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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Greats Work of Short Fiction, March 2, 2000
This collection of Thomas Mann's early short works presents one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century in an expert and fluent translation, unbowdlerized.The title story, Death in Venice, is an example of lush late Romanticism in its most extravagent and vivid form. Mann, as always, dramatizes the tension between the bourgeois life of strict propriety, symbolized by the renowned Gustav Aschenbach, the protagonist, a literary titan specializing in learned tomes, and the seductions of art and beauty as symbolized by Venice and Tadzio, the focus of Aschenbach's fatal obsession. Some might find the description of the dissolution and its content as repugnant. But if you allow yourself to visualize the words as written and at least allow yourself to feel something of what Aschenbach is feeling, you will be transported outside of yourself strangely and hauntingly .The other stories, including Tonio Kroger, an earlier work that brought Mann great renown after the publication of Buddenbrooks, his first novel, are also wonderful examples of how the tensions of art and life, growing up and thinking affect their main characters. Not to be ignored is the sexual tension that pervades all of Mann's work and is deeply embedded in his consciousness. (I highly recommend Anthony Heilbut's critical biography of Mann for an understanding of the man, his work and the context of German life, literature and history in which it was written.)
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mann's "Death in Venice" and More, August 14, 2006
Thomas Mann's masterful short novel "Death in Venice" (1912) tells the story of a distinguished German writer, Gustav Aschenbach, who, at the age of 53 while on holiday in Venice, develops a passion for a 14-year old boy named Tadzio. Mann's story sets the demands and powers of eros, human sexuality, in the form of Aschenbach's feelings for Tadzio, against the life, of intellect, discipline, artistic creation, and order which Aschenbach had, before his fateful passion, attempted to realize in his life. Mann's story is highly organized and beautifully controlled, meeting the artistic and intellectual demands of his protagonist, Aschenbach. Yet the story exudes passion and eroticism, in Aschebach's homosexual attraction for a young adolescent, the dank gondolas of Venice, the fetid epidemic that plagues the city, and the atmosphere of death and destruction that Mann captures in his work. The story is full of allusions to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to Plato's Phaedrus and Symposium and, I think, to the Bacchae of Euripides. Mann's story offers a disturbing picture of the claims of sexuality and eroticism, particularly on the life of the mind, and of the consequences of repressing them.
I was grateful for the opportunity to reread "Death in Venice" in a book group, and my understanding of the work was increased by this excellent collection of seven of Mann's early short stories in a volume edited by David Luke. It is available at a modest price. The six other stories in the volume were written earlier than "Death in Venice" and show a unity of theme with this great work. Each of the stories juxtaposes the life of the artist, the outsider trying to observe and understand, with the claims of passion. The artists involved, the passions, and the results differ among the stories, but the underlying theme remains the same.
"Tonio Kroger" (1903), an extended short story, shows an aspiring writer infatuated in his youth with a school friend and, subsequently, with the girl his friend marries. He years to be part of what he deems "the bright children of life, the happy, the charming, and the ordinary" while recognizing that this is not to be for him. "Tonio Kroger" was Mann's own favorite among his works and it presents the theme of "Death in Venice" -- intellect and passion in a different way and light.
The extended story "Tristan" (1903) also is based upon a conflict over a young woman, set in a sanitorium, between a dandified writer and her business-like matter-of-fact husband. Mann's love for Wagner and for music are also at the center of this story.
The remaining four stories also develop the theme of passion as a disturbing force in what appears to be a settled life. I particularly enjoyed the short opening work, "Little Herr Friedemann" (1897) in which a young man who becomes hunchbacked and reserved as a result of an accident in infancy is humiliated and rejected when he feels the stirrings of passion in the person of a beautiful 24 year old married woman.
In delving into the force eroticism exerts on human life, Mann's stories explore a theme which resonates deeply with me and with many readers. This book, with Luke's translation and introduction, is an excellent way of getting to know Mann's stories.
Robin Friedman
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wagner never sounded so good, July 11, 2006
I know two Germans, both of whom read a great deal- one of them taught the language to me for two semesters; the other I know via the internet. Each of them seems to have very different ideas about their own culture. For instance, one insists that Goethe is over-rated and should not be read; the other promises me that he is the bedrock of that countries literature. Who to believe? I'm still trying to make my mind up...
However, both of them insisted that I read Thomas Mann.
They couldn't have been more right. To you, the potential reader, I want to pass on that advice: read Thomas Mann. Read him and reread him and study him. Do it with this book, the Bantam publication translated by David Luke.
Thomas Mann had an intelligence about his writing that can only be appreciated fully firsthand. This is not light material by any stretch of the imagination but neither is it so dense that it can't be understood or gotten through. The fact is that its perfect; it sits just right in your mind, beckoning you on page by page, intricately constructing the internal rhythm of its characters and their dilemmas in such a way that you find yourself hypnotized, pouring through the pages then digesting those over a period of several weeks as the moods he has created stick with you. The material haunts you; it grabs hold of your imagination in such a way that a deep footprint will be forever left.
Take the story of `Tonio Kruger' for example. Inside the material there are repetitions which occur, turns of phrases that are presented in happy times, then echoed later to recall to the reader, albeit almost subconsciously, those earlier moments. These little flourishes in the language are the craft of a man who took his work very seriously, presenting the writing as well as the subject as part of the experience. Anyone who has read Flaubert knows what pains some authors take in this striving for the bon mot; Mann is such an author, a person who writes at all levels; plot, character, technical presentation, and theme.
This is to say that the other pieces of the fiction (plot; characterization) work as well as these little technical echoes. The story `Tristan' is a good example: after finishing this one, try to erase from your mind the image of the writer pleading with the sickened wife to play the piano. Try to wipe away the lilt of language, the turn and tilt that bring to mind the piece by Wagner, a sound that you can almost hear in the just the words themselves. I assure you, it will stick to you. If you want to do any writing yourself you will find your mind wandering over this passage, trying to discern how it is that Mann achieved this feat in mere language.
And this brings me to another reason to buy this book- David Luke. Mr. Luke does a splendid rendering of the material, a translation that does not dumb it down, that is very conscious of the work and its brevity and that takes great pains to make sure to convey as many levels of the work to the reader as is possible. One good example- at one point a German word is used that can have more than one meaning in the context (Geist); this is noted at the bottom of the page instead of being accounted into the translation itself. Doing this instead of writing both contexts into the text gives the reader an appreciation for the original work that could not be had otherwise.
The introduction is splendid as well. In 50 pages Mr. Luke covers a brief synopsis of each of the stories, recounting to the reader what should be noted so that the brilliance of the work becomes more evident (I will admit, I did not notice the repetitions myself...). I would advise (as with any introduction) that this part should be read last; it contains spoilers that could curtail the experience of a fresh reading.
Bottom line: Add this to your collection of paperbacks. Each story is worth the price of the book as a whole and the fact that they can all be had so cheap leaves little reason not to buy it.
-LP
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@GustavaelJackson While walking in the hotel lobby, saw a little kid dressed in a sailor’s uniform. Went from six to midnight. No Viagra needed. 
