Death in Venice

shudders

read this at the bookstore while trying to decide if I should spend a crazy amount of money on the magic mountain. by the first pages I had already made up my mind to be honest (bought it!). I don't regret it because mann's writing is gorgeous and hopefully there will be no minors on it but uh. why the hell did I choose THIS one as my first mann and why did I look up things about it because I feel a strong need to drink a little bit of bleach rn.

Extrêmement bien écrit, très poétique, à mes yeux respectueux et touchant, une distance maîtrisée, une certaine douceur. Un récit d'une fin de vie et d'un dernier émoi intéressant.

I liked and disliked this book. Mann has his character, Aschenbach, preach a little more than I like, preaching his thoughts about beauty and writing and control. That's what I disliked. For the first third of the book, I could barely force myself to keep reading.

Then Aschenbach falls in love and begins to tail the object of his affection all over Venice. The story takes a different turn and the writing moves from a rant about virtue to a real story. Venice is beautifully depicted and Aschenbach becomes a real, brilliant, tortured human being. That's what I liked.