I’d prefer to approach the novella on the basis that it addresses abstract issues that were of concern to Mann for the whole of his life. Mann had to choose, prioritise, sublimate and arrange his inspiration as 'elements in a composition'. However, I don’t see any value in trying to analyse the novella as an exploration of Mann’s own homoeroticism. The protagonist is in his mid-50’s.īoth Mann and his wife, Katia, acknowledged that virtually all of the elements of the plot were modelled on their trip to Venice in 1911. 'Death in Venice' was published in 1912, when Thomas Mann was 37. but for now, i must bake book club cake and enjoy my free snow day. the other seven stories can go screw for now - this is just book club fare, and if i have time in my life to read more troubled intellectual germans, i will know where to turn. (for the record, lawrence durrell is totally exempt from this advice, although since he is dead, it doesn't really matter.)Īnd just so we're clear - i only read death in venice. so i am no stranger to a wild life of crime and transgression. when i was in prague, i totally stole a guinness mug from the irish pub i fell in love with. and i totally get it - different surroundings, absence of judgmental peer group, it's vacation morality. whether it is gide and tunisia, conrad and the congo, robbe-grillet with wherever that was, various graham greenes statistically, there will be temptations which you are not equipped to resist and you will either succumb or drive yourself to humiliation and despair with the wanting to succumb. seriously, nothing good ever happens to you when you leave whatever small european town you are from and venture into the wider world. Thomas Mann is one of the best-known exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur.Įuropean men, stay put.

When World War II broke out in 1939, he emigrated to the United States, from where he returned to Switzerland in 1952.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland.

His older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann, and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate in 1929, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Death in venice and seven other stories