Death in Venice (Dover Thrift Editions) [Paperback]

Thomas Mann (Author), Stanley Appelbaum (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0486287149 | ISBN-13: 978-0486287140 | Publication Date: August 10, 1995

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Novella by Thomas Mann, published in German as Der Tod in Venedig in 1912. A symbol-laden story of aestheticism and decadence, Mann's best-known novella exemplifies the author's regard for Sigmund Freud's writings on the unconscious. Gustav von Aschenbach is a revered author whose work is known for its discipline and formal perfection. At his Venetian hotel he encounters the strikingly handsome young teenager Tadzio. Aschenbach is disturbed by his attraction to the boy, and although he watches Tadzio, he dare not speak to him. Despite warnings of a cholera epidemic Aschenbach stays in Venice; he sacrifices his dignity and well-being to the immediate experience of beauty as embodied by Tadzio. After exchanging a significant look with the boy on the day of Tadzio's scheduled departure, Aschenbach dies of cholera. As in his other major works, Mann explores the role of the artist in society. The cerebral Aschenbach summons extraordinary discipline and endurance in his literary work, but his private desires overwhelm him. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (August 10, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486287149
• ISBN-13: 978-0486287140
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > German
  • #49 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > German

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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Translation in Dover Edition - Helpful Commentary, May 29, 2005

By 

Michael Wischmeyer (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Death in Venice (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

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.

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Self Destructive Potential of Love, July 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Death In Venice (Paperback)

Death in Venice is the first serious study of homoerotic love in the modern novel although many precedents do exist: the ambiguous sonnets of Michelangelo or Shakespeare, Marlowe's tortured Edward II, the androgynous aesthetics of Winckelmann, the lyrical allegories of Rimbaud and the dark insinuations of Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde or Wilde's Dorian Gray. E.M. Forester's posthumously published Maurice is exactly contemporary with Death in Venice.

Death in Venice tells the story of Gustave von Aschenbach, a writer living in Munich. One May afternoon, while strolling through that city's famed English Gardens, von Aschenbach encounters the Wandervogel (hiker); an apparition of an angular, hawklike man, who returns von Aschenbach's gaze before disappearing.

A true ascetic, von Aschenbach has never known the sweet idleness and freedom of youth, but after viewing the Wandervogel he is seized by the desire to travel and leave his labors behind. Finally obeying the urges of his long-repressed, primeval, exotic side, von Aschenbach sets out for Trieste, however after only ten days he decides he dislikes that city and take a boat to Venice instead.

While making the short trip. von Aschenbach encounters yet another apparition--that of an old man, who, through the artifice of makeup and a wig, has attempted to make himself appear young again--to no avail. Disgusted, von Aschenbach promptly hires a gondolier and checks into his hotel on the Lido.

Later that evening, von Aschenbach's attention is hypnotically drawn to a Polish boy of fourteen who is dining at the next table with his family. Pale, with long hair and chiseled features and full of the exuberant charm and sweetness of youth, von Aschenbach silently acknowledges the fact that he has never witnessed anyone or anything, in nature or in art, that exhibits the perfection of this Polish youth. Although as yet unaware of its significance, this is the moment that seals von Aschenbach's fate.

The next morning, after experiencing revulsion at the sight and smell of the city's lagoons, von Aschenbach decides to leave Venice, but a mixup with his luggage compels him to remain. When he once again encounters the Polish youth, whose name he has learned is Tadzio, he comes to a partial realization of his heretofore subconscious desires and gives himself over to contemplation of "every line and pose" of Tadzio's exquisite form.

Though aware that an outbreak of cholera in Venice is being suppressed and concerned with a series of premonitions (reminiscent of the Wandervogel in the English Gardens) von Aschenbach chooses not to flee and even seeks to win Tadzio's attention by making himself up to appear younger than his true age, a sight which, only a short time ago, he had found revolting.

The days pass in a dreamlike state for von Aschenbach, caught in the trap of Tadzio's youth and beauty. When Tadzio catches von Aschenbach staring at him, he returns the stare with a smile. Tormented, as well as exhilarated, von Aschenbach flees into the shadows of the park where he utters what he has known all along, "I love you."

von Aschenbach's confession of love for Tadzio brings about the tragic climax of Death in Venice. The once dignified and distinguished von Aschenbach has allowed his passion for Tadzio to engulf him, pulling him into the vortex of a whirlpool of sensuality that can only lead to death and destruction.

Mann, himself, described the theme of Death in Venice as that most Wagernerian of ideas, the Liebestod (love-death), or fascination with death. Everything about this book has been crafted to illustrate the triumph of despair over discipline, destruction over restoration.

The complex, figurative prose of Death in Venice is different from everything else written by Mann. Even in translation, the contrast is instantly apparent between Death in Venice's elevated and elegiac tone and the more conversational idiom of A Man and His Dog, Disorder and Early Sorrow or even the more serious Mario and the Magician.

Mann wisely chose to write Death in Venice in rich, almost over-elaborate images. While this could (and should) be denounced as artifice when employed by an author of lesser talent, Mann knew that elaboration was necessary if we were to believe a man of dignity and ethics, such as von Aschenbach, falling in love with Tadzio. In describing Tadzio, Mann writes: "His face recalled the noblest moment of Greek sculpture--pale, with a sweet reserve, with clustering honey-colored ringlets, the brow and nose descending in one line, the winning mouth, the expression of pure and godlike serenity."

Death in Venice is a highly symbolic novella, with the symbolism centered around death. While some of it is readily apparent, much is more elusive. The Wandervogel encountered by von Aschenbach in the opening is only the first of many portents of death. Even Mann's description of the Wandervogel is evocative of a skeleton or a ghoul: "His chin was up, so that the Adam's apple looked very bald in the lean neck rising from the loose shirt; and he stood there sharply peering up into space out of colorless red-lashed eyes...At any rate, standing there as though at survey, the man had a bold and domineering, even a ruthless air, and his lips completed the picture by seeming to curl back, either by reason of some deformity or else because he grimaced, being blinded by the sun in his face; they laid bare the long, white, glistening teeth to the gums."

Once the story moves to Venice, Mann introduces other images of death in the form of the gondolas and discerning readers will quickly realize that the gondolier, the "despotic boatman," embodies Charon, ferryman of the Styx in Hades.

By the book's climax, Tadzio, essentially a two-dimensional character, takes on the characteristics of Hermes, who, with his smile, which becomes the kiss of death, summons von Aschenbach to his ultimate destruction.

Much in Death in Venice reflects Mann's own life, although the work is by no means autobiographical. Nevertheless, much in von Aschenbach can be found in Mann. von Aschenbach, though is an extreme example of the imperfections Mann did battle with during his own lifetime. If we only look closely, we can see that von Aschenbach is a symbol of the frailties and fallacies that plague us all.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Translation of a Novella That Seamlessly Blends Obsession With Artistic Integrity, November 25, 2006

By 

Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Death in Venice (Paperback)

An obsessive, unfulfilled passion is at the heart of Thomas Mann's classic 1912 novella, and Michael Henry Heim's 2003 translation liberates the homoerotic elements of Mann's sometimes dense prose to make the main character more accessible to contemporary readers. Heim succeeds in bringing the story out of the academic cobwebs. The plot is light on action, as it focuses squarely on middle-aged Prussian novelist Gustav von Aschenbach as he pursues his passion for Tadzio, a young Polish boy on vacation with his family in Venice. Past his peak as a successful writer and facing his fast-approaching mortality, von Aschenbach sees Tadzio as a symbol of his own faded youth and of attractions that were never made reality in his fifty-plus years. The writer is in the middle of a book about Frederick the Great when he arrives in the sweltering heat of Venice where there is an Asiatic cholera breakout.

Although the more literal interpretation of von Aschenbach's constant pursuit can be seen as wanton lust, the real undercurrent that Mann provides is the writer's self-validation as an artist. Toward that end, Mann has his protagonist look at Tadzio as an object of irreproachable beauty, something that fulfills his need to get reacquainted with his artistic integrity. Heim's translation allows the story to get past the titillation factor into what comes across almost like a ghost story given that von Aschenbach never touches or even speaks to Tadzio. There is a sense that something transcendent will occur toward the end, but it becomes a race against time to see if von Aschenbach's fever dream becomes tangible. Mann's struggles with his own sexuality are palpable on these pages, but so is his emotional distance from the character's passions. It's this concurrent dichotomy in perspective that makes this book a classic and not something to be relegated simply to the gay fiction shelves at the bookstore. Novelist Michael Cunningham ("The Hours", "Specimen Days") wrote the introduction to the 2003 Heim edition.