tadzio mercy and letting him free, so Tadzio might do the same for Von Aschenbach. The boy of Von Aschenbach's conch shell corridors shows the man what Tadzio might not understand at all, that he is the pathway of a God in some other place unknown before by anyone, and still unknown, a more than human song pointing the way for Von Aschenbach out of life into a tomorrow of sleep and comfort, and home to a dying man, where one might need never fear and be unsure or have to explain himself to covert eyes that would never even try to understand, ever again.. Do they then touch, in another land less convoluted, with no sickness scourging? Yes! Gold calls to gold and the beloved, Mann writes, is less a being of wisdom and desire, than the one who beloves him. Reality trembles and a great slow sepia colored afternoon of late massively hot summer in a place strange and faraway thus dies.

Aschenbach, an ageing, ascetic author makes up his mind to visit Venice in the hope of encountering "distant scenes". There he becomes wildly infatuated with a fourteen-year-old Polish boy, the Hyacinth of myth, named Tazio. The narrative centres around the fumbling and pathetic attempts made by the protagonist to address the object of his love, eventually resulting in the death of the aged Aschenbach. Mann seems interested in establishing parallels between Aschenbach's condition and the ideals of classical antiquity, as the substantial [mis]-quotations from Plato's "Phaedrus" make clear. However, the story lends itself to other interpretations, such as the asethetics of Nietzsche, with its duality of "Apollinism" and "Dionysism", of which Mann was a fervent disciple. Aschenbach's dignified, ordered, rational, harmonious, Apolline existence can be read as being ruptured by the irrational force of the Dionysian, the instinct of intoxication and self-destructive excess. Similarly, Mann's portrayal of Aschenbach's infatuation with Tazio can be interpreted along Freudian lines. What of the scene in which Aschenbach is set to leave Venice but loses his bags, then returns and it is only *after* the fact that he discovers the real reason for his return? This is clearly a dramatisation of what Freud terms neurosis, the conflict between an unconscious desire and a prohibitive command of the conscious. The elevated, detached, "objective" style shows Mann to have been committed to the classical paradigms of narrative and composition and, in this respect, he invites comparison with Flaubert.

dreaming of having a literary life in emotional response to events, music, and eldritch wider happenstance, I appreciate the line in one of the stories:

His existence will be a little less trivial,
from now on.

Thomas Mann wrote one of the most beautiful novels ever. `Death in Venice' is short but it has more depth that many novels with hundred of pages. By the way, the conciseness is a great value of this little jewel.
The most important thing in this narrative is the development of Gustav von Aschenbach, the protagonist. And Mann does succed in doing that. Once he was a famous writer that is now decadent. He goes to Venice, where he expects to have a great time and relax. Little did he know that he would find a great obsession that would bring up the worst in him.
Aschenbach's passion and obsession is not the one we usually think of. There is not a sexual attraction to the teenager Tadzio, the protagonist is much more concerned on the beauty and its aesthetic rather than what we would call love.
Mann's prose is slow going, but very beautiful what makes the book so worthwhile reading. His descriptions bring to the pages the best of Venice, and the more we appreciate the city, the less we like Aschenbach. His decadent story may be depressive, but it iluminates many issues --mostly the ones about love, beauty and obessession.
There is a film version of `Death in Venice' that is quite close to the novella. Both book and movie are very beautiful and high recommended to people who like great literature and cinema.

A writer who undertakes to translate a complicated and nuanced work by an acknowledged literary master puts himself into an unenviable position, especially should the work have already been previously translated by another and be considered definitive. And yet Heim's update on the classic Lowe-Porter translation has made Mann's Aschenbach more fully human, more tragic and less comic, still every bit as pompous and self-justifying, more insidiously real. It's a triumph of the translator's art.

To me, anyhow, Mann's book has always been at least as much about the language, the inner self-talk of Aschenbach, as it has been about the story line or plot. It is fascinating to see how the author enters the mind of a man who has spent his life in rigid self-denial, self-deception really, and slowly - and not without considerable struggle from his ego against it - expands his consciousness. By book's end Aschenbach has not only found himself, he can no longer deny himself, he accepts himself as he is and then of course he dies. The journey he undertakes - not just from serious and constricted Germany to a holiday resort on the Lido in Venice, but from stuffy and self-important man living a lie, a life of 'despites', to allowing himself to be fully conscious of one true emotion and impulse and allowing it, even willing it to take him entirely over, to free him from himself, is the thing.

Well, it's a spellbinding book, and one which rewards close rereading.

An obsessive, unfulfilled passion is at the heart of Thomas Mann's classic 1912 novella, and Michael Henry Heim's 2003 translation liberates the homoerotic elements of Mann's sometimes dense prose to make the main character more accessible to contemporary readers. Heim succeeds in bringing the story out of the academic cobwebs. The plot is light on action, as it focuses squarely on middle-aged Prussian novelist Gustav von Aschenbach as he pursues his passion for Tadzio, a young Polish boy on vacation with his family in Venice. Past his peak as a successful writer and facing his fast-approaching mortality, von Aschenbach sees Tadzio as a symbol of his own faded youth and of attractions that were never made reality in his fifty-plus years. The writer is in the middle of a book about Frederick the Great when he arrives in the sweltering heat of Venice where there is an Asiatic cholera breakout.

Although the more literal interpretation of von Aschenbach's constant pursuit can be seen as wanton lust, the real undercurrent that Mann provides is the writer's self-validation as an artist. Toward that end, Mann has his protagonist look at Tadzio as an object of irreproachable beauty, something that fulfills his need to get reacquainted with his artistic integrity. Heim's translation allows the story to get past the titillation factor into what comes across almost like a ghost story given that von Aschenbach never touches or even speaks to Tadzio. There is a sense that something transcendent will occur toward the end, but it becomes a race against time to see if von Aschenbach's fever dream becomes tangible. Mann's struggles with his own sexuality are palpable on these pages, but so is his emotional distance from the character's passions. It's this concurrent dichotomy in perspective that makes this book a classic and not something to be relegated simply to the gay fiction shelves at the bookstore. Novelist Michael Cunningham ("The Hours", "Specimen Days") wrote the introduction to the 2003 Heim edition.

A famous German writer, Gustav von Aschenbach, a lonely intellectual, goes to the Lido in Venice to escape from his depressing, repetitive existence. In the luxurious Hotel des Bains where Mann wrote and set his story, Aschenbach sees a Polish family that has a fourteen year old boy who is a beauty, a work of art.
Having seen the hotel in my visit to Venice in November of 2007, I was anxious to reread the novella. I must say that I was disappointed. At times the story is like a philosophical treatise, essayistic, more abstract with less narrative drive than a fictional work usually possesses. The story gets bogged down at crucial junctures although the narrative velocity does accelerate and heighten toward the end.
The story is subtle, ambiguous, indeed murky at times. Bear in mind as you read that the book was written in 1913; it is not about a simple sexual attraction or licentiousness. The story is multi-leveled, a philosophical quest and pursuit of the ideal of beauty. The book is not an easy read with its mythological references, digressions, and overwrought prose style.
The city is infested; Aschenbach's brain is infected with thoughts of the boy Tadzio. The manner in which Mann describes the growing pestilence and the decay in the city and the conspiracy of silence by the merchants afraid to scare away the tourists is richly evocative, very well crafted. It is an overheated atmosphere and foul air is being brought by the sirocco, the wind coming in from Africa. The writer makes every preparation to leave after being told to do so, but it is the vision of the boy that draws him back. He is completely under a spell.
Aschenbach wants to get his own youth back; he has his hair dyed and curled, and wears lipstick and jewelry. The boy is aware of him, but does not flirt with him nor try to entice him. The vitality of the youth is in stark contrast to the writer's psychological impotence and physical decline.
Some readers may see in it a tragedy, but it is more akin to pathos. We never see Tadzio's inner persona; he is the person seen and admired from the writer's perspective for his godlike beauty, and that is an advantage. Aschenbach arrived in the Lido in a black coffin-like gondola, so we have a feeling that this trip to the Lido is going to be a transcendent journey for the artist.

Gustav von Aschenbach is an aging writer, feeling the pangs of literary pressure and exhaustion. He has devoted his life to cultivating an image of utmost propriety and literary superiority but now seeks a respite from the anxiety of others' (and his own) expectations. Thus, he travels to (where else) Venice, Italy - where he can relax on the scenic shores of the Mediterranean. Aschenbach discovers a young boy, the epitome of youthful beauty, who first peaks the artistic sympathies of the writer, but soon enraptures him completely. Aschenbach, whose health (along with the boy, Tadzio's, and the city of Venice's) steadily declines, sees in Tadzio something lost and something sought after. The writer realizes that he has spent so much time with literary perfection -with research and analysis - that he has lost the true meaning of the art form: a pursuit of pure beauty. He finds this in Tadzio and therefore becomes enthralled. Mann's purpose does not seem to be subversive; instead, he is pointing out an element of the human condition which is constant in both its presence and its denial - the unrequited love and lust for the aging toward the youthful. The motive is not at all pedophilic, as some might suggest. Instead, it seems that Mann is simply pointing out the terrors of aging, and the almost deified, nostalgic respect we have for the youthful. The reader sees Aschenbach struggle with his appreciation for and jealousy of Tadzio's youth and beauty. Aschenbach tries to recover some of his own lost youth by dying his hair and pampering his face - hiding his wrinkles; but, the absurdity of the "cover-up" is amplified by Aschenbach's demise. That Tadzio remains beautiful despite his own illness seems almost a coy taunt towards age, whose ability to defeat and/or recover from illness is far less than the youthful's. Tadzio has no fear of playing in the water or wrestling with his friends, even amongst an outbreak of cholera; in contrast, the adults eagerly avoid the subject - and one another- in hopes of containing the disease and saving themselves from it. While there are homosexual elements to the story (Tadzio and Aschenbach obviously have a certain understanding of one another - if not equally in lust with one another, certainly understanding of the others' appreciation), the major theme is the artistic beauty of youth and vitality, which overpowers even the most strict and acetic of personalities. That Aschenbach is willing to give himself up to the spreading epidemic simply to be in Tadzio's presence (it is pointed out that, had the Polish family left, Aschenbach too would have gone away) reminds us that Aschenbach is greatly affected by the boy's perfection. It is almost as if Aschenbach has discovered his own Dorian Gray and, like Basil Hallward, Aschenbach soon loses himself to his own creation. Really, a beautiful read - one which speaks to the self-conscious, envious elements in each of us.

Mann's prose can be very pedantic (though never outright 'difficult') he spells out his theorizations about art, lust, eros what have you, with the same exhaustive attention to detail that you usually get more from people like Hegel, Kant, Herder, etc. Like lots of Teutonic writer's before him, he wants to create and populate his own world of ideas more than he wants to pay rent to live in someone elses. Whether you like it or not, it's the sort of intellectually ambitious, classical reference name-checking which helped usher in modernist fiction. And hey, it'll make you terrified of water gondolas.

I liked and disliked this book. Mann has his character, Aschenbach, preach a little more than I like, preaching his thoughts about beauty and writing and control. That's what I disliked. For the first third of the book, I could barely force myself to keep reading. Then Aschenbach falls in love and begins to tail the object of his affection all over Venice. The story takes a different turn and the writing moves from a rant about virtue to a real story. Venice is beautifully depicted and Aschenbach becomes a real, brilliant, tortured human being. That's what I liked.

What is not to be completely speechless with? This is the story of "a gray haired man" and his unusual, distant passion for a young boy. The descriptions of the setting are great. We get into the head of the main character in a brilliant manner as only Thomas Mann could take us. Astounding!!! As readers, ourselves, we experience the conflict, the desire, the overtaking of reason, and, the cost. This is one of the 50 books that ought to be read by every thinking person. The topic isn't for everyone, but, for those who can accept the topic, the writing on his obsession is magnificent!!! A++. Highly recommended.

Each of these "stories" (several are in fact novellas) are absolutely captivating. Mann had the extraordinary gift of understanding the silent drama in an individual's mind and of articulating it in a way that is at once fascinatingly distant and eerily familiar. His characters experience all sorts of love: the heated conflict of incestuous or pedophiliac desires, the tacit compassion between man and dog, the distanced empathy of familial bonds, and even the maddening attraction to love itself. In many ways the stories are thematically parallel to those of W. Somerset Maugham, though darker and perhaps even more intimate. I can only assume that Lowe-Porter's translation is true to form because the choice of diction is always spot-on and the syntax is consistently eloquent. I cannot imagine that the original could surpass the florid yet forceful style of this translation. To crown it all, the book even looks and feels beautiful with thick, sturdy pages and a heavy matte cover.

In sum, this book is a masterpiece in all aspects. It deserves a place on every bookshelf.

The powerful forces of infatuation can make us behave irrationally and make us committ follies which we don't normally with a sane mind. Our hero would not leave a plague stricken Venice even when he had the chance but rather risk his life to gaze one moment longer at the sweet face of his infatuation. Perhaps life was not worth prolonging if he was deprived of those moments of thrill brought on by the paralysing feelings of love even it was one sided and from a distance.