Death in Venice by Thomas Mann Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Death in Venice
Book Review: Didn't much like it
Summary: 3 Stars
I understand the obsession with beauty and the fact that he never even touched his object of desire. What I didn't like about it was that I couldn't identify with the character and had a hard time getting into his head. Maybe when it was written it was groundbreaking, but this type of work has been done since and been done better.Book Review: Disappointing Little Story
Summary: 3 Stars
For being such a lauded book, DEATH IN VENICE sure is dreadful. I admire the structure of the book, how it begins stringent and disciplined like Aschenbach, and like Aschenbach, "waxes rhapsody" as it progresses further into the uncontrollable, the passionate; from the Apollonian to the Dionysian. How tragic it is to read Aschenbach's story: he cannot help but yearn for something impossible, something that seems to be brought upon by a hidden tormentor, the red-headed gentleman who appears myriad times. How entertaining it is to determine how reliable our narrator is concerning Tadzio's commiserate attitude. Some lines are even admirable: "It would lead him back, restore him to himself, but there is nothing so distasteful as being restored to oneself when one is beside oneself."
Yet, pardon, certain mistakes are unpardonable. Yes, I could describe long passages, dissect motivations, or dismiss events, but why do so if one sentence displays what my principle criticism is against Mann's work? "What one saw when one looked into the world narrated by Aschenbach was elegant self-possession concealing inner dissolution and biological decay from the eyes of the world until the eleventh hour; a sallow, sensually destitute ugliness capable of fanning its smoldering lust into a pure flame, indeed, of rising to sovereignty in the realm of beauty; pallid impotence probing the incandescent depths of the mind for the strength to cast an entire supercilious people at the foot of the cross, at THEIR feet; an obliging manner in the empty, punctilious service of form; the life, false and dangerous, and the swiftly enervating desires and art of the born deceiver."
I am not certain if I should punish Thomas Mann or Michael Henry Heim, the translator. One of the two, maybe both, would make horrid directors; they would use expensive effects when none would be needed, needlessly hire renown actors when the part called for somebody anonymous. The alacrity this book shows with wasting words is its biggest accomplishment. Why use the large words heedlessly? As a rule, a writer should only use the correct word, not the impressive one. If it does not add rhythm to a sentence, highlight a subtlety, or even save a word for later use when it can serve a paragraph better, why use it but to be an intellectual? It is the problem I have with writers considering themselves artists: they do not do it artfully. This is the first story I've read by Thomas Mann and I was exceedingly disappointed.
Book Review: Great Prose. Creepy Content
Summary: 3 Stars
Perhaps it is the beautiful writing and the setting that makes this a classic. It's content, at least to this modern reader, is creepy. I read with a Lit and Flick group which discussed it in conjunction with Visconti's 1971 film Death in Venice.
The protagonist, Auremback, a late career successful writer travels to Venice where he fixates on a 13 year old boy who is vacationing with his family of aristocrats from Poland. The family consists of 3 plainly dressed closely supervised sisters, the governess who watches over the sisters and a cold regal mother - a true grande dame. The boy, Tadzio, goes about playing by the sea as 13 year old boys do, totally unaware of the older man's fixation.
There are rumors of cholera in Venice, and Auremback watches for signs of it. As number of hotel guests gets smaller and smaller Auremback has an easier time in finding Tadzio on the beach, in the dining hall or on the city streets.
The Viscounti film made Auremback's stalking a bit more palatable by shaving years off him and adding a few to Tadzio. The most grotesque scene where a lovesick and desperate Aurembach hires a gondola to follow the 13 year old is omitted. Also, to soften the content in the film, Tadzio, seems to like the attention and smiles back at his admirer.
The book's descriptions of the hotel, the clothing, the dining and the dull passtimes on the beach are beautifully written. This wonderful prose stands in contrast to the seamy character and situation depicted.
Mann keeps you guessing as to who's death you're anticipating.
The book, strangely, is based on a real encounter of the author when he traveled to Venice with his wife. His trip and the book it inspired belong to a dying way of life. Unbeknownst to Mann and the overdressed aristocrats on the beach, this would be one of their last summers to "frolic" in this way.
Book Review: My first time reading it at 23....
Summary: 4 Stars
i literally finished this book in half a day. I could not put it down or get it out of my head. Quite simply, one of the best novels I have EVER read. Every word sticks, the body is transported to another world and then at the last page, brings you back into cold, harsh reality, breathless.
The only complaint i have is this:
I read the introduction first and it ruined the ending for me.
If this is your first time reading this, DO NOT READ THE INTRO!!!!
I have no idea WHY they put that intro in first. STUPID.
Thanks for somewhat but not, ruining a glorious conclusion!
Book Review: Superb Translation of a Novella That Seamlessly Blends Obsession With Artistic Integrity
Summary: 5 Stars
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.