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Death in Venice
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Death in Venice
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Death in Venice
Ebook114 pages2 hours

Death in Venice

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this ebook

The world-famous masterpiece by Nobel laureate Thomas Mann—here in a new translation by Michael Henry Heim

Published on the eve of World War I, a decade after Buddenbrooks had established Thomas Mann as a literary celebrity, Death in Venice tells the story of Gustave von Aschenbach, a successful but aging writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfillment that instead leads to his erotic doom.

In the decaying city, besieged by an unnamed epidemic, he becomes obsessed with an exquisite Polish boy, Tadzio. “It is a story of the voluptuousness of doom,” Mann wrote. “But the problem I had especially in mind was that of the artist’s dignity.”

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateOct 13, 2009
ISBN9780061828171
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Death in Venice
Author

Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, and essayist. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. Mann won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929.

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Reviews for Death in Venice

Rating: 3.9245283018867925 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A much-revered and disciplined German writer begrudgingly takes respite in Venice to overcome stagnation in his work, and finds himself enthralled by the presence of an astoundingly beautiful Polish youth. His unchecked indulgence in ignominious voyeurism brings about his destruction, as his industrious nature unravels into morbid profligacy.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    According to modern writing standards, the language can come off as contrived. I enjoyed the depth of writing and the use of imagery.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This is a book which I really struggled to finish as on numerous occasions was so tempted to just pack it in. I was certainly grateful that it only ran to 64 pages. I found myself reading nearly every paragraph twice as each seemed so conveluted. I believe in free speech and not in censorship so have no real problem with the subject matter even if it does smack of paedophilia, which to every right-minded person should be abhorant. All the same I am amazed that a book like this was ever published but then perhaps paedophilia was not as well publized by the press as it is today. I believe that Mann himself struggled with his own sexuality so perhaps this book is a symbol of that inner struggle.I did not like the main character much and felt him conceited and self-centred. The writing style and plot was painfully slow. I am not too great on my Greek mythology so struggled to the relevance on more than one occasion and the ending seemed somewhat inadequate.On the whole not my type of book and not one that will live long in the memory. If truth be told it felt like a book written with the express aim of winning a literary prize, to satisfy the so called intelligenzia rather than for the pleasure of the general public but at least it was so short
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I actually liked this one more than I thought I was going to. At first I thought I was going to be turned off by the topic, an older man chasing after a young boy, which I will admit is somewhat creepy. However, once you get past that the you find that the book has many layers. To get the most out of the book one should have some passing knowledge of Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy, as one of the central themes is how Aschemback goes from Appolonian restrained life to a Dionysian one of obsession once he meets Tadzio and how he struggles and is eventually doomed by this. There was also nice irony in that the inspiration for Ashenmack's urge to travel came from a personification of Death and that when he finally reaches Venice he's ferried across the lagoon by a representation of Charon who ironically says that you will pay. In fact Aschemback is visited many times throughout the book by personifications of Death each representing a point where he could turn back, yet as Aschemback slips deeper into the Dionysian mode he ignores the warnings. Overall if you can get past the creepy man stalking a young boy and look at it through its Greek & Nietzsche influences you will find a very enjoyable book.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Book Report: I feel a complete fool providing a plot precis for this canonical work. Gustav von Ascherbach, literary lion in his sixties, wanders about his home town of Munich while struggling with a recalcitrant new story. His chance encounter with a weirdo, though no words are exchanged between them, ignites in Herr von Ascherbach the need to get out of town, to get himself to the delicious fleshpots of the South. An abortive stay in Illyria (now Bosnia or Montenegro or Croatia, no knowing which since we're not given much to go on) leads him to make his second journey to Venice. Arriving in the sin capital of the early modern world, and even in the early 20th century possessed of a louche reputation, brings him into contact with two life-changing things: A beautiful teenaged boy, and cholera. I think the title fills you in on the rest.My Review: I know this was written in 1911-1912, and is therefore to be judged by the standards of another era, but I am bone-weary of stories featuring men whose love for other males brings them to disaster and death. This is the story that started me on that path of dislike. Von Ascherbach realizes he's in love for the first time in his pinched, narrow life, and it's with a 14-year-old boy; his response is to make himself ridiculous, following the kid around, staying in his Venetian Garden of Eros despite knowing for sure there's a cholera epidemic, despite being warned of the dangers of staying, despite smelling decay and death and miasmic uccchiness all around, because he's in love. But with the wrong kind of person...a male. Therefore Mann makes him pay the ultimate price, he loses his life because he gives in and falls hopelessly, stupidly in love. With a male. Mann makes his judgment of this moral turpitude even more explicit by making it a chaste, though to modern eyes not unrequited, love between an old man and a boy. Explicit references to Classical culture aside, the entire atmosphere of the novel is quite evidently designed to point up the absurdity and the impossibility of such a love being rewarding or rewarded. It's not in the least mysterious what Mann's after: Denial, denial, denial! It's your only salvation, faggots! Deny yourself, don't let yourself feel anything rather than feel *that*!This book offends my sensibilities. Gorgeously built images and sonorously elegant sentences earn it all of its points.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Death in Venice was well-written and kept my interest, but it was also creepy and depressing. II enjoyed the irony of how the main character, Gustav, changed in such a short time over the course of the book, due to his obsession. He began to look and act like those he had previously thought ridiculous. When he first reached Venice, I pictured Gustave a bit like Peter Ustinov in Evil Under the Sun. By the end, he was a sad caricature of his former self.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Another book that has been luking on my shelves for years. I did try to read this book when I first got it but could not get past the first chapter - I found it tedious and overblown. On trying for a second time I found myself enjoying the intellectual challenge of the writing although perhaps not the the central focus of the storyline - ageing German intellectual falls in love and starts stalking a Polish adolescent he encounters during a summer stay in the increasingly pestilential city of Venice. Some heavyhanded use of repeating motifs but overall worth the effort.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    a 160 page celebration of a pederast and his target. I find it interesting that Mann is revered as an author, but most people would be hard-pressed to come up with 3 books that he wrote. I found this book unimaginative and prone to rambling. Not my idea of a good book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This one creeps up on you slowly throughout. It begins very slowly and frankly rather tediously, with the author spending a large number of words on very little. But the protagonist's obsessions, with the young boy he stalks, and with his fear of and longing for oblivion, gradually take over the narrative, and his mental decay mirrors the physical decay of Venice and the growing menace of the disease plaguing the city. Leave quite an emotional impact.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Though it had some really well-written passages, I couldn't really connect with it. I know the point isn't the minimal plot, but that the plot is more of a jumping off point for Mann's theories about beauty, youth, art and erotics. But this "point" somehow seems heavyhanded to me, and not very interesting, especially near the end."If you open a newspaper today, almost all you read about is Thomas Mann. He's been dead thirty years now, and again and again, endlessly, it's unbearable. Even though he was a petty-bourgeois writer, ghastly, uninspired, who only wrote for a petty-bourgeois readership. That could only interest the petty-bourgeois, the kind of milieu he describes, it's uninspired and stupid, some fiddle-playing professor who travels somewhere, or a family in Lübeck, how lovely, but it's nothing more than someone like Wilhelm Raabe. What rubbish Thomas Mann churned out about political matters, really. He was totally uptight and a typical German petty-bourgeois. With a greedy wife." -- Thomas Bernhard
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm not sure what the problem was with this audiobook & myself, but I just couldn't get into it. Perhaps I was distracted while listening & didn't get a full appreciation, but I honestly just couldn't wrap my head around it & when the ending came, rather abruptly, I had to rewind several times to be sure it really was the end. And still, I was left with a dazed look on my face. Having not previously read this or any translation of it, I think I may have been better off not going with the audio.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Portuguese translation of the german original Der Tod in Venedig. The story of a forbidden and self-destructive passion of an old writer by a boy incarnating his ideal of classical beauty. A poignant portrait of love and decadence.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    [Death in Venice] by [[Thomas Mann]]Gustav Aschenbach, writer and nobleman, spurred by artistic restlessness, embarks on a trip to Venice. Once there he falls in love with a beautiful young boy. Meanwhile, Venice is dealing with an epidemic. Aschenbach slowly succumbs to both the disease of the body and the temptations of his own mind.Aschenbach’s obsession with the boy Tadzio is extremely complex, an aspect that made the stalking relationship . Tadzio is both an object of art and a vestige of Aschenbach’s lost youth. “Icon and mirror!” Ultimately, Aschenbach’s inability to escape his excess is a mark of his artistic nature – what today we would consider living on the fringe becomes damning. “We may deny the abyss and acquire dignity but, no matter how we try, it attracts us.” Mann was convinced that any artist could only deny their passions for so long. Even in translation, one can see what a gifted writer Mann is. The story is meticulously crafted. Varying motifs are repeated throughout, piecing together parts of the story and larger classical references. But my favorite portions were Mann’s observations on the human mind – things I have thought from time to time but wondered if anyone else ever thought this way. Deep insights that become silly in a few moments of thought:“Weary and yet mentally agitated, he spent the protracted mealtime considering abstract, in fact transcendental matters; he reflected on the mysterious combination of regularity and individuality that is requisite for the creation of human beauty; this led him to general problems of form and art; and finally he concluded that these thoughts and discoveries of his resembled those apparently felicitous inspirations in dreams which, when you are fully awake again, prove to be totally insipid and worthless.” And the daily interactions of strangers: “Nothing is stranger or more ticklish than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who meet and observe each other daily – no, hourly – and are nevertheless compelled to keep up the pose of an indifferent stranger, neither greeting nor addressing each other, whether out of etiquette or their own whim. Between them there exists a disquiet, a strained curiosity, the hysteria of an unsatisfied, unnaturally repressed need for recognition and exchange of thoughts – and also, especially, a sort of nervous respect.”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    4/20. A gorgeous, sensual, intellectually brilliant novella. The caveat is simple: the second chapter is torture. Torture. You have to trust Mann to know what he's doing, and sure enough, he does, and soon we're plunged into the vivid, sweltering world of venice, whose influence slowly overcomes Aschenbach's moralistic, rational thoughts and plunge him into a dionysion revel of passion and sensuous emotion. Watch out for the many red-haired men, and be prepared for the last chapter, when the whole novel seems to plunge into a bachanaid. Here's how it works: at first, I had to force myself to read it (coincides with rationalist part of Aschenbach's mind) with thoughts of "famous novel, famous novelist, I'm sure it gets better ARGH!" Then I had to force myself to stop (coincides with passionate overthrow of reason). A brilliant construction.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    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.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Some brilliant classics never age. Their eternal conflicts remain relevant and their complexity is sufficient to provide a challenge with each reading. Death in Venice is one of those.In this novella, Mann investigates the battle between the mind and the body, the head and the heart, the noble and the savage. Gustav von Aschenbach, an aging writer, has dedicated his life to intellectual pursuits, living each day on the highest plane of a carefully-controlled artistic and spiritual life. But a sudden desire for the exotic takes him to Venice, where his life of dignity and restraint falls away. Caught by lust in a climate of decadence and disease, he is helpless to resist the lure of hedonism that finally spells his doom.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A literary achievement with the psychology of Tolstoy and a Greek commitment to the story itself; and that is not the only thing about this book that is 'Greek'. A treatise on Death, Life, Sex, Desire, and Fear which is both enticing and terrifying, and for the self-same reason.Here is the face of wretched animal man, teeth bared and cloudy desperation mocking the vision. Mann's most succinct and powerful images and meanings are always reversed, for the sense that the raw and brutal emotion herein is become feral is mitigated by the fact that it is twisted back upon the self as only such a morally indistinct, labyrinthine mass may so twist.Eminently pleasing and disturbing, this battle between the barely-restrained Epicurean and the resignedly Absurdist meets the latter's comic fruition in the former's faux-tragic inaccessibility.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    For me (and how often is that the caveat when we feel we have read something important that did not resonate), this is a group of remarkably uninspired stories. There is lush detail, no doubt. The descriptions of the places and the people are brought to life. But there is nothing to tell about them. And, when something is told, I found little to resonate so that I cared what was happening. The best of this group is “Mario and the Magician” about a magician with apparent mind control abilities who embarrasses the wrong person during his show. In this case, the descriptions of the character and the locale all built to support the story (which supported the characters and the locale.) The absolute worst – “A Man and His Dog”. I like dogs just as well as the next person, but this is more than I ever wanted to know. It feels like the author was trying to complete a required word count for submission to a collection of original stories about dogs (and I’ll bet this shows up in many of such collections.)For me to understand the power of Thomas Mann will take the reading of some other materials. And reading these has meant that it will be a while before I try again.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A great book with a very appropriate ending. Very beautifully written.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Death in Venice by Thomas Mann is a story of obsession and isolation. Aschenbach, a writer of rarefied fictions, takes a holiday to Venice where he sees a beautiful youth of 15 years. He is immediately taken in by the boy's beauty and very quickly becomes obsessed with him. Aschenbach finds he is staying at the same hotel as the boy, so he studies the boy's daily habits, making sure that he is at the beach when the boy will be, ready for breakfast when the boy is, he even follows his family when the boy goes on tours of the city. He never attempts to meet the boy or to speak with him though he does learn his name, Tadzio, and quite a bit of his family history.Is Aschenbach a man in love or just a man obsessed? He learns as much as he can about Tadzio from secondhand sources like the hotel barber, but his knowledge remains so limited that the Tazio he comes to love is largely a Tadzio of his own imagination. Aschenbach can see what the boy looks like, but he does not know him in any real way. Aschenbach indulges in his obsession, staying on at the hotel as long as he can, in spite of the very real threat of a cholera outbreak in the emptying city.The city becomes a metaphor for Aschebach. Its decay, its age, its vulnerablity to disease are all mirrored in Aschenbach. The facade Venice puts on to attract visitors is mirrored in the fancy suits the fifty plus man wears in an attempt to make himself attractive. Neither the city nor the man can do much to really attract the attentions of a beautiful youth, those days are gone for both. The city provides attractions for the boy's aging mother and aunt who've brought their children in tow; the man can do nothing more than follow along trying to steal a glimpse of the youth he will not have again in any form.For all of its melancholy, all of its atmosphere of decay and the fact that the main character never talks to the object of his desire, Death in Venice is a highly readable story. While I did not really like Aschenbach at first, and I honestly can't say that I'm too fond of him by the end either, his story does become compelling. He does become a sympathetic character in spite of it all. By then end our understanding of what is happening to him has deepened making his story a haunting one.I'm giving Death in Venice by Thomas Mann five out of five stars.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I haven't read all the stories in this book but loved "Death in Venice," very deep story, yes, a bit depressing but you really got into Acshenbach's mind & psyche, ...plus I love the setting, Venice is gorgeous!!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Deeply strange story about an elderly man's admiration (love? lust? aesthetic pleasure?) for a young beautiful boy. Well written and well worth reading.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It was nice to hear this translation, which is different from and much easier for the modern reader the one that I read in college. I enjoyed hearing the names and places spoken by a reader on this CD version rather than stumbling over them in print. As a warning, if you aren't familiar with the story, I would save the forward for the end. Michael Cunningham has written an excellent and insightful forward, but it does discuss the plot in detail, so if the story is new to you, skip the first two tracks on the first disk, then come back and listen to them at the end. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a strange, creepy little novel. I can't decided if the character Aschenbach is really a pedophile or just enthralled with the youth and beauty of a teenage boy that has been lost to him for years.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I am not used to modernist prose. This story, however, is crystal-clear in its intentions - you know the end before you even start reading it. The narrator makes his own comparisons very obvious, and goes to the lenght of explaining his own mythology. It was an enjoyable read, however not among my favourites.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wonderful thoughts on beauty. Feeling Mann's 'sehnsucht' was a confronting experience. Embracing it is still one of the best choices I ever made.