3 h 11 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a life built on self-control meets a beauty it cannot resist?
Gustav von Aschenbach, a celebrated German writer past fifty, lives by strict habits. Then a sudden restlessness draws him away from Munich toward Venice. He seeks rest and fresh energy, but at a grand hotel on the Lido, a young Polish boy named Tadzio captures his attention.
In Thomas Mann’s novella, admiration grows into an uneasy longing that threatens Aschenbach’s carefully ordered life. Venice’s streets, canals and heavy summer air surround his struggle. Beneath the story lie questions about art, age and desire, with Greek myth and philosophy giving his private obsession a wider reach.
What you’ll discover
- A disciplined life unsettled Meet a writer whose hard-won self-command begins to fail when unexpected longing takes hold.
- Venice in heavy summer Enter streets and canals where damp heat deepens Aschenbach’s weakness and unease.
- Beauty beyond easy answers Consider how Tadzio’s beauty becomes the focus of an ageing artist’s consuming attention.
- Strange figures along the way Encounter a painted old man and an obstinate gondolier who make the journey unsettling.
- An unsparing narrative eye Follow Mann’s calm, ironic narrator as he observes Aschenbach’s folly without cruelty or softness.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A disciplined writer feels a sudden restlessness
- The journey south goes strangely wrong
- At the hotel on the Lido, a boy appears
- He tries to leave, then chooses to stay
- Beauty and order begin to come apart
- How the story is told, and what it stands for
Who’s who
- Gustav von AschenbachAn ageing, celebrated German author who has lived by strict self-discipline and who sets out for Venice seeking rest and fresh energy.
- TadzioA Polish boy of about fourteen, staying at the Lido hotel with his family, whose striking beauty captures Aschenbach's attention.
- The stranger at the cemeteryA lean, red haired traveler whose stare in Munich stirs in Aschenbach a sudden wish to go far away.
- The old man on the shipA painted and wigged elderly man who plays at being young among cheerful companions, a grotesque picture of vanity.
- The gondolierA rough, obstinate boatman of few words, without a license, who rows Aschenbach where he himself wishes, in a black boat like a coffin.
- Tadzio's mother and sistersA reserved Polish family, with the sisters in plain, severe clothes and the mother in elegant dress and pearls, whose habits Aschenbach studies from afar at the hotel and on the beach.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann · 1912
In Venice, a disciplined writer's fascination with a beautiful boy threatens the orderly life he has built.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 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.
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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.
The author
Thomas Mann
1875–1955 · German novelist
Thomas Mann was a German novelist born in Lübeck in 1875. He wrote Buddenbrooks (1901), Tonio Kröger (1903), Royal Highness (1909), and Death in Venice (1912). He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. He lived in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, and died in Zürich in 1955.
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