Better every time I read it. ( )

Here's what I wrote in 2015 about this read: "A novella, considered one of his best works, including by Thomas Mann. Older man falls in in-fatuation with classically beautiful teen boy while vacationing in Venice. Death comes to Venice and to him." Quotations in the comments section are my exact kindle highlights. ( )

I've never quite been on board with high modernism. No one is ever allowed to just feel something, every aspect of our emotional lives has to be treated with a great deal of gravity and earnestness. I can relate to the sudden desire to travel, to escape, to experience the exotic, but it's just as often a passing fancy as some profound shift that needs to be explored in depth. And while the urge may be prompted by the sign of a funny-looking red headed dude, I tend to think it's been percolating through my subconscious for a while and this is the moment that it reaches the conscious. It doesn't match my own experience that the sight of someone beautiful could suddenly reveal something that was dormant for so long.

Nevertheless, there is still plenty to enjoy in this short book. Mann's brutal description of Gustav Aschenbach is compelling and is so obviously a disgusted assessment of the author's own worst characteristics that it's heart-wrenching and appalling at the same time. The prose shines in the sections where the action is unfolding or Aschenbach is undergoing some character development, but there are some sections where nothing seems to happen, even on the most abstract level and the prose is somewhat murky and dull.

Summary: If you love reading about exaltation, you're going to love Death in Venice. ( )

Gustav von Aschenbach, en disciplinerad diktare med höga ideal, far på semester till Venedig. Där blir han oemotståndligt tjusad av en vacker fjortonårig pojke. Hans personliga förfall och lystenhet tilltar i takt med en epidemi som grasserar i staden.

Death in Venice is a novella written by German author, Thomas Mann. It was first published in 1912. It is a story about a writer who is suffering from writer’s block. He visits Venice and finds himself liberated, uplifted and then obsessed by the sight of a beautiful boy. Though he never actually speaks to the boy, or has any contact whatsoever, the writer feels a great passion. This obsession that he feels distracts him from the fact that rumors have begun to circulate about a disease that is spreading through the city.

Although a slim volume, Death in Venice is far from light reading. Strangely decadent and uncomfortable yet beautifully written the author uses the contrast between the young boy and the elderly author to symbolize the variation between youth and old age, as well as external and internal beauty and, of course, life and death. This symbolic story definitely held my attention but I felt myself more drawn to his writing style than to the story itself. ( )

This is my first experience of Thomas Mann and I am staggered by how much he can pack into a book that I would term more a novella than a novel. First off, nobody would accuse Mann of not being intellectual enough. I stopped several times to ponder the classical allusions that were scattered throughout the story, some of them obvious references and some of them so subtle that they might easily escape your notice. None of them irrelevant, however; all contributing something to the meaning and understanding of the story and most foreshadowing the outcome.

The strange conveyance, handed down without any change from days of yore, and so peculiarly black--the only other thing that black is a coffin--recalls hushed criminal adventures in the night, accompanied only by the quiet splashing of water; even more, it recalls death itself, the bier and the dismal funeral and the final taciturn passage. And have you observed that the seat in such a boat, that armchair painted black like a coffin and upholstered in a dull black, is the softest, most luxurious and enervating seat in the world?

What a visceral writer he is! Once he engaged me, he kept me to the end, which was one of the finest endings I could imagine. I would caution other readers that the start of this is extremely laborious and slow. It provides information that is essential to understanding this man and his ramblings, but I had to push through the first two chapters. Once Aschenbach makes the decision to go to Venice, the writing begins to flow.

There is a predatory element to this novel that makes the reader cringe. Unlike the perversion in Lolita, this perversion is kept in the right perspective for me; the child is innocent and there is no pretense that there is anything pure or acceptable about the thoughts of this old man.

There are numerous themes running through this novel. The irony of a man who criticizes others for faults he so obviously shares; the contrast between youth and old age, innocence and corruption; the presence of death in the midst of life; and the corrosive nature of self-importance. It is a novel that begs to be dissected with a scalpel. Can’t say I “enjoyed” it, but I do think it is an important piece of literature that conjure up Poe’s Mask of the Red Death and Wilde’s Portrait of Dorian Grey for me. ( )

It is a fantastic novella with a very sensitive plot. The author gives the characters complex psychological and philosophical elements. At the same time, it's an enjoyable story to read and share. ( )

The short novel, Death In Venice, is a magnificent work of literature. Clocking in at about 3 hours, the audio version helped me appreciate its quality.

Simon Callow is the narrator of this particular release. His narration has been strongly criticized by a reviewer at Amazon (Enobarbus) as follows: Callow reads at a brusque, unrelenting pace and in such a monochrome register that Mann's rich poetry is reduced to functional prose.... Most of the time, Callow rattles along, deaf to the implications of what he's reading, like someone hurrying to a much more congenial engagement and mildly irritated that he must first plough through so many words. .. for the most part, listening to this reading is rather like hearing a Beethoven symphony delivered at an insensitive gallop, as if the producer is under orders to economize on recording time. I find this criticism apt.

While several internet sites offer audio excerpts of this particular release, the audio excerpts are limited to the introduction by a different reader; thus there's no way to preview Callow's narration. However, readers can easily enough find other audio versions, should they seek to listen to this work of literature ( )

My first foray into the work of Thomas Mann has been Death in Venice and other stories (Vintage Classics). I have been meaning to investigate since enjoying Colm Toíbín’s wonderful The Magician recently; this book of short stories seemed an accessible entry point and the translation from the original German by David Luke has been much lauded. Mann manages to paint lavish pictures with his extraordinary descriptive powers when not a lot may be happening in the tale he is telling. From the first short story, Little Herr Friedman to the almost novella length title story, the power of truly masterful writing is always evident. The growing obsession of Gustav von Aschenbach for the beautiful Polish boy, staying in the same hotel with his family, is disturbing in its ever-increasing intensity. I think I need a break before I dive into another Mann trap. ( )

Is it a masterpiece or pretentious intellectual rambling? The answer to this question ultimately comes down to whether one can recognize the meaning that the writer tries to convey, especially with books like these which tend to lose itself in references and literary hints. For me the child-obsession in this book didn't work, actually it got on my nerves pretty quickly. The protagonist is truely an annoying, posing fellow (perhaps made so on purpose by Mann) and this makes the sTory of his death completely irrelevant to me. Mann gets to show his talent as a writer, by describing some scenery in extraordinary detail, but the plot and characters didn't interest me at all. This makes the book a well-written piece of intellectual bodybuilding to me. ( )

Another classic book I felt I should read... Well, I read it. And you can get the same emotional impact by reading the Wikipedia article. ( )

An interesting book rife with metaphors, this is a more cerebral read - meaning that there is not much dialogue or action. Much of the book explores von Aschenbach's thought processes and internal emotional struggles. Von Aschenbach is a successful writer who lives an ascetic lifestyle in Munich. He is a widower and his life is highly structured - a fact that he believes is essential to his success as a writer. But one day he has an epiphany and takes trip. He ends up in Venice where he finds himself attracted to a young boy, Tadzio. His attraction is an inspiration to his writing which begs the question does artistic creation flow from disciplined organization or passionate emotions? This is one of the main themes that intrigued me. The book is steeped in irony and perhaps the sublime irony is that while he never actually acts on his impulses they cause him to stay even when there is an outbreak of contagion (denied by many residents of the city even as the death toll mounts). Von Aschenbach eventually succumbs to the disease. While he finds inspiration watching Tadzio, he is too proper to act on his impulses and they go unfulfilled. A very deep book with lots of symbolism. ( )

Creepy and disturbing like a fever dream, as infection encroaches on the city and corruption on the protagonist's soul with the same icky stench.

Also, weird book to read during a pandemic! deeply upsetting and grimly funny at the same time? All this stuff about how the authorities are trying to hush up the situation so as not to spook the tourists, and the numbers of sick and dead are printed in the newspapers every morning, but the numbers shift around and are unreliable, and some people are saying the problem is being overblown, and the government is trying to put public health measures in place, but no one is sure if they are effective, and the people are uncooperative because they are worried about their businesses suffering...

https://donut-donut.dreamwidth.org/828141.html ( )

For all the potential intrigue of this novel, I found it slightly underwhelming. The protagonist - an author past his prime - indulges his own whims and obsessions even with the claim at the outset of the story of being an industrious artisan of extreme discipline. I’m not sure if the theory of the mid-life crisis was an identified theme pre-WWI, but Thomas Mann has clearly tapped into the essence of the middle-aged man who reaches his peak achievement in life (in Gusdtav’s case, he has gained literary fame and has built a stable life for himself) and then throws everything away for want of knowing what to do with himself. Going on a summer jaunt to Venice is not really our traveller’s crime here, but I can’t see his obsession with the Polish boy, Tadzio, as anything other than a kind of sick mania. Gustav is a widower, so his emotional latching on to the sickly youth is clearly at odds with his “normative” lifestyle and his stalking behaviour is an engagement that flirts very directly with danger. At the climax of the novel, which I view as his discovery of the truth about the cholera epidemic, does nothing to halt his rash behaviour. It is only with his death - once again staring out at the boy who has come to rule his life - that the reader is brought to any sort of ending, even though it does not seem to fit the building of the narrative. Is Mann a critic of Gustav? Or does he prefer the romanticism of dying with one’s life’s goals unattained, but steeped in passion? It is an odd ending to a strange story, and seems to bring the reader back to the centre of the narrative, as we are kept perpetually waiting for Tadzio’s true reaction to his stalker’s affections. ( )

My second book from Thomas Mann and another amazing story written in one of the best german I have read in a long time. It feels that this was written at an even higher and more complex level than Buddenbrocks. Short and wonderful. A must read. ( )

Bonita prosa, mucha simbologia, en especial relativa a mitologia griega, he dicho que la prosa es muy bonita?

Parece que tiene todo lo que me gustaria en un libro pero por otro lado me daba la sensacion de que lo estaba intentando demasiado sin tener realmente un gran transfondo. No importa realmente lo que la mayoria de los personajes piensan, supongo que solo queria hablar de una cosa en concreto hacerlo de forma bella y simbolica.
Yo creo que es un exito en este sentido y entiendo que a mucha gente le encante este libro, pero no consiguio conectar conmigo. ( )

Quite hard to read, almost all passages I have to re-read in order to grasp the meaning and sometimes I am not sure I understood. Nevertheless, the descriptions of Gustav Aschenbach's feelings towards Tadzio and his struggles are exquisite and well worth a read. ( )

Think Lolita but add in some hints of the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy. Strange, but great to analyze. ( )

Sprachlich ein Genuss zu lesen, doch das Ende war mir zu unerwartet und etwas unverständlich. ( )

I remember reading "Buddenbrooks" in high school and didn’t enjoy it. However, after reading "Death in Venice", I just may give Mann’s earlier work another try. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Though there’s really not much to the storyline, I was intrigued by the main character. At times, Mann’s elongated prose, slowly inching the plot along, frustrated me. But, I couldn’t shake this pressing desire to learn of Gustav Aschenbach’s fate. Now looking back, the pages and pages of poetic “tension” only intensified my longing to read to the end. I was left remembering a Goodreads quote I saved years ago to my page: “We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.”- Sigmund Freud ( )

The two words that came to mind most often as I read this brief novella were "overwrought" and "self-indulgent". OK, I guess it wasn't that bad, but pretty close.

Aschenbach, an aging writer, travels to Venice, sees a beautiful young boy who he becomes obsessed with (though never really interacts with, this is an internal obsession), and then dies.

I struggled to see the point. I loved Mann's first novel, Buddenbrooks, that he wrote in his youth, but this just seemed like it was trying to hard. I will read The Magic Mountain someday, and I hope I like it more than this. ( )

I know this will mark me as a philistine, but here is my two sentence review of this book. There's no fool like an old fool. Thank God this novella is only 60 pages long ( )

At first, it was quite boring. After that, it became interesting with all the details about Venice, it was like I was there again. I felt how every word of his is making my heart warmer. And then there was this love about that boy that I couldn't understand. Was it father-son love, or was it some kind of wrong love, if you know what I mean. The ending was expected and disappointing. ( )

This short novella is alternatingly brilliant, poetic genius of deep emotions, and pretentious nonsense. I was bored at first but slowly became fascinated with the growing sense of emotional turmoil, loneliness and approaching doom. While Mann was philosophizing over the erotic nature of artistic inspiration, I was increasingly creeped out by Aschenbach's object of desire and where all this was going. ( )

I was delighted with the multitude of allusions to Greek mythology ( )