Death in Venice
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Description
"Probably the greatest of modern German novelists." ― The New York Times
One of the pre-eminent works of modern European literature, this enthralling story of desire, beauty and infatuation follows the erudite, respectable writer Gustav Aschenbach's descent into obsession.
Aschenbach has always lived a life of structured routine, but he has begun to be troubled by diminishing creative inspiration from his strict writing schedule. While walking in a cemetery north of Munich, he has a dizzying vision which prompts him to abandon his settled life and travel south to Venice.
On checking into his hotel, Aschenbach notices a young Polish boy of perfect, sculptural beauty: Tadzio. As he lingers on at the hotel, Aschenbach falls into an ever-deeper infatuation with the youth, whose curled blond hair and porcelain face fill him with rapture, and even seem to cure his stubborn writer's block. Ignoring whispered warnings of a cholera outbreak in Venice, Aschenbach stays at the hotel and follows Tadzio with increasing obsession, his mind swirling with mad desire.
Classical in structure yet roiled by disturbing passion, Death in Venice is an enormously powerful story of one man's undoing. Full of coiled tension and vivid inner conflict, it is one of Thomas Mann's greatest masterpieces, and appears here in a lively new translation by Lesley Chamberlain.
Book Information
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After my holidays in Italy this year I somehow craved for a book which sums up about the beauty of Venice, a remarkable City I've visited so I've chosen to fresh up my memories while reading "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann. This read turned out to lead to quiet a different path I've actually expected. To put it into a nutshell: Mann's novella tells the story of a german/preussian writer, Gustav von Aschenberg, who suffers from a writer's block and decides to travel to Venice. He's searching for inspiration and believes to have found it after meeting a beautiful teenage boy named Tadzio. Von Aschenberg never speaks with him. However he's struggeling between sense he build up many years ago and passion he tries to supress. And of course....there is a death in Venice! How unexpected, right? At the very beginning this plot sounded pretty promising. Inner struggle between right and wrong, a coming death, the protagonist's attempt to feel young again all these things leading to a bloody grecian tragedy.(note to myself: NEVER EXPECT TO MUCH OF A CLASSIC! The disappointment will be great...) Although Thomas Mann describes von Aschenberg's struggle quiet well, the rest of the story left me untouched. The narration is dry and (to me)lifeless so that you can't get into what happens nor can't you sympathize with the protagonist. "This story's about homosexuality/a forbidden relationship between an adult and teenager (...)" Whether I misunderstood it or people just exaggerate. To me it didn't seemed like a pedophile relationship because we can hardly say that there's a "real" relationship. It's more like a midlife-crisis von Aschenberg is facing and desperately tries to feel youthful again to change things in a better way and Tadzio who's described almost as a greek god, showed him that he can't turn time back. Like I already said, I was quiet disappointed about the fact that Mann didn't really catch the beauty of Venice and his charme. Well it's a short book so I'll forgive him. What I liked about the novella was Mann's "Special" writing style. In "Death n Venice" you can find a blending of mythology, allusion and symbolism which sometimes makes it difficult to follow the story without having read Plato, but if you're a fan of this kind of writing go for it. my fav. quote: “Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.”
After my holidays in Italy this year I somehow craved for a book which sums up about the beauty of Venice, a remarkable City I've visited so I've chosen to fresh up my memories while reading "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann. This read turned out to lead to quiet a different path I've actually expected. To put it into a nutshell: Mann's novella tells the story of a german/preussian writer, Gustav von Aschenberg, who suffers from a writer's block and decides to travel to Venice. He's searching for inspiration and believes to have found it after meeting a beautiful teenage boy named Tadzio. Von Aschenberg never speaks with him. However he's struggeling between sense he build up many years ago and passion he tries to supress. And of course....there is a death in Venice! How unexpected, right? At the very beginning this plot sounded pretty promising. Inner struggle between right and wrong, a coming death, the protagonist's attempt to feel young again all these things leading to a bloody grecian tragedy.(note to myself: NEVER EXPECT TO MUCH OF A CLASSIC! The disappointment will be great...) Although Thomas Mann describes von Aschenberg's struggle quiet well, the rest of the story left me untouched. The narration is dry and (to me)lifeless so that you can't get into what happens nor can't you sympathize with the protagonist. "This story's about homosexuality/a forbidden relationship between an adult and teenager (...)" Whether I misunderstood it or people just exaggerate. To me it didn't seemed like a pedophile relationship because we can hardly say that there's a "real" relationship. It's more like a midlife-crisis von Aschenberg is facing and desperately tries to feel youthful again to change things in a better way and Tadzio who's described almost as a greek god, showed him that he can't turn time back. Like I already said, I was quiet disappointed about the fact that Mann didn't really catch the beauty of Venice and his charme. Well it's a short book so I'll forgive him. What I liked about the novella was Mann's "Special" writing style. In "Death n Venice" you can find a blending of mythology, allusion and symbolism which sometimes makes it difficult to follow the story without having read Plato, but if you're a fan of this kind of writing go for it. my fav. quote: “Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.”
After my holidays in Italy this year I somehow craved for a book which sums up about the beauty of Venice, a remarkable City I've visited so I've chosen to fresh up my memories while reading "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann. This read turned out to lead to quiet a different path I've actually expected. To put it into a nutshell: Mann's novella tells the story of a german/preussian writer, Gustav von Aschenberg, who suffers from a writer's block and decides to travel to Venice. He's searching for inspiration and believes to have found it after meeting a beautiful teenage boy named Tadzio. Von Aschenberg never speaks with him. However he's struggeling between sense he build up many years ago and passion he tries to supress. And of course....there is a death in Venice! How unexpected, right? At the very beginning this plot sounded pretty promising. Inner struggle between right and wrong, a coming death, the protagonist's attempt to feel young again all these things leading to a bloody grecian tragedy.(note to myself: NEVER EXPECT TO MUCH OF A CLASSIC! The disappointment will be great...) Although Thomas Mann describes von Aschenberg's struggle quiet well, the rest of the story left me untouched. The narration is dry and (to me)lifeless so that you can't get into what happens nor can't you sympathize with the protagonist. "This story's about homosexuality/a forbidden relationship between an adult and teenager (...)" Whether I misunderstood it or people just exaggerate. To me it didn't seemed like a pedophile relationship because we can hardly say that there's a "real" relationship. It's more like a midlife-crisis von Aschenberg is facing and desperately tries to feel youthful again to change things in a better way and Tadzio who's described almost as a greek god, showed him that he can't turn time back. Like I already said, I was quiet disappointed about the fact that Mann didn't really catch the beauty of Venice and his charme. Well it's a short book so I'll forgive him. What I liked about the novella was Mann's "Special" writing style. In "Death n Venice" you can find a blending of mythology, allusion and symbolism which sometimes makes it difficult to follow the story without having read Plato, but if you're a fan of this kind of writing go for it. my fav. quote: “Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.”
Description
"Probably the greatest of modern German novelists." ― The New York Times
One of the pre-eminent works of modern European literature, this enthralling story of desire, beauty and infatuation follows the erudite, respectable writer Gustav Aschenbach's descent into obsession.
Aschenbach has always lived a life of structured routine, but he has begun to be troubled by diminishing creative inspiration from his strict writing schedule. While walking in a cemetery north of Munich, he has a dizzying vision which prompts him to abandon his settled life and travel south to Venice.
On checking into his hotel, Aschenbach notices a young Polish boy of perfect, sculptural beauty: Tadzio. As he lingers on at the hotel, Aschenbach falls into an ever-deeper infatuation with the youth, whose curled blond hair and porcelain face fill him with rapture, and even seem to cure his stubborn writer's block. Ignoring whispered warnings of a cholera outbreak in Venice, Aschenbach stays at the hotel and follows Tadzio with increasing obsession, his mind swirling with mad desire.
Classical in structure yet roiled by disturbing passion, Death in Venice is an enormously powerful story of one man's undoing. Full of coiled tension and vivid inner conflict, it is one of Thomas Mann's greatest masterpieces, and appears here in a lively new translation by Lesley Chamberlain.
Book Information
Posts
After my holidays in Italy this year I somehow craved for a book which sums up about the beauty of Venice, a remarkable City I've visited so I've chosen to fresh up my memories while reading "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann. This read turned out to lead to quiet a different path I've actually expected. To put it into a nutshell: Mann's novella tells the story of a german/preussian writer, Gustav von Aschenberg, who suffers from a writer's block and decides to travel to Venice. He's searching for inspiration and believes to have found it after meeting a beautiful teenage boy named Tadzio. Von Aschenberg never speaks with him. However he's struggeling between sense he build up many years ago and passion he tries to supress. And of course....there is a death in Venice! How unexpected, right? At the very beginning this plot sounded pretty promising. Inner struggle between right and wrong, a coming death, the protagonist's attempt to feel young again all these things leading to a bloody grecian tragedy.(note to myself: NEVER EXPECT TO MUCH OF A CLASSIC! The disappointment will be great...) Although Thomas Mann describes von Aschenberg's struggle quiet well, the rest of the story left me untouched. The narration is dry and (to me)lifeless so that you can't get into what happens nor can't you sympathize with the protagonist. "This story's about homosexuality/a forbidden relationship between an adult and teenager (...)" Whether I misunderstood it or people just exaggerate. To me it didn't seemed like a pedophile relationship because we can hardly say that there's a "real" relationship. It's more like a midlife-crisis von Aschenberg is facing and desperately tries to feel youthful again to change things in a better way and Tadzio who's described almost as a greek god, showed him that he can't turn time back. Like I already said, I was quiet disappointed about the fact that Mann didn't really catch the beauty of Venice and his charme. Well it's a short book so I'll forgive him. What I liked about the novella was Mann's "Special" writing style. In "Death n Venice" you can find a blending of mythology, allusion and symbolism which sometimes makes it difficult to follow the story without having read Plato, but if you're a fan of this kind of writing go for it. my fav. quote: “Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.”
After my holidays in Italy this year I somehow craved for a book which sums up about the beauty of Venice, a remarkable City I've visited so I've chosen to fresh up my memories while reading "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann. This read turned out to lead to quiet a different path I've actually expected. To put it into a nutshell: Mann's novella tells the story of a german/preussian writer, Gustav von Aschenberg, who suffers from a writer's block and decides to travel to Venice. He's searching for inspiration and believes to have found it after meeting a beautiful teenage boy named Tadzio. Von Aschenberg never speaks with him. However he's struggeling between sense he build up many years ago and passion he tries to supress. And of course....there is a death in Venice! How unexpected, right? At the very beginning this plot sounded pretty promising. Inner struggle between right and wrong, a coming death, the protagonist's attempt to feel young again all these things leading to a bloody grecian tragedy.(note to myself: NEVER EXPECT TO MUCH OF A CLASSIC! The disappointment will be great...) Although Thomas Mann describes von Aschenberg's struggle quiet well, the rest of the story left me untouched. The narration is dry and (to me)lifeless so that you can't get into what happens nor can't you sympathize with the protagonist. "This story's about homosexuality/a forbidden relationship between an adult and teenager (...)" Whether I misunderstood it or people just exaggerate. To me it didn't seemed like a pedophile relationship because we can hardly say that there's a "real" relationship. It's more like a midlife-crisis von Aschenberg is facing and desperately tries to feel youthful again to change things in a better way and Tadzio who's described almost as a greek god, showed him that he can't turn time back. Like I already said, I was quiet disappointed about the fact that Mann didn't really catch the beauty of Venice and his charme. Well it's a short book so I'll forgive him. What I liked about the novella was Mann's "Special" writing style. In "Death n Venice" you can find a blending of mythology, allusion and symbolism which sometimes makes it difficult to follow the story without having read Plato, but if you're a fan of this kind of writing go for it. my fav. quote: “Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.”
After my holidays in Italy this year I somehow craved for a book which sums up about the beauty of Venice, a remarkable City I've visited so I've chosen to fresh up my memories while reading "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann. This read turned out to lead to quiet a different path I've actually expected. To put it into a nutshell: Mann's novella tells the story of a german/preussian writer, Gustav von Aschenberg, who suffers from a writer's block and decides to travel to Venice. He's searching for inspiration and believes to have found it after meeting a beautiful teenage boy named Tadzio. Von Aschenberg never speaks with him. However he's struggeling between sense he build up many years ago and passion he tries to supress. And of course....there is a death in Venice! How unexpected, right? At the very beginning this plot sounded pretty promising. Inner struggle between right and wrong, a coming death, the protagonist's attempt to feel young again all these things leading to a bloody grecian tragedy.(note to myself: NEVER EXPECT TO MUCH OF A CLASSIC! The disappointment will be great...) Although Thomas Mann describes von Aschenberg's struggle quiet well, the rest of the story left me untouched. The narration is dry and (to me)lifeless so that you can't get into what happens nor can't you sympathize with the protagonist. "This story's about homosexuality/a forbidden relationship between an adult and teenager (...)" Whether I misunderstood it or people just exaggerate. To me it didn't seemed like a pedophile relationship because we can hardly say that there's a "real" relationship. It's more like a midlife-crisis von Aschenberg is facing and desperately tries to feel youthful again to change things in a better way and Tadzio who's described almost as a greek god, showed him that he can't turn time back. Like I already said, I was quiet disappointed about the fact that Mann didn't really catch the beauty of Venice and his charme. Well it's a short book so I'll forgive him. What I liked about the novella was Mann's "Special" writing style. In "Death n Venice" you can find a blending of mythology, allusion and symbolism which sometimes makes it difficult to follow the story without having read Plato, but if you're a fan of this kind of writing go for it. my fav. quote: “Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.”