A review by roakapple
Death in Venice and Other Tales by Thomas Mann

2.0

A parade of reductive dichotomies. The "disease" of artistry that cannot be understood by anyone but the "ill" is a total joke and, while Mann takes the mickey out of many of his protagonists, he doesn't stand on the right side of history consistently enough to be anything but insufferable. The title story is naturally the highlight and most of the rest is offensive juvenilia. His descriptions of music (sometimes, the complete act of an opera) are so overwrought and factually uninformed that I felt embarrassed for him, especially considering that I am the target audience of big, long stories about Wagner and the like. Tonio Kröger is another highlight, displaying a subversion of some of these problems in addition to an evocative sense of alienation (instead of an infuriatingly cringy one).

Lots of typos in this edition including "long," in the place of a dash on page 177. Compare with pg 244. What was this, verbally dictated?