Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

[jinjang]

Book Review: Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

At first glance, you would think it repulsive, imagining of an old man coveting a beautiful youth.

At second glance, you would wonder if it is a story of how a mighty man falls for a consummate beauty, the beauty compared with that of Hyacinth or Cleitus or Narcissus. Gustav may remind you of Frollo of Notre Dame de Paris and even of Humbert of Lolita.

You would stay on, because of his vast vocabulary, prolific and captivating writing, reference to Greek mythology, and Socrates’ wisdom, expecting and hoping something else altogether.

Gustav von Aschenback in his fifties, who is an acclaimed writer with strict discipline, tenacious spirit and work habit, strong will to produce abundantly, never sought pleasure. After a strenuous but fruitful morning labor, he takes a long walk through a park in Munich for fresh air, hoping to revive the morning eloquence in the evening. To avoid the possible storm, he decides to take the tram back home. At the tram stop, he observes a man of foreign exotic air who then infuses in Gustav a strong wanderlust and a passionate seizure for bizarre but fantastic faraway lands. Wikipedea says this man is Dionysus who intends to ruin Gustav because Gustav denies the pleasure and passion of life. He recently feared his life is declining and so failing his artistic goal. He follows his sudden impulse to go away from his familiar ground and, more so with his fear of failure, he feels the need of spontaneous changes of scenes. There is a whole fascinating chapter where the author describes what kind of a writer Gustav is and how he achieved his current status. On the way to Venice, he encounters an old man dressed gaudy with heavy makeup to blend in with young people, an ill omen.

The description of Venice is another irresistible reason for you to keep on reading. At his hotel lobby, he observes various people of different races and his attention catches a sight of Tadzio, the perfectly beautiful Polish boy of fourteen years old with honey-colored long ringlets, for the first time.

He talks of the virulent stench of lagoon and he was sick before with the same air. He talks of the warm sirocco that eventually brings Indian cholera emitted from the marshes of the Ganges Delta. He fails to leave the town and he decides not to inform the Polish family of the epidemic which was hushed up by the government.

He sits at beach and observes Tadzio’s every move without looking directly at him first. He becomes gradually bold and obsessed and follows Tadzio secretly around the town. He feels that the Eros possessed him, which he thinks “appropriate and suited” to his “abstemious dogged” life. He gets inspired by the beauty of Tadzio and scribbles on. The author says that the inspiration may irk readers if known. He catches the cholera and gets delirious. Lascivious nightmares haunt him and “his soul savored the debauchery and delirium of doom.” He feels shame and despair and covers himself with gaudy decorations to look younger. He dies at the beach watching Tadzio, beckoning him.

Just before his death, he talks to Phaedrus as if he himself is Socrates with an awakening. The quote is below. An artist must then fall into the abyss, the passion, to reach its sublime understanding of life. He is a Siddhartha who achieves Nirvana after serious debauchery but not for wisdom but for experience and understanding. A courageous artist, though involuntarily, plunges into dismal disgraceful abyss to reach the artistic goal.


For beauty, Phaedrus, mark thou well, beauty and beauty alone is at once divine and visible; it is hence the path of the man of the senses, little Phaedrus, the path of the artist to the intellect. But does thou believe, dear boy, that the man for whom the path to the intellect leads through the senses can ever find wisdom and true dignity of man? Or does thou rather believe (I leave it to thee to decide) that it is a perilously alluring path, indeed, a path of sin and delusion that must needs lead one astray? For surely thou knowest that we poets cannot follow the path of beauty lest Eros should join forces with us and take the lead; yes, through heroes we may be after our fashion and chaste warriors, we are as women, for passion is our exultation and our longing must ever be love-such is our bliss and our shame. Now dost thou see that we poets can be neither wise nor dignified? That we must go astray, ever be wanton and adventurers of the emotions? The magisterial guise of our style is all falsehood and folly, our fame and prestige a farce, the faith that the public places in us nothing if not ludicrous, and the use of art to educate the nation and its youth a hazardous enterprise that should be outlawed. For how can a man be worthy as an educator if he have a natural, inborn, incorrigible penchant for the abyss? Much as we reject, say, analytical knowledge; knowledge, Phaedrus, lacks dignity and rigor; it is discerning, understanding, forgiving, and wanting in discipline and form; it is in sympathy with the abyss; it is the abyss. We do therefore firmly resolve to disavow it and devote ourselves henceforth to beauty alone, which is to say, simplicity, grandeur and a new rigor, a second innocence, and form. Bur form and innocence, Phaedrus, lead to intoxication and desire; they may even lead a noble man to horrifying crimes of passion that his own beautiful rigor reprehends as infamous; they lead to the abyss; they too lead to the abyss. They lead us poets thither, I tell thee, because we are incapable of taking to the heavens, we are capable only of taking profligacy.

It is a dangerous proposition and I would hope all the writers get their perilous experiences through dreams and imaginations.

I am heading back to the Magic Mountain.

[Virgil]

Nice review Jin. It's been ages since I read Death In Venice. I remember being very impressed with the writing. I remember all the Greek allusions, though i couldn't possibly remember their significance. The one thing I remember not liking about the novel was the death by cholera, which seemed out of the blue and not integrated with the narrative, sort of a happenstance. But these are vague memories. I would love to read this again or some other Mann work. Some day. :) Thank you for this.

[JBI]

Nice review Jin. It's been ages since I read Death In Venice. I remember being very impressed with the writing. I remember all the Greek allusions, though i couldn't possibly remember their significance. The one thing I remember not liking about the novel was the death by cholera, which seemed out of the blue and not integrated with the narrative, sort of a happenstance. But these are vague memories. I would love to read this again or some other Mann work. Some day. :) Thank you for this.

It's a shame though, everything I find about this text details the question of whether Mann was gay or not, and questions the "Greek influence" as partaining to a homosexual facet, when really, I think, the text is more about a longing that comes with age, and seeing something that is beautiful - an idealized sense of self, and knowing, quite simply, that though you can follow it, you can never reach it. The obsession with the Boy is one of someone who knows that the boy represents everything that is waning within oneself. It's the same thing Cicero and even Socrates in his last moments were trying to argue, only the text says the opposite - the boy lives on, his youth is there on the beach, whereas the old man can never reach there.

In many ways, I like to read the boy, Tadzio as the perfect specimen of art. ultimately the goal is to reach out, and grasp the super work, but he always fall short - he cannot negotiate the Dionysian elements, and must resort to Apollonian structures in order to make an order in the chaos. The orgiastic dream of his cannot be created within art, and as he reaches out to touch it in the end, he falls short and dies, remembered as a "great artist", but ultimately, a failure, like every other artist.

[Virgil]

It's a shame though, everything I find about this text details the question of whether Mann was gay or not, and questions the "Greek influence" as partaining to a homosexual facet, when really, I think, the text is more about a longing that comes with age, and seeing something that is beautiful - an idealized sense of self, and knowing, quite simply, that though you can follow it, you can never reach it. The obsession with the Boy is one of someone who knows that the boy represents everything that is waning within oneself. It's the same thing Cicero and even Socrates in his last moments were trying to argue, only the text says the opposite - the boy lives on, his youth is there on the beach, whereas the old man can never reach there.

I think you're right, that's one way to interpret the text, but Mann does select a homosexual relationship to show this "longing that comes with age, and seeing something that is beautiful." He could have picked a number of other situations to reflect that idea. And given he was homosexual, then one can't but help make some thing of it.


In many ways, I like to read the boy, Tadzio as the perfect specimen of art. ultimately the goal is to reach out, and grasp the super work, but he always fall short - he cannot negotiate the Dionysian elements, and must resort to Apollonian structures in order to make an order in the chaos. The orgiastic dream of his cannot be created within art, and as he reaches out to touch it in the end, he falls short and dies, remembered as a "great artist", but ultimately, a failure, like every other artist.
I think that's the critical approach that was in commentary years ago, and that's basically how I understood it too. I have no idea how it's read today given that homosexuality is talked about and fairly conventional idea today. Four or five decades ago, no one even approached such frankness on homosexual desires. Does our understanding of homosexuality change our reading? I don't know. Mann probably looked at homosexuality different than his contemporary. One needs to really know Mann as to his intentions. I certainly am not qualified.

[jinjang]

JBI, I really appreciate your reply and interpretation. I was wondering whether I understood the book correctly. Yours is more coherent with the introduction to the book. I did not feel at all that Gustav was homosexual.

Virgil, thank you also for reading my review. Someone also was at odd with the flood in Mills on the Floss. Sudden natural disasters are unnatural in some stories, which does not bother me at all. I think it is because I do not care much about stories. I care more about how they are written and what they are trying to convey.

[JBI]

The notion of homosexuality is puzzling, in the sense that I don't think the fact that it is about a relationship between a man and a boy as being that significant. For instance, the relationship between Petrarch and his idea of Laura, ultimately, would have been quite similar, in an artistic sense, as would Raphael and his cherubim, or even Dante and Beatrice. We like to emphasize the homoerotic elements, because we, I think, or at least were, though most of us are, unused to this sort of thing, or brought up thinking it is wrong, and therefore made to only look at that aspect. Do we go about questioning the heterosexuality of Petrarch to Laura? Or even Poe to his Wife, who perhaps fit the grid closer, except that she was a female? If I wrote a book about a beautiful young girl I saw in Venice, who made me feel that my life had been wasted, as I had not known the joys of a youthful love, and though I try, can never get there again (essentially Lolita, without the actual fulfillment and savagery) then nobody would really pay much attention.

In that sense, I think there is a cultural association, in a racist manner, with homosexuals as pedophiles. I've seen that come up again and again, especially with notions like, "I don't care what you do in my house, as long as you stay away from my family". We try to emphasize the homosexual component, and create a bigoted fallacy of promiscuous, child-molesting homosexual men, who are effeminate, and weak. Auschenbach is nothing like that, from my reading. HE is merely grown old, and realizes that the boy contains everything. He is playing on the same notions that dominated 19th century thought (on a sort of elliptical level), only, now, since it is fiction, we like to politicize it. The actual artistry though, doesn't even matter. The only thing we should be questioning, is his intentions, which seem less aimed at sexual gratification, than at capturing the chaos that is the boy. Had it been a girl, it could not have made sense, the fact that the child is a boy, creates the connection between the two, but the homosexual component is secondary to the point of the story.

In truth, Mann seems to be asking the question Yeats repeatedly asked throughout the last poems (which I argue are his best);

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

from Among School Children

The body itself is growing old, but the spirit yearns to be free, and capture the youthfulness for all time within the art - to still time, for a moment, and be able to feel what has been lost. That is what, I would argue, is being reached for; but I know all too many readers who only read the text and think "Ew, he's trying to get with that little boy." or only focus on the homosexual components. In truth, it has become difficult not to - historically, homosexual components within works were, politically, ignored for fear of causing a disturbance in the value of the text. Now, since it is seen often as racist to not ignore them, everything else is moved into the secondary. but had it been a heterosexual coupling of the two, we wouldn't question any of this stuff. In that sense, I think it prudent to look at the book with homosexuality as an attribute, not a focus or theme, as I don't personally think such readings say much.

In truth, I would think the readings I am describing are quite 1990s. In the last little while, I think people have gone beyond all this sort of cultural mush, toward a new way of looking at things. Perhaps after the politically correct stage moves forward (as it already is) into a stage where the political elements are merely accepted (which too, is already happening) then we can really read the text. I propose, generally, to look at the homosexual component as a facet of the artist's view of himself, if such a liberty can be granted me. I don't mean to be offensive to the sexual orientation of anyone, but I think the text suffers from a lack of room when regarding motivation - what can be said, is often difficult - to stress the homosexual components detracts from the text, and to not stress them is seen as politically incorrect. I think we can merely just accept them and move on, to look at the more interesting elements, namely, the role of the artist within the frame of the old man, and how the obsession with the boy, and the failure to finally get up and grasp him can be said to resemble the failure of everyone at attaining their goals, most of all, artists, and the inability for one to frame the perfect image of beauty within a timeless frame.

[jinjang]

the role of the artist within the frame of the old man, and how the obsession with the boy, and the failure to finally get up and grasp him can be said to resemble the failure of everyone at attaining their goals, most of all, artists, and the inability for one to frame the perfect image of beauty within a timeless frame.

I am reading your comments with intense interests. You are simply finalizing my review because I did not notice the significance of the end when Gustav wanted to get up to respond to Tadzio's beckoning but fell to his death.

It is also true that neither homosexuality nor pedophilia, if indeed suggested in the book, bothered me. I wondered, all the while reading, what the book is trying to say. You are definitely clearing that for me.

If you are a writer, I wholeheartedly sympathize with you on the difficulty of reaching your artistic goal. Does unlimited time permit an artist to reach his or her perfection, do you think?

[quasimodo1]

Thanks for an outstanding review of Thomas Mann's novella which, having read it many years ago, I still remember as a riveting piece with unique images of what I still think of as classicly romantic settings, of an ancient, professor-like character over-intellectualizing guilt ridden desires. In Chapter Two, Thomas Mann foreshadows some of the intentions of the story he is now writing... "The author of a limpid and powerful prose epic dealing witrh the life of Frederick the Great; the

patient artist who iin his boundless diligence had woven a rich tapestry of a novel, MAYA by name, that brings

together myriad human fates in the service of an idea; the creator of a trenchant tale entitled "A Wretched Figure"

that had earned him the gratitude of the younger generation by showing it a path to moral fortitude existing even

beyond the depths of knowledge; and lastly (here ends the list of his mature works) the thinker whose impassioned

treatise, "Art and the Intellect," had led serious critics to rank him, on the strength of the work's rigorous

logic and eloquent use of antitheses, alongside Schiller and his meditation "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry" --

Gustav Aschenbach was born iin L., a county town in the province of Silesia, the son of a senior official in the

judiciary. His forebears had been officers, judges, and civil servants, men who led disciiplined, decently

austere lives serving king and state. A certain inner spirituality had manifested itself in the person of the only

clergyman amongst them, and a strain of more impetuous, sensual blood had found its way into the family in the

previous generation through the writer's mmother, the daughter of a Bohemian bandmaster."

[Quark]

Great review, jinjang. Let's see if I can add something without messing it up.


I wondered, all the while reading, what the book is trying to say.

I think the difficulty of "Death in Venice" is that it hits you with so much at once. This is one of those texts that live up to the oft-repeated dictum that art should be complex and have multiple meanings. One could say "Death in Venice" is about several ideas. It's about the limits of artistic creation. It's also a counterblast to the Romantic idea of inspiration, and it's a warning about the dangers of aestheticism. It's certainly about aging, and it's also about faith. And, even though some critics apparently have oversexualized the text, I would say that, yes, it's also about sexuality.

Oh, and did you say you were reading Magic Mountain? That's an ambitious read. Tell me how it is when you get past the mid-point. That's where I had to stop last winter. The new semester began, and I left off reading it. I wonder whether I'm missing anything.

[joao_oliveira]

The Magic Mountain is a great novel, specially past the mid-point... :P

[Quark]

The Magic Mountain is a great novel, specially past the mid-point... :P

Oh, now you're just rubbing it in.

[jinjang]

In Chapter Two, Thomas Mann foreshadows some of the intentions of the story he is now writing...
Thank you for taking time to comment on my book review, Mr. Q. I overlooked that part. I wonder how many things I missed now. I am hoping people will pop in and point out what I overlooked.


I think the difficulty of "Death in Venice" is that it hits you with so much at once. This is one of those texts that live up to the oft-repeated dictum that art should be complex and have multiple meanings. One could say "Death in Venice" is about several ideas. It's about the limits of artistic creation. It's also a counterblast to the Romantic idea of inspiration, and it's a warning about the dangers of aestheticism. It's certainly about aging, and it's also about faith. And, even though some critics apparently have oversexualized the text, I would say that, yes, it's also about sexuality.
I am glad I am not the only one who thought the book has many different angles to look at.

Oh, and did you say you were reading Magic Mountain? That's an ambitious read. Tell me how it is when you get past the mid-point. That's where I had to stop last winter. The new semester began, and I left off reading it. I wonder whether I'm missing anything.

My ignorance brings out a daring spirit in me and I jump right in and see if I can swim. When I read Death in Venice first time, it did not impress me at all and so I put it aside. Somewhere I read a reference to it and I got curious. This was my second attempt when I had more leisure time to focus on it better. Now I would consider it as one of the bests I have ever read.


The Magic Mountain is a great novel
I totally agree. I never read Thomas Mann without a dictionary, Internet access, notebook, and a pen. I read the Magic Mountain once and so it is my second time. I will see if I can absorb it better this time.

[jinjang]

Lawrence’s Review of Death in Venice

This is an excerpt from Introduction by David Ellis to Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers:

Endings would always be difficult for Lawrence, committed as he more and more became to trying to represent the continually on-going change and flux of life...(Lawrence)…complaining… to a friend: “They want me to have form: that means, they want me to have their pernicious ossiferous skin-and-grief form, and I won’t.” (Lawrence) worked out his position more carefully in a review of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice… it characterizes very strikingly a certain aspect of the Flaubertian tradition which Lawrence disliked. Flaubert, he complains, ‘stood away from life as from a leprosy’ and Mann also has the vague feeling that, “Physical life is a disordered corruption, against which he can fight with only one weapon, his fine aesthetic sense, his feeling for beauty, for perfection, for a certain fitness which soothes him, and gives him an inner pleasure, however corrupt the stuff of life may be.’ He is a ‘last, too-weak disciple’ of Flaubert, ‘reducing himself grain by grain to the statement of his own disgust, patiently self-destructively, so that his statement at least may be perfect in a world of corruption’. Lawrence heightens his description of a particular artistic posture, the one which champions art over life, in order to prepare the ground for his own alternative. Ignoring the ‘fulsomeness of life’, he concludes, will always leave a work of art somewhat banal:
…even while (Mann) has a rhythm in style, yet his work has none of the rhythm of the living thing…
This is rather harsh, although I understand his reasoning. If one follows ‘fulsomeness of life’ to the extreme, one may be in danger of falling solely into pleasure seeking. I understand he wants everything and everyone in tone with nature, but one must sometimes try to go beyond our physical life. I am certainly more in agreement with Hesse and Mann. Of course, this is a personal preference and hence there is no danger of being right or wrong. Moreover, this does not prevent me from enjoying Lawrence’s work at the same time.