Résumé
Résumé de La Mort à Venise
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love rich psychological fiction, and for anyone curious about art, discipline and desire. Greek myth, beauty and the tension between order and passion shape this tale of obsession in Venice.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Death in Venice is a novella by Thomas Mann, first published in 1912. Mann was in his thirties when he wrote it, and already known for his novel Buddenbrooks. The story follows Gustav von Aschenbach, a German writer of high rank and strict habits, who travels to Venice and finds his orderly life undone by an unexpected longing. It is short, but it carries a great deal about work, beauty, age and self-control.
You get the whole arc of the tale here, from a restless spring walk in Munich to a summer of slow surrender on the Adriatic coast. You also get the ideas that sit under the plot, drawn from Greek myth and philosophy, and a sense of how Mann builds his sentences and symbols. The first thing to understand is the man himself, and what kind of life he has built before the story begins.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A disciplined writer feels a sudden restlessnessFree
- 2The journey south goes strangely wrong
- 3At the hotel on the Lido, a boy appears
- 4He tries to leave, then chooses to stay
- 5Beauty and order begin to come apart
- 6How the story is told, and what it stands for
Point clé 1 sur 6
A disciplined writer feels a sudden restlessness
Gustav von Aschenbach is a respected author living in Munich. He is past fifty, a widower, with a daughter who is already married. His fame rests on books written with great effort, among them a prose epic about Frederick the Great, and the state has honored him with a title. His whole life has been a matter of will. He writes in the morning, at a fixed pace, and he treats art as a duty that must be served day after day.
One spring afternoon, after a morning of hard work that has left him tired and unsatisfied, he goes out for a long walk. He ends near the North Cemetery, outside a chapel for the dead. There he sees a stranger standing at the entrance. The man is lean, red haired, with a sharp nose and a look of someone who has traveled far. The stranger stares back at him, and the stare feels almost hostile.
Aschenbach is shaken, though he cannot say why. Suddenly he pictures a tropical landscape, a swamp heavy with steam and growth, with tigers watching from the reeds. The vision is strange, sharp and almost thrilling. It leaves him with a hunger to get away, to see somewhere new, to be free of the desk for a while.
Mann marks this scene as the start of everything. A man who has always ruled himself feels a pull he did not choose. The reader sees at once that his control is real but thinner than it looks. He decides to travel, telling himself it is only a short rest that will help his work, and the plan seems reasonable. But the story has already hinted that something older and less reasonable has begun to call him.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Gustav von Aschenbach
- A celebrated German writer devoted to self-discipline, he travels south and becomes fascinated by Tadzio.
- Tadzio
- A strikingly handsome Polish boy, he stays with his family at the same seaside hotel as Aschenbach.
- The stranger at the cemetery
- A red-haired traveler encountered in Munich, his unsettling presence awakens Aschenbach's desire to travel.
- The old man on the ship
- An elderly passenger wearing makeup and a wig, he disturbs Aschenbach by imitating his youthful companions.
- The gondolier
- An obstinate boatman, he disregards Aschenbach's instructions and takes his passenger where he chooses.
- Tadzio's mother and sisters
- Tadzio's reserved Polish relatives stay at the hotel, where Aschenbach observes their clothing and daily routines.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 29,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 1 h 55 min
- Listening time3 h 10 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 13 other languages
Questions about La Mort à Venise
What is Death in Venice about?
It tells of an ageing German writer, Gustav von Aschenbach, who travels to Venice for a rest and becomes obsessed with a beautiful Polish boy. The tale studies discipline, desire and the dangers of worshipping beauty.
Who is Tadzio in Death in Venice?
Tadzio is a Polish boy of about fourteen who stays at the same Lido hotel as Aschenbach. He seldom speaks, and he stands for ideal beauty as Aschenbach imagines it.
Is Death in Venice based on a true story?
The tale is fiction, published in 1912. Mann drew on his own visit to Venice in 1911, where he stayed at a Lido hotel and saw a Polish family, but he invented the plot and the hero.
What is the main message of Death in Venice?
Mann shows how a life of strict control can hide strong longing, and how beauty can become an excuse for self-destruction. The tale sets order and form against passion, using Greek ideas of Apollo and Dionysus.
Is Death in Venice hard to read?
The plot is simple, so most readers can follow it.