Death in Venice and Other Tales [Paperback]

Thomas Mann (Author), Joachim Neugroschel (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1999

A new, "brilliant ...perfectly nuanced translation" of Thomas Mann's most famous and poignant collection of novellas and stories (The Boston Globe).

Featuring his world-famous masterpiece, "Death in Venice," this new collection of Nobel laureate Thomas Mann's stories and novellas reveals his artistic evolution. In this new, widely acclaimed translation that restores the controversial passages that were cut out of the original English version, "Death in Venice" tells about a ruinous quest for love and beauty amid degenerating splendor. Gustav von Aschenbach, a successful but lonely author, travels to the Queen of the Adriatic in search of an elusive spiritual fulfillment that turns into his erotic doom. Spellbound by a beautiful Polish boy, he finds himself fettered to this hypnotic city of sun-drenched sensuality and eerie physical decay.

Also included in this volume are eleven other stories by Mann: "Tonio Kroger," "Gladius Dei," "The Blood of the Walsungs," "The Will for Happiness," "Little Herr Friedmann," "Tobias Mindernickel," "Little Lizzy," "Tristan," "The Starvelings," "The Wunderkind," and "Harsh Hour." All of the stories collected here display Mann's inimitable use of irony, his subtle characterizations, and superb, complex plots.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Mann's classic here gets a fresh interpretation from PEN Award-winning translator Neugroschel, who brings out more of the work's sensuality. Along with the title story, this edition includes "The Will for Happiness," "Tobias Mindernickel," "Tristan," "The Starvelings," and "Harsh Hour," among others.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

New versions of 12 celebrated stories, including the famous title novella, many previously collected in Mann's seminal Stories of Three Decades. Neugroschel's persuasive ``Preface'' makes a strong case for fresh translations, given both this century's inevitable linguistic shifts and Manns employment within individual works of specific vocabularies and styles (e.g., those of Wagnerian opera in the hair-raising ``The Blood of the Walsungs''). And Neugrschel essentially finesses the issue of revealing the stories' inherent sexuality; their author was, after all, a master of elegant indirection dedicated to muted presentations of matters that were anathema to both his public and his own sedulously respectable persona. That said, it's wonderful to have vivid, lucid English versions of Mann's sophisticated portrayals of sexual obsession and humiliation (``Little Herr Friedemann''), illness- as-metaphor in a tale (``Tristan'') that concisely prefigures The Magic Mountain, and the transfiguring intersection of artistic with homosexual passion (Death in Venice, Tonio Krger). Brilliant work, in any case, from one of the century's great writers. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (May 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141181737
• ISBN-13: 978-0141181738
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > German

More About the Author

Elfriede Jelinek was born in Austria in 1946 and grew up in Vienna where she attended the famous Music Conservatory. The leading Austrian writer of her generation, she has been awarded the Heinrich B?ll Prize for her contribution to German literature. The film by Michael Haneke of The Piano Teacher won the three main prizes at Cannes in 2001. In 2004, Elfriede Jelinek was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mann is great; Neugroschel's translation is exquisite, April 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Death in Venice and Other Tales (Paperback)

I can't imagine how difficult it must be to translate a writer so steeped in his original language as is Thomas Mann. "Death in Venice" and the other stories in this collection are great period - no matter what the language, the ideas and characters stand on their own. What makes this translation so much better is the attention Neugroschel gives to giving us prose that is as good as Mann's original German - this writing is simply beautiful; evocative of the period in which it was originally written without sounding like a joke or a bad imitation of turn of the century fiction. (It's no Henry James satire). Neugroschel has won the PEN/Faulkner award three times for his translations and it's easy to see why. Read his introduction where he talks about Mann's ability to "both evoke and to distance" and how he [Neugroschel] set about translating this feeling into English. This is truly the very best that a translation can be.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfectly Executed, August 13, 2003

By 

"lydiacatherine" (greece) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death in Venice and Other Tales (Paperback)

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.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep with meaning and symbolism, this work has stood the test of time, March 8, 2011

By 

Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Death in Venice (Kindle Edition)

It seems like a simple story. But yet it is heavily symbolic and its many translations from the original German have been analyzed by literature buffs since it was first published in 1912. The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach, an esteemed writer in his fifties with his own particular world view. The book is deep with meaning and symbolism. And every sentence which is written in beautiful prose has been analyzed and reanalyzed by scholars for almost a century.

Gustav von Ashenbach takes a trip to Venice. Here, he is attracted to a young boy. Most of this short book consists of his thoughts about this boy. He never speaks to this boy but he follows him whenever he can and lusts for him, seeing him as an innocent thing of beauty. His passion takes over and he becomes quite ridiculous as he tries to make himself look younger. In the meantime, Venice is undergoing some sort of plague which the authorities try to hide from the people although rumors are flying. Gustav has a chance to warn the other guests in the hotel, including the boy's family, but his own inner thoughts seem to prevent him from speaking to them at all.

The writing is beautiful and layered with the meaning of this one man's pursuit of beauty at the end of his life. It is all played out in elaborate early 19th century language and the author sure does know how to use his words. The reader gets to see his dreams, his hesitancy and his complicated thought process and I felt pure pleasure just letting my eyes move across the page and soak up the atmosphere the author created. Clearly, this is a work of art and has stood the test of time.