Death in Venice: And Seven Other Stories

Book Description

Eight complex stories illustrative of the author's belief that "a story must tell itself," highlighted by the high art style of the famous title novella.

Customer Reviews:

A great introduction to a litery giant.......2005-12-13

This is my first time reading Thomas Mann, save for the few excerpts that appear in college literature studies. Thomas Mann is notorious for his lengthy sentences and his never-ending novels, so I picked this as a gentle introduction to his works.
Even just flipping through the short stories will give an impression of how versatile and varied Mann's writing styles could be. Death in Venice, while being his most famous work in this book, is also one of the more difficult ones to read. This was Thomas Mann at his best - his sentences, long and tortuous, rolls through the imagination paragraphs at a time. Felix Krull, on the other hand, is short and succinct, with almost a feel of modern satire permeating through it.
The translation reads pretty clean and straightforward. While this probably probably loses a bit of feel in terms of grammar and structure of the sentences, Mann's styles and the suitability of the German language to this task means that a direct translation would have less flow and may seem cumbersome.
Overall I would say this is a nice illustration of Mann's literary prodigy, without overwhelming those who are not yet initiated into reading his full-sized novels.

Okay.......2005-09-26

The book was shipped really late and that bothered me. I needed it for class, and i got it three weeks from the day i bought it.

Good Introduction to Thomas Mann - Intriguing, Complex Stories.......2005-08-21

The long novels of Thomas Mann can prove challenging, not unlike those of Henry James. Fortunately, this varied collection - Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories - offers an easier way to become acquainted with Mann's intellectual, psychologically complex literature.

Thomas Mann's lengthy sentences and complex grammatical structures markedly complicate the task of translation. H. T. Lowe-Porter's translation is considered the most accessible version, although at the expense of subdividing many of Mann's sentences. (For comparison with an excellent literal version, look at Stanley Appelbaum's translation of Death in Venice, Dover Publications, 1995).

Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories was first published by Vintage Books in 1954. My edition was printed by Vintage International in 1989; it has neither an introduction nor explanatory notes.

Death in Venice (1911): While vacationing in Venice, the aging, highly respected author Gustave Ashenbach becomes mesmerized by a young boy staying at the seashore with his Polish aristocratic family. Although intellectually aware of his growing obsession, Ashenbach is unable to break away. This somber portrayal of a troubled man is a masterpiece of subtle nuances that illustrates Thomas Mann's ability to create layers of meaning.

Tonio Kroger (1903) is perhaps more biographical as it explores a writer's internal conflict between his desire to be accepted, that is to fit in to a bourgeois life, and his contradictory need to follow his artistic temperament wherever it might lead him.

Mario and the Magician (1929) is more explicitly political, depicting in the guise of an unscrupulous hypnotist a Mussolini-like character. The ending of this intriguing account is a surprise.

The setting in Disorder and Early Sorrow (1925) is Munich, less than a decade after World War I, amid rampant inflation and social upheaval. The narrator, Professor Cornelius, is saddened by the loss of tradition, exemplified by modern art, music, and dance forms so popular with his older children, now young adults. He finds refuge in his study of history. Early sorrow refers to an incident involving his five year-old daughter, Ellie.

A Man and His Dog (1918) is personal, humorous, and almost idyllic, quite different from the more serious topics addressed in the other stories in this collection.

The Blood of the Walsungs (1905) is the most disturbing story in this collection. The two key characters exhibit an aristocratic arrogance and elitism that culminates in incest. In an opera scene Mann draws a close parallel between his two protagonists and Siegmund and Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walkure.

Tristan (1902) has been described as a retelling of the legend of Tristan and Isolde set in a sanatorium. Detlev Spinell, a tuberculosis patient staying in the Dr. Leander's medical facility, becomes infatuated with another patient, Herr Kloterjahn's wife. Spinell is a largely unsuccessful writer, one that has difficulty relating to others.

In Felix Krull (1911) the narrator is a self-serving, unscrupulous, amoral, confidence man that is somehow likeable. The story ends abruptly, leaving the reader wondering what happens next. Forty years later Thomas Mann resumed work on this story and in 1954 he published the novel The Confessions of Felix Krull, a light, often hilarious account of a man who wins the favor and love of others by enacting the roles that they desire of him.

Thomas Mann was born in Germany in 1875. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. He left Germany in 1933, living primarily in Switzerland and the United States until his death in 1955.

Entertaining, Classic Literature.......2003-11-09

Thomas Mann wrote "Death in Venice" in 1911. The protagonist, formerly a self-controlled and respectable public figure, gives himself over to obsessively stalking a 14-year-old boy for whom he has erotic feelings. While these feelings would be unacceptable to most people in our era, it is still difficult for us to appreciate the degree of condemnation they would have attracted when this story was written. Yet, Sigmund Freud had published The Interpretation of Dreams a decade earlier, and German intellectuals like Thomas Mann were aware that censurable urges lurk beneath conscious notice within all of us. Through this story, the author was surely struggling to come to terms with his own homoerotic urges. Judging from what he wrote, these were deeply troubling to him: corruption, decay, and condemnation are the themes he presents to us. While the images conveyed through this story are repugnant and shocking, the writing is beautiful and affecting.

Several of the other stories in this volume are of similar quality, and similarly deal with troubling themes ("Mario and the Magician," "The Blood of the Walsungs"). Yet, Mann was also capable of an extended and sincerely felt appreciation of the more benign and wholesome aspects of our world ("A Man and His Dog").

These stories are worth reading and re-reading. Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929, and these stories, if not Nobel prize quality, at the very least show Mann to be an engaging and entertaining writer.

A Wonderfully Complex Writer.......2003-04-21

Mann is to be struggled with; his work to be attacked and repulsed - it is the embodiment of engaging, challenging fiction. It may be advisable to start out with Mario and the Magician, a splendid and accessible story of a hypnotist performing amazing acts on an incredulous audience that is itself hypnotic in alluring its character audience and the reader into a seeminly pedestrian story that turns out to have a whimsical, fantastic denouement. M&M also doubles as a grand metaphor for the fascism that was beginning to grip Germany - the awesome power of a tyrant and the dangerous nakedness of a raptured audience.

Mann passes the test of great writing, in that even in translation, one can appreciate the literary dexterity of a master at work - a writer carried away, inhabiting each sentence of his story. Some of his lesser stories, towards the end of the anthology, are sprawling introspectives and thoroughgoing accounts of places and things.

Death in Venice is a seminal work and sets the tone for Mann's subtle revelations of repressed passions and the tabboo. Mann elegantly lays bare human souls, yet keeping the lid safely fastened to the pressured jar. One of my favorites was Toni Kroger - a touching story of an artist's life, from young man to mature adult. Mann renders beautifully unrequited love and homosocial admiration by the introverted for the extroverts. In reading his stories, we may find that he expresses memories and feelings that were always there, but could not find the words for before. That, perhaps, is the highest achievement of a writer.

The Real Tadzio: Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and the Boy Who Inspired It
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A Fascinating Approach to Art as Life vs. Life as Art

A Fascinating Approach to Art is Life vs. Life is Art

The Real Tadzio: Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and the Boy Who Inspired It
Gilbert Adair
Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Death in Venice

ASIN: 0786712473

Book Description

In the summer of 1911, the German writer Thomas Mann visited Venice in the company of his wife Katia. There, in the Grand Hotel des Bains, as he waited for the dinner-gong to ring, the author’s roving eye was drawn to a nearby Polish family, the Moeses, consisting of a mother, three daughters, and a young sailor-suited son who, to Mann, exuded an almost supernatural beauty and grace. Inspired by this glancing encounter with the luminous child, Mann wrote Death in Venice, and the infatuated writer made of that boy, Wladyslaw Moes, one of the twentieth century’s most potent and enduring icons. According to Gilbert Adair in his sparkling evocation of that idyll on the Adriatic, Mann wrote his novella, “as though taking dictation from God.” But precisely who was the boy? And what was his reaction to the publication of Death in Venice in 1912 and, later, the release of Luchino Visconti’s film adaptation in 1971? In this revealing portrait, including telling photographs, Gilbert Adair brilliantly juxtaposes the life of Wladyslaw Moes with that of his mythic twin, Tadzio. It is a fascinating account of a man who was immortalized by a genius, yet forgotten by history.

Customer Reviews:

A Fascinating Approach to Art as Life vs. Life as Art.......2003-12-03

Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice" written in 1911 has proven to be one of the more enduring, widely read stories in all of 20th Century literature. Originally published by Mann in a selection of short stories, the tale is one of the clash of the Apollonian and Dionysian conflict in the guise of one Gustav von Aschenbach, dropping his wholly cerebral life, to fall in love with a young Polish lad (Tadzio, who represents earthly Dionysian beauty at the stage of puberty) in Venice, Italy when the threat of cholera threatened the life of the city. The story has captured the imagination of philosophers, readers, historians, thinkers concerned with gender studies - and musicians and filmmakers!
The story has been published in many languages, served as the subject for Luchino Visconti's hauntingly beautiful film (1971) by the same name, and resulted in Benjamin Britten's last opera (1973) also with the name "Death in Venice" in tact. Gender studies writers claim this novella to be one of the most successful stories of same sex love, and other famous writers took the lead from Mann in putting into novel form the 'unspeakable subject'. Gilbert Adair, a successful British writer ("Love and Death on Long Island" is a stunning book and was made into a fine film with the brilliant portrayal by John Hurt of the Thomas Mann-inspired character) has treated us with a significant bit of investigation and shows in well written prose and illustrated by many photographs that the story of "Death in Venice" is actually Mann's reporting on an incident that really did happen: Mann was in Venice in 1911, encountered a rich young Polish boy (one Wladyslaw Moes) while staying on the Lido, met all the same characters he later depicted, escaped the cholera epidemic that threatened Venice, felt the desire for the beautiful lad, but in Mann's case he did not die on the beach watching his desired young dream lad wandering away into the sea waves.
Adair then follows the life of the real 'Tadzio' through his wealthy years in Poland, his trials during the time between WWI and WWII, his loss of all of his wealth in the post war period including his incarceration in a POW camp, his marriage and subsequent loss of his son, his response to seeing himself depicted in Visconti's movie version of Mann's novella, and his subsequent death in 1986. This is a fine bit of history, well presented with accompanying photographs of "Tadzio", his friends, his family, and his disappearance into obscurity while his impetus for Thomas Mann's novella lives on. Adair also examines the Visconti film and the Britten opera and manages to tie a century's worth of information into a short, eminently readable book. This is a must read for everyone who has fallen in love with this famous story.

A Fascinating Approach to Art is Life vs. Life is Art.......2003-12-02

The story has been published in many languages, served as the subject for Luchino Visconti's hauntingly beautiful film (1971)by the same name, and resulted in Benjamin Britten's last opera (1973) also with the name "Death in Venice" in tact. Gender studies writers claim this novella to be one of the most successful stories of same sex love, and other famous writers took the lead from Mann in putting into novel form the 'unspeakable subject'. Gilbert Adair, a successful British writer ("Love and Death on Long Island" is a stunning book and was made into a fine film with the brilliant portrayal by John Hurt of the Thomas Mann-inspired character) has treated us with a significant bit of investigation and shows in well written prose and illustrated by many photographs that the story of "Death in Venice" is actually Mann's reporting on an incident that really did happen: Mann was in Venice in 1911, encountered a rich young Polish boy (one Wladyslaw Moes) while staying on the Lido, met all the same characters he later depicted, escaped the cholera epidemic that threatened Venice, felt the desire for the beautiful lad, but in Mann's case he did not die on the beach watching his desired young dream lad wandering away into the sea waves.

Adair then follows the life of the real 'Tadzio' through his wealthy years in Poland, his trials during the time between WWI and WWII, his loss of all of his wealth in the post war period icluding his incarceration in a POW camp, his marriage and subsequent loss of his son, his response to seeing himself depicted in Visconti's movie version of Mann's novella, and his subsequent death in 1986. This is a fine bit of history, well presented with accompanying photographs of "Tadzio", his friends, his family, and his disappearance into obscurity while his impetus for Thomas Mann's novella lives on. Adair also examines the Visconti film and the Britten opera and manages to tie a century's worth of information into a short, eminently readable book. This is a must read for everyone who has fallen in love with this famous story.

Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories
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Regret Comes From Lack of Self-Awareness

Gorgeous

Poetic Pedophilia

Excellent Translation in Dover Edition - Helpful Commentary

Zero stars if I could

Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories
Thomas Mann
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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ASIN: 0393960137

Book Description

Celebrated novella of a middle-aged German writer's tormented passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, and its tragic consequences. Powerful evocation of the mysterious forces of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, and the isolation of the artist in 20th-century life. New translation and extensive commentary.

Customer Reviews:

Regret Comes From Lack of Self-Awareness.......2006-08-26

Thomas Mann has taken an ages old theme, the attraction of an older, worn out man for a youthful boy, dressed it up in a series of classical allusions, and details how this attraction merely accelerates the decay of the man whose decline began long before he first saw the boy. In DEATH IN VENICE, Gustave von Aschenbach is a German writer living in pre-World War I Europe, who has been trying to balance the struggles involved in maintaining his hard-worn writing laurels with the demands those struggles have placed on his life, his health, and his emotional keel. He has become an ascetic, denying himself the pleasures of the flesh. His muse is a jealous one and demands his attention full time. Over the years, he has willingly paid the price, but the true cost becomes apparent to him only as he turns fifty years of age. He senses a void in his life. He does not know what it is or how to compensate, so he decides that travel in the answer. One of the ironies of Mann's novella is that Aschenbach's readers undoubtedly give him credit for the worldly-wise sophisticate that his many literary works of art suggest he must be. But the truth is that because of his rigorous denial of himself, in terms of maturity and emotional serenity, he is a greenhorn. He tends to view the world as he does through his books, which are laden with an abundance of classical erudition. But the real world is not Plato's Republic reborn. It is a testing ground which favors those whose feet are firmly grounded in the world of the body. Early on, as Mann subtly alludes to Aschenbach's mental and physical infirmities, his fate is a doom foretold.

Aschenbach is puzzled by the continual appearance of a weird looking old man who pops up at convenient moments to glare at him in a puzzling manner. The first time that Aschenbach sees him, he pays him scant attention, but as the visits increase in his trips around Europe, both Aschenbach's and the reader's wonderment grow. After a while, the old man begins to assume allegorical--or at least mystical--proportions. One can almost see a misty haze envelop both during their encounters. It is tempting to treat these visitations as unreal hallucinations of a mind slowly unhinging with Aschenbach seeing a version of himself, following him around Europe, as if to remind him of his looming mortality.

While in Europe, he notices a good looking Polish boy of about fourteen. Aschenbach begins to fantasize about him but dares not do more than just gaze at him from a distance. As if in a rush, the years of ascetic self-denial rupture, opening the door to his latent homosexual tendencies. Mann cleverly avoids calling a spade a spade. Instead he dresses up this fantasy in terms of Aschenbach's limited social background that had been fueled by a lifetime of classical learning. The boy, whose name is Tadziu, is described as a young Adonis, an Apollo, and other such. The only words that pass between then occur at the very end, when Aschenbach sees the boy tormented by bullies and almost, but not quite, intervenes. Aschenbach locks eyes with the boy and in that moment he knows the forbidden joy that, in a different universe might have been his. He dies, possibly of the plague, happy and decidedly ignorant of who he himself really was. Mann passes no moral judgments against Aschenbach. This is no gay bashing novel nor does he hold it up as a trumpeting to engage in illicit activities, but in the ending of what-might-have-been, Mann suggests that life's choices and future happiness might better be served with a clearer moral vision of who we are, what we want, and where we are going.

Gorgeous.......2006-08-20

Mann's masterpiece is an achingly beautiful, exquisitely crafted, spellbinding exploration of beauty, age, love, sex, life, and of course death. I can think of no other book where the setting so effectively establishes the book's atmosphere, so powerfully reinforces its themes and ideas. The plot is so simple, yet wrapped in layers of meaning, both inviting and resisting interpretation.

This book is short yet incredibly rich; it reminds me of a tiny, delicately carved precious jewel. And what a beautiful jewel to dive into and immerse oneself in. Read this book!

Poetic Pedophilia .......2005-11-13

I did not like this book as much as many of the other reviewers. The main problem I had was that I simply could not relate to Aschenbach, the protaganist of the story. I mean, I thought that his obsession with the male child was weird. Unlike Lolita, there was no dark humor in the obsession. There was just a very raw, profound, longing and appreciation for the beauty of the young child. I found that somewhat sick and I cannot say that I've ever had many of the feelings that Aschenbach relates in the work.

Many people seem to think that the most boring part of this book is the part where Aschenbach thinks about his art. Maybe I'm an odd duck, but I actually found this to be the most interesting part of the novella. I like how Aschenbach talks about how he wants to make a name for himself through his art, and about how he wakes up early every morning to pour his soul into his craft. This is the part of the book that I best understood. It really resonated with me.

Even though the story was not my favorite, I must say that I appreciated the author's use of language. The translation I read (by Stanley Applebaum) was lively and captured the author's verbal imagination. I will probably never read this novella again, but I do think that I might like other work by Mann (provided that he is writing about different subject matter!).

I do not know who would really appreciate this book. I guess I would recommend this book largely to people who appreciate art for art's sake, and also to people who like novels which really penetrate the psyche of the main character. Readers less artistically inclined might find this work to be heavy sledding.

Excellent Translation in Dover Edition - Helpful Commentary .......2005-05-30

Death in Venice (1912) is a disturbing story, one that is not easy to forget. It is also exceptional literature, a classic of the twentieth century. Thomas Mann's Death in Venice might be best compared to the subtle, psychologically complex fiction of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

In Munich the aging, highly respected author Gustav Aschenbach is in need of change, rest in a new setting, to overcome his growing fatigue that is impacting his writing. While recovering in Venice, Aschenbach slowly, but inexorably, becomes mesmerized by a young Polish boy staying at the seashore with his aristocratic family. Aschenbach is intellectually aware of his growing obsession, but he is seemingly unable to break away. Thomas Mann's somber portrayal of this troubled man is a masterpiece of subtle nuances and psychological intensity.

Thomas Mann's lengthy sentences and complex grammatical structures severely complicate the task of translating Death in Venice. I have read two excellent and yet substantially different translations. The most faithful translation is by Stanley Appelbaum (in this Dover edition, 1995) that tries to be as literal as possible, carefully preserving the comparative length of the original sentences as well as the internal sequence of each original German sentence. Contrastingly, the H. T. Lowe-Porter translation (found elsewhere) is less literal, but is considered the most delightful and readable version, although at the expense of subdividing many of Mann's lengthy sentences. Lowe-Porter's version has been the standard translation for many years.

The Dover edition provides an excellent 10-page commentary, including footnotes.

Zero stars if I could.......2005-01-09

I was a philosophy major in college and I hated this book. But then again, the whole NAMBLA fic genre really doesn't do it for me. I'm sure some literary aesthetes are going to pick this review apart, good for them. I'm incredibly well-read and thought this one was just a tepid bore. Save your time, read some Dostoevsky, some Dickens, some Milton, (...).

Death in Venice and Other Stories (Signet Classics)

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Death in Venice and Other Stories (Signet Classics)
Thomas Mann
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0451530322

Book Description

This translation of Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann's work includes his masterpiece, "Death in Venice," plus six of the author's short stories: "Tristan," "Tonio Kroger," "Man and Dog: An Idyll," "Hour of Hardship," "Tobias Mindernickel," and "The Child Prodigy."

Death in Venice and Other Stories: And Other Stories (Signet Classics)

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Mann's "Death in Venice" and More
Wagner never sounded so good
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Death in Venice and Other Stories: And Other Stories (Signet Classics)
Thomas Mann
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Book Description

The celebrated author, Gustave Aschenbach, burdened by his successes, comes to Venice for a holiday and encounters a vision of eros -- a vision for which he pays with his life. Death in Venice, Thomas Mann's intensely moving elegy for a man trapped between myth and modernity, was written at the peak of his powers.

Customer Reviews:

Mann's "Death in Venice" and More.......2006-08-14

Thomas Mann's masterful short novel "Death in Venice" (1912) tells the story of a distinguished German writer, Gustav Aschenbach, who, at the age of 53 while on holiday in Venice, develops a passion for a 14-year old boy named Tadzio. Mann's story sets the demands and powers of eros, human sexuality, in the form of Aschenbach's feelings for Tadzio, against the life, of intellect, discipline, artistic creation, and order which Aschenbach had, before his fateful passion, attempted to realize in his life. Mann's story is highly organized and beautifully controlled, meeting the artistic and intellectual demands of his protagonist, Aschenbach. Yet the story exudes passion and eroticism, in Aschebach's homosexual attraction for a young adolescent, the dank gondolas of Venice, the fetid epidemic that plagues the city, and the atmosphere of death and destruction that Mann captures in his work. The story is full of allusions to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to Plato's Phaedrus and Symposium and, I think, to the Bacchae of Euripides. Mann's story offers a disturbing picture of the claims of sexuality and eroticism, particularly on the life of the mind, and of the consequences of repressing them.

I was grateful for the opportunity to reread "Death in Venice" in a book group, and my understanding of the work was increased by this excellent collection of seven of Mann's early short stories in a volume edited by David Luke. It is available at a modest price. The six other stories in the volume were written earlier than "Death in Venice" and show a unity of theme with this great work. Each of the stories juxtaposes the life of the artist, the outsider trying to observe and understand, with the claims of passion. The artists involved, the passions, and the results differ among the stories, but the underlying theme remains the same.

"Tonio Kroger" (1903), an extended short story, shows an aspiring writer infatuated in his youth with a school friend and, subsequently, with the girl his friend marries. He years to be part of what he deems "the bright children of life, the happy, the charming, and the ordinary" while recognizing that this is not to be for him. "Tonio Kroger" was Mann's own favorite among his works and it presents the theme of "Death in Venice" -- intellect and passion in a different way and light.

The extended story "Tristan" (1903) also is based upon a conflict over a young woman, set in a sanitorium, between a dandified writer and her business-like matter-of-fact husband. Mann's love for Wagner and for music are also at the center of this story.

The remaining four stories also develop the theme of passion as a disturbing force in what appears to be a settled life. I particularly enjoyed the short opening work, "Little Herr Friedemann" (1897) in which a young man who becomes hunchbacked and reserved as a result of an accident in infancy is humiliated and rejected when he feels the stirrings of passion in the person of a beautiful 24 year old married woman.

In delving into the force eroticism exerts on human life, Mann's stories explore a theme which resonates deeply with me and with many readers. This book, with Luke's translation and introduction, is an excellent way of getting to know Mann's stories.

Robin Friedman

Wagner never sounded so good.......2006-07-12

I know two Germans, both of whom read a great deal- one of them taught the language to me for two semesters; the other I know via the internet. Each of them seems to have very different ideas about their own culture. For instance, one insists that Goethe is over-rated and should not be read; the other promises me that he is the bedrock of that countries literature. Who to believe? I'm still trying to make my mind up...

However, both of them insisted that I read Thomas Mann.

They couldn't have been more right. To you, the potential reader, I want to pass on that advice: read Thomas Mann. Read him and reread him and study him. Do it with this book, the Bantam publication translated by David Luke.

Thomas Mann had an intelligence about his writing that can only be appreciated fully firsthand. This is not light material by any stretch of the imagination but neither is it so dense that it can't be understood or gotten through. The fact is that its perfect; it sits just right in your mind, beckoning you on page by page, intricately constructing the internal rhythm of its characters and their dilemmas in such a way that you find yourself hypnotized, pouring through the pages then digesting those over a period of several weeks as the moods he has created stick with you. The material haunts you; it grabs hold of your imagination in such a way that a deep footprint will be forever left.

Take the story of `Tonio Kruger' for example. Inside the material there are repetitions which occur, turns of phrases that are presented in happy times, then echoed later to recall to the reader, albeit almost subconsciously, those earlier moments. These little flourishes in the language are the craft of a man who took his work very seriously, presenting the writing as well as the subject as part of the experience. Anyone who has read Flaubert knows what pains some authors take in this striving for the bon mot; Mann is such an author, a person who writes at all levels; plot, character, technical presentation, and theme.

This is to say that the other pieces of the fiction (plot; characterization) work as well as these little technical echoes. The story `Tristan' is a good example: after finishing this one, try to erase from your mind the image of the writer pleading with the sickened wife to play the piano. Try to wipe away the lilt of language, the turn and tilt that bring to mind the piece by Wagner, a sound that you can almost hear in the just the words themselves. I assure you, it will stick to you. If you want to do any writing yourself you will find your mind wandering over this passage, trying to discern how it is that Mann achieved this feat in mere language.

And this brings me to another reason to buy this book- David Luke. Mr. Luke does a splendid rendering of the material, a translation that does not dumb it down, that is very conscious of the work and its brevity and that takes great pains to make sure to convey as many levels of the work to the reader as is possible. One good example- at one point a German word is used that can have more than one meaning in the context (Geist); this is noted at the bottom of the page instead of being accounted into the translation itself. Doing this instead of writing both contexts into the text gives the reader an appreciation for the original work that could not be had otherwise.

The introduction is splendid as well. In 50 pages Mr. Luke covers a brief synopsis of each of the stories, recounting to the reader what should be noted so that the brilliance of the work becomes more evident (I will admit, I did not notice the repetitions myself...). I would advise (as with any introduction) that this part should be read last; it contains spoilers that could curtail the experience of a fresh reading.

Bottom line: Add this to your collection of paperbacks. Each story is worth the price of the book as a whole and the fact that they can all be had so cheap leaves little reason not to buy it.

-LP

The Sorrows of Youth.......2006-02-10

All of these stories were written when Mann was in his early twenties, and he always felt he would never surpass them. It is not hard to see why; they are suffused with the intensity and bitter-sweetness of despair that only youth can bring. By turns tragic and comic, the dark corners of Venice shall linger in the mind long after you have turned the page.

Art as a way of life.......2004-02-21

This collection of Thomas Mann's novellas and short stories thematically exhibits the alienation of being a passionate artist in a bourgeois society. "We artists despise no one more than the dilettante, the man of life who thinks that in his spare time, on top of everything else, he can become an artist," the title character tells a sympathetic friend in "Tonio Kroger," a story which seems at least partially autobiographical. Tonio, who has become a renowned writer as an adult, recalls an instance when he was a boy in which he tried to entice the interest of a friend -- a popular, athletic boy, everything that Tonio was not -- by enthusiastically explaining to him the plot of Schiller's "Don Carlos." The attempt was futile, however, and Tonio was left spiritually alone with his unusual love of literature.

"Tristan" takes the artist-bourgeois conflict to a setting that presages Mann's definitive novel "The Magic Mountain." The protagonist, an offbeat writer named Spinell confined to a tuberculosis sanatarium, takes an interest in a fellow patient, a businessman's wife who, he discovers, is a sensitive and tasteful amateur pianist. He writes her husband a derogatory letter, deploring him as a philistine who does not deserve to share his life with this secretly artistic woman, which results in a heated confrontation between the two men. In "The Child Prodigy," Mann's tone turns satirical as he focuses on an eight-year-old concert pianist giving an electrifying public performance to an audience whose various reactions -- wonder, jealousy, indifference -- are reflections upon themselves more so than on the performer.

"Death in Venice" is the boldest piece in this collection, unambiguously presenting homosexuality in an artistically positive light but also showing something of a German fascination with Italian culture and scenery. Gustav Aschenbach, the protagonist, again seems to reflect Mann to an extent as a middle-aged, widowed, respected author from Munich who becomes infatuated with a teenage boy while vacationing in Venice. Whether this love ever becomes mutual or physical is not as important as the mood Mann invokes about European cultural and moral decadence, possibly symbolized by the cholera epidemic that sweeps through the city.

"Man and Dog: An Idyll" is a brilliant meditation on the narrator's affectionate and occasionally difficult relationship with his pet pointer and also allows a glimpse of life in the industrialized and suburbanized Germany of the early twentieth century. To say that Mann gives the dog a human personality may seem a cliche, but few writers could achieve his level of empathy in relating a dog's behavior and desires in man's terms without resorting to outright personification. A disturbing inversion of this story is told in "Tobias Mindernickel," in which a lonely old man, given no personal background by Mann, ostracized in his neighborhood by adults and taunted by children, buys a dog and demands from it the obedience and respect he has never earned from people.

Mann is truly one of the most important figures in twentieth century literature. What he chose to portray, and the talent with which he portrayed it, brighten the legacy of a century that threatened to destroy art in so many ways for so many insane reasons.

Art and Time in Italy.......2001-10-06

The shorter tales are good but are really like imperfect sketches made in study for the grand finale piece Death in Venice. Most of the tales deal with sensual longing which is never satisfied or consummated and that gets a bit tiring unless you see the sensual longing representing some higher longing as well, the sensual longing perhaps being one in the same with spiritual and artistic longing. That way you are more in the frame of mind to see that Death in Venice is not just about an older mans lust for a younger man but a prolonged meditation about time and art and all those highly valued goods. I have to confess I get tired of Mann pretty quick because he dwells on the same themes over and over again but if you are a student of fiction he really is one of those writers who has much to teach. Still it sometimes seems to me that Mann's characters would be better off if they occasionally just went ahead and did it. That may sound to be an awful oversimplification but I think they would feel better and their already instable identities and worlds would not constantly be shaken to the ground by those too long suppressed desires. As for the spirit and artistic sense, they too would be happier, much more contented, with the occasional release and renewal of energies, a bit of fleshen contact would connect them to something more real than their "thoughts" about things. Anyway if you haven't already read Death in Venice you are lucky because it is a great read, though a strange and sometimes disturbed one. If you like your main characters made of more earthy substance than Mann's suffering spirits read D.H. Lawrence who also loved Italy by the way and who contemplated time and art in a much more relaxed manner.

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A Vintage book
Thomas Mann
Manufacturer: Vintage Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Classic Tale
different translation
Perfectly Executed
Great stories with profound meaning, but a little unsettling
reading death in venice as an artist

Death in Venice and Other Tales
Thomas Mann
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0670874248

Book Description

Translated and with an Introduction by Joachim Neugroschel"Death in Venice" is about a ruinous quest for love and beauty. Gustave von Aschenbach, a successful but lonely author, travels to Venice in search of elusive fulfillment. There he is spellbound by a beautiful Polish boy and finds himself fettered to this hypnotic city of eerie physical decay and sun-drenched sensuality. Renowned for his translations of Franz Kafka and Joseph Roth, Joachim Neugroschel places the true emphasis on Mann's mythic fascination with sexual inhibition and the havoc it wreaks--elements that were downplayed in earlier translations of his fiction. Capturing his evocative and bewitching style as well as his mordant irony, this new translation is the definitive English-language version of Mann's most famous tales and novellas, many of them still controversial today. The collection includes "The Will for Happiness," "Little Herr Friedemann," "Tobias Mindernickel," "Little Lizzy," "Gladius Dei," "Tristan," "The Starvelings," "Tonio Kroger," "The Wunderkind," "Harsh Hour," and "The Blood of the Walsungs."

Customer Reviews:

Classic Tale.......2006-02-23

Since I first read this book as a Comparative Literature major at the University of Washington, Thomas Mann has been right up there with Balzac, Strindberg, and Joyce as one of the best Modern writers.

different translation.......2004-10-13

These stories are all very fine. However, I found this translation lacking some kind of esthetic satisfaction that I always get from an earlier translation of Mann's work by Helen T. Porter.

Perfectly Executed.......2003-08-13

I don't think that Death in Venice operates on the premise that a "life of sensation" is worthwhile, whatever the cost. Mann's story is a complication of the traditional morality tale, and Aschenbach's demise is not a result of his giving in to the pursuit of beauty and visceral experience, but of his previous, total rejection of this kind of surrender. Aschenbach, we are told, lives like a "closed fist," and for this reason is completely unequipped to deal with the combined experience of visiting an unfamiliar and sinister place, and of encountering a boy who provokes a strong physical and emotional response (on a sidenote, occasionally I hear someone label this as a homophobic text, but they are entirely missing the point, I think. As in Henry James's Daisy Miller, Death in Venice, on one level, illustrates the way that forces outside of sex can make sex, or the desire for sex, fatal. It has nothing to do with the act, or desire, itself). It is Aschenbach's perpetual need to take the proverbial "high road" that makes his foray into the world of the sensual so disastrous.
The story is brilliant. Not only does Mann address wonderful themes like the nature of art, artistic impulse, desire, repression, and Orientalism, even, but the writing and narrative trajectory are flawless.

Great stories with profound meaning, but a little unsettling.......2003-02-11

Thomas Mann was one of the most elegant writers of our century. His prose dances off the page with a fluidity that is all too rare in today's world of literature, and his narrative style is always compelling. This little volume is a collection of twelve short stories. For the most part, the stories are enjoyable, though a couple of them are downright disturbing. Many of them feature dejected and misunderstood people who are desperately struggling to be understood and accepted in the world, and a great deal of the main characters are artists.

But there is much more here than just stories. In fact, nearly all these tales contain deep and complicated questions. What is art? What constitutes legitimate art? Is it true that true art brings pain, and that true artists can never live or enjoy life? These and many other questions are considered throughout this work.

As I said, some of these stories are a bit disturbing, and a couple are downright creepy. I recommend proceeding with caution. It might even be best to start with one of Mann's novels (like Buddenbrooks, for example). Still, if you are willing to brave this one out, it promises to be a richly rewarding experience, both in its quality of narrative and in the message that each of these short tales is meant to convey.

reading death in venice as an artist.......2002-12-12

Death in Venice is one of the gratest and most intelectually stimulating books i have ever read. It gives an example of the impoartance of beauty to the human soul. Without beauty there is no reason to live but in the deep lust for beauty the subject is consumed and dies. It askes the question is life without beauty worth living especially if life without beauty is only half a life. Death in Venice is one of the only books, along with The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, that recognises this idea and shows us that a life of sensation may not be so wrong even if it may ultimately costs life but what is life without beauty. It is the subject of all artists as Keats said "beauty is truth and truth beauty" Byron's life of excess caused his exile and what stands on the lips of literary history are the words "all art is immoral" spoken by Oscar Wilde who's entire life was for beauty. Death in Venice is in proud tradition of the celebration of beauty even if beauty is a cause of destrucion.

Approaches to Teaching Mann's Death in Venice and Other Short Fiction (Approaches to Teaching World Literature, No 43)

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A fascinating portrayal of society vs. an artist

Approaches to Teaching Mann's Death in Venice and Other Short Fiction (Approaches to Teaching World Literature, No 43)

Manufacturer: Modern Language Assn of Amer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0873527097

Customer Reviews:

A fascinating portrayal of society vs. an artist.......2000-03-31

The book is a very finely written novel that uses many plausable literary techniques. Thomas Mann uses Aschenbach to portray the place of an artist in our modern society and the amount of narcissism involved that can become fatal. A great novel indeed

Death in Venice (and Seven Other Stories)

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Death in Venice (and Seven Other Stories)
Thomas Mann
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000PCJJX2

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Death in Venice : and seven other stories
Mann Thomas
Manufacturer: VINTAGE PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VUHTPI

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