Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
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Book Reviews of Death in Venice
Book Review: Beautiful prose
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a wonderful novella, written as a self-reflective piece about Mann's own life and how he imagined dying a beautiful death. The descriptions of Venice are beautiful, as are the classical references. The death scene is quite nice, turning from one perspective to another, gently.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: 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: Yawn...Pedophilic with no redeeming qualities
Summary: 2 Stars
There is a running joke within myself that whenever I am in a tiresome situation, I would say, "You know, I feel like Dirk Bogarde at the end of the movie." Well, yeah...ironically, that's how I felt the same when I was reading the book Death in Venice, especially in the last twenty pages or so. I did see the movie and found it lacking in details. There were too many of unexplained moments that had me peeved, so I dismissed the movie as an artificial exercise of the intelligence. While browsing around at a used bookstore, I was surprised that there was a novel before the movie was made. My hope was to gain more insight about the main character Gustave von Aschenbach and the motives behind his obsession. While reading the book, I felt overwhelmed by several aspects drawn out by the author. One is that he wasted too many pages when describing Gustave. Two is he tends to go off a tangent with his philosophical statements. I kept waiting until he got back to the main character and his actions. I would say more aptly, his writing tends to become purple prose in disguise. Three is that the writer is stuck in the moment for a prolonged period of time before moving on. In the end, I didn't learn anything new or discover very much. In the movie, I was confused if it was a plague in Venice, but in the book, there are three explanations: sirocco (but not really), cholera, and plague. The bottom line is that Gustave von Aschenbach is a newborn pedophilic, and that sort of thing doesn't interest me. I would say that Death in Venice is much like Lolita but in a different league. All in all, Death in Venice isn't worth reading because nothing seems to happen, and there isn't much difference between the book and the movie.