Death in Venice Summary and Reviews

Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann

Death in Venice
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Book Summary Information

Author: Thomas Mann
Translator: Michael Henry Heim
Introduction: Michael Cunningham
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-05-31
ISBN: 0060576170
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Harper Perennial

Book Reviews of Death in Venice

Book Review: Yawn...Pedophilic with no redeeming qualities
Summary: 2 Stars

There is a running joke within myself that whenever I am in a tiresome situation, I would say, "You know, I feel like Dirk Bogarde at the end of the movie." Well, yeah...ironically, that's how I felt the same when I was reading the book Death in Venice, especially in the last twenty pages or so. I did see the movie and found it lacking in details. There were too many of unexplained moments that had me peeved, so I dismissed the movie as an artificial exercise of the intelligence. While browsing around at a used bookstore, I was surprised that there was a novel before the movie was made. My hope was to gain more insight about the main character Gustave von Aschenbach and the motives behind his obsession. While reading the book, I felt overwhelmed by several aspects drawn out by the author. One is that he wasted too many pages when describing Gustave. Two is he tends to go off a tangent with his philosophical statements. I kept waiting until he got back to the main character and his actions. I would say more aptly, his writing tends to become purple prose in disguise. Three is that the writer is stuck in the moment for a prolonged period of time before moving on. In the end, I didn't learn anything new or discover very much. In the movie, I was confused if it was a plague in Venice, but in the book, there are three explanations: sirocco (but not really), cholera, and plague. The bottom line is that Gustave von Aschenbach is a newborn pedophilic, and that sort of thing doesn't interest me. I would say that Death in Venice is much like Lolita but in a different league. All in all, Death in Venice isn't worth reading because nothing seems to happen, and there isn't much difference between the book and the movie.

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