There is something unhealthy about this level of intrusive fantasy, even if he did not act on it, which would have been even more unhealthy and frankly dangerous. This translation was published in book form the following year as Death in Venice and Other Stories. Und dies beweist, dass der vornehm kultivierte, sinnlich suchende Dichter einem Irrtume aufsitzt: er nicht liebt, sondern begehrt und wertschätzt. The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous Silesian author in his early 50s who recently has been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (thus acquiring the aristocratic " von" in his name).

Aschenbach ist von der Form dieses noch nicht pubertierenden Kindes entzückt, fasziniert und gefällt sich in stiller, stets angsthaft beobachtender Huldigung. Die feine Figur des schönen Knaben symbolisiert das hohle Ideal einer vollkommenen Form, die jedoch noch ohne nennenswert gediehenen Inhalt ist. The trope of placing classical deities in contemporary settings was popular at the time when Mann was writing Death in Venice. Damion Searls translation in Mann, Thomas, New Selected Stories, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2023, p.Und so nennt denn auch der Name 'Tod' im Titel der Novelle nicht lediglich Aschenbachs Sterben in Venedig. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. I really did not know whose death the title referred to (my money was on the boy, who I imagined from the repeated descriptions of him was dying from some illness, and that his family took him to Venice to enjoy his last days), so this added some suspense for me. Von der fließenden Sehnsucht nach der Form findet Aschenbach eine stehende Formel der Sehnsucht, nämlich das Bekenntnis: "Ich liebe dich!

While shipbound and en route to the island, he sees an elderly man in company with a group of high-spirited youths, who has tried hard to create the illusion of his own youth with a wig, false teeth, make-up, and foppish attire. The novella's physical description of Aschenbach was based on a photograph of the composer Gustav Mahler. Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and advising people to avoid eating shellfish. Yet, always something new and such great pleasure in the perfection of its structure and eternally beautiful prose.

I purposely avoided reading about the real life events that inspired the book because I think a work of literature should stand on its own merits and as much as possible we should approach it without the distractions of What Really Happened. Although hauntingly-written (I had to follow along with an English translation side-by-side to insure I understood it all) with many devices that seemed almost cinematic such as the recurrent red-headed man, harbinger of death and aging in every case, I simply could not overcome my aversion to the idea of a middle-aged man (who in the early 20th century would have been closer to death than a similarly-aged European today) so attracted to a boy (14 in the story, but the story is based on an actual crush the author developed on a 12-year-old while visiting Venice) that he prolongs his stay.

Widely recognized as "one of the undisputed classics of contemporary European literature" and a "paradigmatic master-text of homosexual eroticism" (Adair, p. Next, Aschenbach rallies his self-respect and decides to discover the reason for the health notices posted in the city. Mahler had made a strong personal impression on Mann when they met in Munich, and Mann was shocked by the news of Mahler's death in Vienna. The novella is rife with allusions from antiquity forward, especially to Greek antiquity and to German works (literary, art-historical, musical, visual) from the 18th century. Mann of course was a fan of Sigmund Freud who was all the rage among avant-garde intellectuals at the time this book was written, so perhaps this inspired him to create a story based on forbidden sexual urges.

Modris Eksteins notes the similarities between Aschenbach and the Russian choreographer Sergei Diaghilev, writing that, although the two never met, "Diaghilev knew Mann's story well. He is a man dedicated to his art, disciplined and ascetic to the point of severity, who was widowed at a young age.