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Death in Venice

Thomas Mann

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Jan 07, 2022 Gerhard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2022, gay-interest, short-fiction

Trailing the beautiful boy one afternoon, Aschenbach penetrated the stricken city’s tangled core. His sense of direction having failed him—the alleys, canals, bridges, and tiny squares in the labyrinth were too much alike—he was no longer certain of even the compass points; all he cared about was keeping track of the vision he was so ardently pursuing...

I decided to read this novella in preparation for ‘The Magician’ by Colm Tóibín. (I also have yet to read ‘The Master’, which is Tóibín’s take o Trailing the beautiful boy one afternoon, Aschenbach penetrated the stricken city’s tangled core. His sense of direction having failed him—the alleys, canals, bridges, and tiny squares in the labyrinth were too much alike—he was no longer certain of even the compass points; all he cared about was keeping track of the vision he was so ardently pursuing...

I decided to read this novella in preparation for ‘The Magician’ by Colm Tóibín. (I also have yet to read ‘The Master’, which is Tóibín’s take on the life and times of Henry James.) Interestingly, I see that Scribner has reissued ‘Death in Venice’ with an introduction by Tóibín and an extract from the novel itself.

Tóibín writes that Mann “thought constantly about a sexual life that was not available to him, that would have to reside mostly in eager thoughts about young men.” He adds:

There was so much concealment. Thomas Mann was the most respectable German of his time, the father of six children. Even when ‘Death in Venice’ appeared in 1912, no one imagined that it was based on real desires, real happenings.

If this strains incredulity for the modern reader, one has to remember that it was a very different world that Mann was writing (and living) in. Much of Aschenbach’s infatuation with Tadzio is couched in rarified talk about the Muse and perfection instilled through art.

It is only with the fateful declaration “I love you!” that the Great Man’s downfall truly begins (largely in part due to the belief that a true artist has to shield him [or her] self from sordid reality and the even baser desires imposed by the human condition.)

The HarperCollins edition I read has a fascinating introduction by Michael (‘The Hours’) Cunningham that gives much insight into the ‘new’ translation by Michael Heim. This updates the traditional 1930 translation by H.T. Lowe-Porter, who apparently disapproved of the book’s subject matter (and Mann himself probably).

Hence the old translation is a bit of a whitewash. Lowe-Porter, for example, gets the name of ‘Phaedrus’ wrong and completely misses the Greek reference, according to an article I read in ‘The Guardian’.

I was unaware that ‘Death in Venice’ as a title has a double allusion. What I found interesting is how Mann transforms Venice into such a brooding cesspit of a place, which is in total contrast to its traditional appeal as the City of Love.

The novella has lost none of its disturbing power, and one can only imagine what Mann would have thought of this slight tome becoming his enduring legacy (or how he would have reacted to Tóibín concocting an ‘autobiographical experiment’ that focuses on some of the more lurid details of his life). ...more

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