Death in Venice by Thomas MannMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Thomas Mann's famous novella tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, an internationally renowned writer who travels to Venice and becomes erotically obsessed with a young boy. This obsession leads eventually, as the title would suggest, to his death, both metaphorically and literally.
The character of Aschenbach is a fascinating one; he is brilliant, devoted to his work, and he sees the world through the eyes of a learned artist who lives entirely in the mind. Given Mann's interest in Freudian psychology, it is difficult not to see this as the story of the return of the repressed: his ascetic and discipline lifestyle -- the key to his literary success and reputation -- finally cracks as the libidic (is that a word?) energies so long sublimated into artist endeavors take control, manifesting in his pederastic desire for the young Polish boy, Tadzio, a representative, perhaps, to Aschenbach of his own lost, fragile sexuality, childish and immature in its development. At the same time, Aschenbach's sexual desires are bound up with a death drive; his trip to Venice is spurred by an imposing and frightening figure staring at him from a cemetery, and Tadzio himself is described as delicate and sickly. Through Aschenbach's obsessive pursuit of Tadzio -- a pursuit that, despite its passion, remains physically unconsummated -- Mann explores the paradoxical connections between Eros and Thanatos, the drive to experience and express life in a moment of passion and the desire to abandon that life, the loss of self in erotic union.
Because the narrative operates from the perspective of Aschenbach (although it is not a first-person narrator), the writing is extremely erudite. Aschenbach is an intellectual, and even in his most passionate moments sees the world through the lens of his artistic and philosophical pursuits. The novella is filled with allusions to and discussions of classical myth and thought, in particular Plato's works on love and desire. The extremely refined art and artifice of the work is in keeping with Aschenbach's character, although it also means that the work often feels rather detached; we don't inhabit Aschenbach's mind, we understand it intellectually, through the conceptual vocabulary he himself has built up through his life. That's not to say that it is not compelling, but it isn't a "page-turner" in any traditional sense. As a reader, I felt motivated not by passion, but by the intellectual interest to study Aschenbach's passion, to understand it and find out how it would resolve (or not resolve) itself. It works, definitely -- it reproduces in the reader the mind of its central character and with its attendant conflicts, tensions, and flaws -- but it isn't a work that I would see myself returning to repeatedly to read for enjoyment. It is, I think, literature as philosophy, and as such, it requires a thoughtful, philosophical, and somewhat detached mood.
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