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Iamthesword
Yes, he is 14. But the book is not really about pedophilia (at least not in the way f. e. LOLITA is).
Gustav Aschenbach "falls in love" with the boy, but Thomas Mann doesn't specify the nature of the the main character's love - yes, he considers the boy beautiful, but there is no direct mentioning of erotic feelings (the closest thing may be that the main character reflects a lot about ancient Greek mythology which could be read as a subtle reference to the concept of pæderasta/pederasty). On the other hand, there are multiple instances where it seems that the boy is more a representation of youth as a concept. In that sense, the "love" of the elderly man is more the recollection of being young and its possibilities and the regret for the loss of it. Aschenbach gets rather obsessed with the idea of youth/being young than with the boy as a person. But I think Mann left this deliberatly ambigous.
So I'd say, it is rather a book about aging and a study about addiction and its consequences using the example of a maybe-pedophile.
Gustav Aschenbach "falls in love" with the boy, but Thomas Mann doesn't specify the nature of the the main character's love - yes, he considers the boy beautiful, but there is no direct mentioning of erotic feelings (the closest thing may be that the main character reflects a lot about ancient Greek mythology which could be read as a subtle reference to the concept of pæderasta/pederasty). On the other hand, there are multiple instances where it seems that the boy is more a representation of youth as a concept. In that sense, the "love" of the elderly man is more the recollection of being young and its possibilities and the regret for the loss of it. Aschenbach gets rather obsessed with the idea of youth/being young than with the boy as a person. But I think Mann left this deliberatly ambigous.
So I'd say, it is rather a book about aging and a study about addiction and its consequences using the example of a maybe-pedophile.
Bill Keefe
I appreciate lamthesword's response but my take is that, while there is no actual sex act and, in fairness, no proposal of a sex act, Ashcenbach's "love" for the boy was, among other things, sexual. Yes, the boy was an icon for many other important themes that Mann wanted to explore - art, age and aging, beauty, death...and the book is well worth reading for these reasons alone but, make no bones about it, despite the fact that Plato is discussed at length, Ashenbach's love was not simply Platonic. If you didn't think that before he went to the barber in Venice to turn back the clock, you certainly did after (though, with another nod to Iamthesword, there are multiple layers in this event, as well).
Loretto Rey
I read that Mann wrote Death in Venice because he himself went to Venice, and saw a "beautiful" boy (who Mann thought was 14 years old, but was actually 10 years old), and became obsessed with him, apparently his wife talked about this. The boy's name was Fadzio an he even got to talked about the novel years later when he grew up.
Don't worry nothing happened to the boy, Mann never talked with him or anything, but he was definitely obsessed with him if he got to remember multiple times about Fadzio (his nationality, his appearance, details about his family and about what he was wearing).
I don't know how much is gossip and how much is true.
People will say that the novel is ambiguous and to certain point it is, but why would you leave sexual attraction as one of the interpretations?Specially if is true that he wrote a novel based on a real child that he got obsessed with.
And no, idiots, no one is saying that dead people/fictional characters should go to jail, its just about what the novel is trying to say.
Don't worry nothing happened to the boy, Mann never talked with him or anything, but he was definitely obsessed with him if he got to remember multiple times about Fadzio (his nationality, his appearance, details about his family and about what he was wearing).
I don't know how much is gossip and how much is true.
People will say that the novel is ambiguous and to certain point it is, but why would you leave sexual attraction as one of the interpretations?Specially if is true that he wrote a novel based on a real child that he got obsessed with.
And no, idiots, no one is saying that dead people/fictional characters should go to jail, its just about what the novel is trying to say.
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