davidaguilarrodriguez 's review for:

Death in Venice and Other Tales by Thomas Mann

3.5

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I found this book deeply unpleasant — and strangely entrancing.

Listening to the audiobook left me queasy at times, but also captivated. I actually paused it halfway through and ordered a physical copy from the library because I had the sense that I needed to read the book, not just hear it. The prose is lyrical, ornate, and occasionally teetering on overwrought — but beautifully so. It’s a book obsessed with beauty, so of course Thomas Mann was like "let me cook."

The central subject matter, however — an aging writer developing an obsessive fixation on a teenage boy — is less tragic than it is repulsive. Mann tries to wrap it all in Greco-Roman allusions and aesthetic theory, but that’s the oldest trick in the pedophile-artist book (see also: Lolita, André Gide, etc). I don’t care how many Greek statues you name — it’s still a creepy old man ogling a child. And honestly, I'm just out on that whole genre.

That said, what does work is the atmosphere of rot. The cholera outbreak never quite feels real, but that’s precisely the point — it plays like an externalization of Gustav’s internal collapse. The book captures that uncanny descent into unreality, where the world starts to reflect the mind’s disintegration. The image that came to mind was Munch's The Scream. The blurred figures, the warped setting, the horror leaking out of a soul stretched to the edge.

The ending doesn’t excuse the disturbing elements, but it reframes them. It turns revulsion into revelation — showing us not a noble artist destroyed by passion, but a man hollowed out by his own delusions, crumbling into myth.

I didn’t love this book. I’m not even sure I liked it. But I’m still thinking about it, and that has to count for something. And at least I didn't hate it as much as I hated Lolita.