Rating: 
Summary: A premonition of the world after the war.
Review: "A Death In Venice" is much more then just the story of a aging author's lust for a young man - it is also the representation of Europe before and after the war. It is a beautifully written novella, that smacks of Joyce. Written from the perspective of the protagonist, it offers an indepth look into the mind of a brilliant man who finally disrobes himself of his rationality and dignity, and succumbs to passion and lust. It is a tale of morality, and leaves many questions unanswered. Does Tadzio exist? Was it all real? Who knows?
Rating:
Summary: Number One???
Review: "Death in Venice" is the type of book that English professors just LOOOOVE, but that the rest of us just don't get. About the best thing I can say about it is that I didn't invest too much time reading it.As for being the #1 Gay novel -- what an insult. Not only is this story a trial to read, it's (seemingly) about an aging pedophile's lust for a young boy, certainly nothing this gay reader is familiar with or cares to know about! Other than that, it's an OK period piece.
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Summary: Apollonian verse Dionysus
Review: .
An awesome book that reveals the Dionysus which lives in all of us. One can read about the controlled organized and stable self verses the chaotic center, but it is a story as this that artistically conveys the idea in subjective terms. An older, well respected man in his 50's, one of reputable character, in that of an intellectual and artist, a man who lives and represents the Apollonian man of stability and chiseled living succumbs to his inner chaotic self. It's not that Aschenbach was a fraud or false, yet in a sense he was, as all of us are, whether we are willing to admit it to ourselves or not. Then there are many of us who have ceased to experience our Dionysus since many years, however it lives dormant in us as a part of our true selves. An so this respectable, reliable, stable man falls in love with an image or eros, that of a 14 year old boy staying at the same hotel as his. He never speaks to the boy, nor has any direct contact other than a handful of eye contact glances that seem to acknowledge each other and his loving adoration for his object of beauty. And that is it: the beauty of this boy was the highest of expression of the intellectual, the eros. His beauty, grace and movement took over Aschenbach's logic of the Apollonian side, exposing his internal turmoil to the point that he followed the boy and his family just to watch and dream, to feel the feelings that come from internal chaos and adulation. The story itself has much meaning, the writing style is prose and lives as a classic. Amazing how such was written at the time of such repression, but despite all perceived advancements in human tolerance and understanding, there exists little difference today in those of repressive Apollonian character and those of the extreme contrast in Dionysus living.
Rating:
Summary: An older man's love of a young boy leads to his death.
Review: A few pages into this literary classic and one might be tempted to put this novel down in search of less challenging fare. Beginning with an in-depth description of the main character Gustav Aschenbach, the story follows Aschenbach's degeneration from respected moral beacon to a obsessed stalker. After being struck with wonderlust by the sight of a roughened traveller, Aschenbach, a man who has never let himself be free of his own internal discipline, is driven by some inner need to travel to Venice. Once he arrives, Aschenbach begins to loosen decades of emotional repression as he allows his aesthetic appreciation of a fellow vacationer, a young sickly boy, Tadzio, to grow into a lustful obsession. Tadzio's beauty so captures Aschenbach that he ends up dying for his love, as his need to be near the young boy becomes his all-consuming priority. The subject will strike many readers as sickening as we read of a man's lust for a pre-pubescent boy, yet one can appreaciate Mann's remarkable ability with the written word, and the realism he creates as we delve into Aschenbach's mind.
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Summary: Death in Venice and ambiguity of form
Review: Although by no means the most accessible of Mann's early fiction, Death in Venice is by far the greatest. Drawing heavily on mythology, Nietzsche's concept of art and his own perception of himself as an artist, Mann presents us with a well-respected, ordered author, Aschenbach, who has renounced the extreme introspection of his youth to concentrate on beauty of form. Yet, with a classic case of "writer's block", he decides to go to Venice, where he believes he has captured beauty itself in the form of a young Polish boy. He comes, however, to abandon his Appolline sense of order and gives himself up to the Dionysiac intoxication, hinted at even in the opening lines and mirrored in the sickly state of the city. The narrator's brilliantly ironic stance means that our perception of the protagonist can at no stage be certain. Is this a "moral tale" of an author who is at fault for renouncing his former life, is it the tragedy of any writer who in seeing through life must perforce descend ineluctably towards destruction, or is the ending in fact an apotheosis, where Aschenbach is actually reaching out to the infinite and to beauty itself? This is an incredibly personal text - the affinities between Mann and the protagonist are numerous - and one has the feeling in reading it that he is in fact saying, "There but for the grace of God go I." The artistic unity of the Visconti film is regrettably lost in portraying Aschenbach as a musician and in allowing him to be booed by the audience. One is merely left with striking scenes of the city and an ending which, though faithful to the text, fails to work within the film itself.
Rating:
Summary: mildly worthwhile
Review: Although he was to remember his friendship with painter Paul Ehrenberg as the love of his life, in 1905 he married Katia Pingsheim, who came from a well-to-do Munich Jewish family. He remained married to her until his death 50 years later. In marrying her, he sacrificed his natural inclinations for social convention. Mann found very young men beautiful, but his homosexuality remained hidden for 50 years after his death, when his diaries were released. These revealed that he was prone to fits of nausea, nervous, trembling and convulsive sobbing quite at odds with his public image of elegant, self-assured aloofness. He was fortunate that the Nazis never discovered his secret. -BBC Education: Biography of Thomas Mann The quote above is merely one of a number of similar sentiments that I found when I was looking for links for this review and I must admit, they completely mystify me. How could anyone read this story and not realize that Mann was an almost heroically repressed homosexual? Death in Venice tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, a German writer, who decides that he needs a holiday to relieve the stress of his "nerve-taxing" work. Eventually he arrives in Venice and conceives a passionate crush on a a fourteen year old boy named Tadzio. As he grows ever more obsessed with the boy, Aschenbach's mind becomes increasingly unbalanced. He takes to following the lad around and refuses to leave Venice despite an outbreak of cholera, virtually courting death in order to indulge his desires. Finally, as Tadzio frolics in the waves at the beach, Aschenbach dies quietly in a beach chair. Just in case the reader hasn't gotten the hint, Mann helpfully provides Aschenbach one extended soliloquy: For mark you, Phaedrus, beauty alone is both divine and visible; and so it is the sense way, the artist's way, little Phaedrus, to the spirit. But, now tell me, my dear boy, do you believe that such a man can ever attain wisdom and true manly worth, for whom the path to the spirit must lead through the senses? Or do you rather think-for I leave the point to you-that it is a path of perilous sweetness, a way of transgression, and must surely lead him who walks in it astray? For you know that we poets cannot walk the way of beauty without Eros as our companion and guide. We may be heroic after our fashion, disciplined warriors of our craft, yet are we all the women, for we exult in passion, and love is still our desire-our craving and our shame. And from this you will perceive that we poets can be neither wise nor worthy citizens. We must needs be wanton, must needs rove at large in the realm of feeling. Our magisterial style is all folly and pretence, our honourable repute a farce, the crowd's belief in us is merely laughable. And to teach youth, or the populace, by means of art is a dangerous practice and ought to be forbidden. For what good can an artist be as a teacher, when from his birth up he is headed direct for the pit? We may want to shun it and attain to honour in the world; but however we turn, it draws us still. So, then, since knowledge might destroy us, we will have none of it. For knowledge, Phaedrus, does not make him who possesses it dignified or austere. Knowledge is all-knowing, understanding, forgiving; it takes up no position, sets no store by form. It has compassion with the abyss-it is the abyss. So we reject it, firmly, and henceforward our concern shall be with beauty only. And by beauty we mean simplicity, largeness, and renewed severity of discipline; we mean a return to detachment and to form. But detachment, Phaedrus, and preoccupation with form lead to intoxication and desire, they may lead the noblest among us to frightful emotional excesses, which his own stern cult of the beautiful would make him the first to condemn. So they too, they too, lead to the bottomless pit. Yes, they lead us thither, I say, us who are poets-who by our natures are prone not to excellence but to excess. Mann, who had studied and was influenced by Nietzsche, here posits the artist as a Dionysian, drawn to the purely sensual. But at the same time he recognizes that this attraction to the non-rational realm is self destructive; yield to desire and you end up, like Aschenbach, first insane and then dead. The artist is counterpoised against the wise and rational citizenery, whom Nietzsche termed Apollonians (see Orrin's review of The Birth of Tragedy (1872)(Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900) (Grade: C). I've tried several times to read Mann's novels--Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus--and I have to admit I find them unreadable, but supposedly this struggle between reason and passion is a consistent theme. Yet when Mann's diaries were published in the 1980's--revealing a man who, despite a successful marriage lasting half a century and producing six children, was continually smitten with young men, typically the waiters in his favorite restaurants--the critics claim to have been shocked by the revelation of his homoerotic yearnings. Significantly, there is no evidence that he acted on these impulses. He appears to have submerged his carnal appetite for boys in favor of a conventional family life. I simply do not understand why this should have surprised anyone; it seems perfectly consistent with the vision of this story that he would have chosen not to end up like Aschenbach himself. This is not a terribly enjoyable story to read and there aren't really any sympathetic characters. Nor do I find Mann's prose particularly compelling; as I mentioned, I've found his other works to be pretty tough sledding. But taken purely as a cautionary tale, it's at least mildly worthwhile reading. GRADE: C
Rating:
Summary: mildly worthwhile
Review: Although he was to remember his friendship with painter Paul Ehrenberg as the love of his life, in 1905 he married Katia Pingsheim, who came from a well-to-do Munich Jewish family. He remained married to her until his death 50 years later. In marrying her, he sacrificed his natural inclinations for social convention. Mann found very young men beautiful, but his homosexuality remained hidden for 50 years after his death, when his diaries were released. These revealed that he was prone to fits of nausea, nervous, trembling and convulsive sobbing quite at odds with his public image of elegant, self-assured aloofness. He was fortunate that the Nazis never discovered his secret. -BBC Education: Biography of Thomas Mann The quote above is merely one of a number of similar sentiments that I found when I was looking for links for this review and I must admit, they completely mystify me. How could anyone read this story and not realize that Mann was an almost heroically repressed homosexual? Death in Venice tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, a German writer, who decides that he needs a holiday to relieve the stress of his "nerve-taxing" work. Eventually he arrives in Venice and conceives a passionate crush on a a fourteen year old boy named Tadzio. As he grows ever more obsessed with the boy, Aschenbach's mind becomes increasingly unbalanced. He takes to following the lad around and refuses to leave Venice despite an outbreak of cholera, virtually courting death in order to indulge his desires. Finally, as Tadzio frolics in the waves at the beach, Aschenbach dies quietly in a beach chair. Just in case the reader hasn't gotten the hint, Mann helpfully provides Aschenbach one extended soliloquy: For mark you, Phaedrus, beauty alone is both divine and visible; and so it is the sense way, the artist's way, little Phaedrus, to the spirit. But, now tell me, my dear boy, do you believe that such a man can ever attain wisdom and true manly worth, for whom the path to the spirit must lead through the senses? Or do you rather think-for I leave the point to you-that it is a path of perilous sweetness, a way of transgression, and must surely lead him who walks in it astray? For you know that we poets cannot walk the way of beauty without Eros as our companion and guide. We may be heroic after our fashion, disciplined warriors of our craft, yet are we all the women, for we exult in passion, and love is still our desire-our craving and our shame. And from this you will perceive that we poets can be neither wise nor worthy citizens. We must needs be wanton, must needs rove at large in the realm of feeling. Our magisterial style is all folly and pretence, our honourable repute a farce, the crowd's belief in us is merely laughable. And to teach youth, or the populace, by means of art is a dangerous practice and ought to be forbidden. For what good can an artist be as a teacher, when from his birth up he is headed direct for the pit? We may want to shun it and attain to honour in the world; but however we turn, it draws us still. So, then, since knowledge might destroy us, we will have none of it. For knowledge, Phaedrus, does not make him who possesses it dignified or austere. Knowledge is all-knowing, understanding, forgiving; it takes up no position, sets no store by form. It has compassion with the abyss-it is the abyss. So we reject it, firmly, and henceforward our concern shall be with beauty only. And by beauty we mean simplicity, largeness, and renewed severity of discipline; we mean a return to detachment and to form. But detachment, Phaedrus, and preoccupation with form lead to intoxication and desire, they may lead the noblest among us to frightful emotional excesses, which his own stern cult of the beautiful would make him the first to condemn. So they too, they too, lead to the bottomless pit. Yes, they lead us thither, I say, us who are poets-who by our natures are prone not to excellence but to excess. Mann, who had studied and was influenced by Nietzsche, here posits the artist as a Dionysian, drawn to the purely sensual. But at the same time he recognizes that this attraction to the non-rational realm is self destructive; yield to desire and you end up, like Aschenbach, first insane and then dead. The artist is counterpoised against the wise and rational citizenery, whom Nietzsche termed Apollonians (see Orrin's review of The Birth of Tragedy (1872)(Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900) (Grade: C). I've tried several times to read Mann's novels--Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus--and I have to admit I find them unreadable, but supposedly this struggle between reason and passion is a consistent theme. Yet when Mann's diaries were published in the 1980's--revealing a man who, despite a successful marriage lasting half a century and producing six children, was continually smitten with young men, typically the waiters in his favorite restaurants--the critics claim to have been shocked by the revelation of his homoerotic yearnings. Significantly, there is no evidence that he acted on these impulses. He appears to have submerged his carnal appetite for boys in favor of a conventional family life. I simply do not understand why this should have surprised anyone; it seems perfectly consistent with the vision of this story that he would have chosen not to end up like Aschenbach himself. This is not a terribly enjoyable story to read and there aren't really any sympathetic characters. Nor do I find Mann's prose particularly compelling; as I mentioned, I've found his other works to be pretty tough sledding. But taken purely as a cautionary tale, it's at least mildly worthwhile reading. GRADE: C
Rating:
Summary: BIRTH OF TRAGEDY IS A MUST
Review: BIRTH OF TRAGEDY must be read before Death in Venice or what u take away from the book will be off from Mann's intentions. Just so you know...its a good book if u get mann's point or not...worth the read
Rating:
Summary: A good novella, but far from perfect
Review: Death in Venice has at times a spellbinding atmosphere. At times it is also displaying Mann's magnificent register of using the language, actually more often than rare, that alone enough to make the book worth reading. But I don't find the story strong and gripping enough. That the main character with the mind and soul of an artist is falling in love with a pretty boy is an interesting angle of approach, and would have been even more chocking to the reader in 1911 when Mann wrote the novella. To me the weakest parts seem to be the beginning of the book, before he is approaching Venice by sea, and the ending of it. On those crucial parts of the book I find Mann as the author and creator too much present, while the fifty pages in the middle are superb craftsmanship, where one is taken away by the atmosphere and his wonderful descriptions. Still, the book is a classic and well worth the reading.
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Summary: Read this book, NOT the reviews...
Review: Death in Venice is a rare book that reminds the reader of his/her significance on earth. The translation is suberb and Mann is a master. The other reviews give away too much of the story. The wonderful book will make you cry for life.
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