ojaswisharma 's review for:

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

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I think I will refrain from rating it because I am still thinking about what the ultimate “message” of the book was. It seems like a reductive path to follow, but I do think there is something specific Mann wants to leave the reader with at the end. The book itself is about a writer, Von Aschenback and his long-term denial and repression of his emotional side which eventually leads him on this self destructive journey. The narrator’s inputs seem to be philosophical tirades meant to contextualise and frame Aschenback’s thoughts and actions. There is a duality inherent in these two perspectives juxtaposed together, but also in many of the objects he interacts with in the novella. I understand the exploration of what Freud what call the death drive, something like a call from the void or the abyss (in this case the latter) that haunts our psyche and makes us desire for things that may not be fundamentally good or have desirable outcomes. I think that is a worthy psychological exploration to take on. Mann spends some time talking about the Greeks and Eros, and erudition and his extreme repression of it. The point the book is making is ultimately complex, working to highlight the duality of the opposites and the irony of how they go together.