What's going on, Mann?

Well, curiosity did not kill me. It perplexed me. It brought me to a state of exasperation, annoyance, even a little sadness. Here's how it happened--

About a dozen years ago or more, I started work on a novel that I called "Yours, Loco," in which a bisexual man with manic depression (Theo) writes letters within his journal to a younger male co-worker (Zack). He never sends these letters--which he signs "Yours, Loco"--and which are partly journal entries and partly declarations of love for this (slightly) younger man. Upon reading some of "Yours, Loco," my sister Eliza said that it reminded her of Death in Venice. I had run across a copy of Death in Venice in my parents' house, and I could not imagine what "Yours, Loco" could have in common with Thomas Mann's masterpiece. So, I consigned Death in Venice to the Recycle Bin of my brain.

A year ago, I joined a meetup called Classic Books, where one of the organizers talked a little about Thomas Mann, enough to revive my curiosity about his writing. Then, a few weeks ago, a member of Classic Books recommended that we read The Magic Mountain (by Thomas Mann). Although I was daunted by the length of The Magic Mountain, my interest in Thomas Mann was now thoroughly piqued, and so I went out and bought Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories. (At 75 pages, Death in Venice could be called a really long short story, or a novella.)

Like Professor Stepanovich in Anton Chekhov's "A Boring Story," Gustave Aschenbach in Death in Venice is distinguished but distressed. At the start, Aschenbach "undertook a walk in the hope that air and exercise might send him back refreshed to a good evening's work" (3), but instead the walk sends him to a "mortuary chapel...silent in the gleam of the ebbing day." (4) The day is not the only thing that is ebbing. Despite a heroic self-discipline that has produced a long and magnificent literary career, Aschenbach now yearns only for "new and distant scenes...flight from the spot which was the daily theatre of a rigid, cold...service." (6-7) And this is really the least of a profound ennui: "...he got no joy of [his work]--not though a nation paid it homage...his work had ceased to be marked by that fiery play of fancy which is the product of joy...." (7) Even Aschenbach's journey to Venice is joyless. He fixates with (un-provoked) disgust on a fellow passenger, he barely reconciles himself to the leaden, misty weather, and he dwells with disquiet on the un-licensed gondolier--despite getting a free gondola ride to his hotel. It seems that Aschenbach has become inclined to accentuate the negative, anywhere.

The first evening at the hotel in Venice, just before dinner, Aschenbach notices a Polish teenage boy with his slightly older sisters and their governess:

Aschenbach noticed with astonishment the lad's perfect beauty. His face recalled the noblest moment of Greek sculpture...the observer thought he had never seen, either in nature or art, anything so utterly happy and consummate. (25-26; italics mine)

From that time to the moment of his death, Aschenbach is only an observer of this Polish boy. He never speaks to the boy; he never interacts with the boy, called, he thinks, Tadzio. He witnesses Tadzio's appearance "with extraordinary grace" at breakfast the next morning (29). He contemplates the activities of Tadzio and his companions on a nearby beach, reserved for hotel guests. He especially notices one of these companions--

One lad in particular, a Pole like himself, with a name that sounded something like Jaschiu, a sturdy lad with brilliantined black hair..., was his particular liege-man and friend. Operations at the sand-pile being ended for the time, the two walked away along the beach, with their arms around each other's waists.... (32)

At a later time, Aschenbach has the opportunity to speak to Tadzio but hesitates and then passes him by without speaking (47). In the very last scene, Aschenbach observes a fight between Tadzio and Jaschiu, then watches Tadzio walk away to a sand-bar, far from Jaschiu--and Aschenbach, who collapses and dies. (74-75)

To borrow the concept of "observer/participant" from anthropology--Aschenbach becomes more of a participant in regard to reports of sickness sweeping Venice. He speaks to a shopkeeper, the hotel manager, and a performer at the hotel, about this threat of death hanging over Venice. No sickness, they all say, just the sirocco. Finally, a clerk in the English travel bureau in the Piazza tells Aschenbach the truth: cholera has spread from China through Afghanistan and Syria to Southern Italy, and to Venice, where "there was a hideously brisk traffic between the Nuovo Fundamento and the island of San Michele, where the cemetery was." (64-65) At this critical point, Aschenbach's "participant" behavior stops; he says nothing to Tadzio's mother, so he can continue being an "observer" of Tadzio.

There is much more to be said about Death in Venice. For instance, why the recurring references to Classical mythology? They may illuminate Aschenbach's condition to the reader, but they do not seem to illuminate Aschenbach's condition to himself...unless he does not want to save himself? Possible--and one of various puzzles to ponder in Thomas Mann's novella.