What does /lit/ think of this story? Purple prose shit or bold pedophiliac homosexual masterpiece?
I've just finished reading it and didn't like it one bit.
>>7776331
speaking of pedophiles, i remember an obsession with butterflies in his Dr. Faustus, and interestingly enough, Nabokov was also a lepidopterist who called his catches "nymphs".
I wonder if there's a connection there.
>>7776334
Mein Gott, /lit/ ist voller amerikanischer Idioten.
Everything Mann wrote was gold - maybe the English translation isn't good, but I don't think that could be a drastic change.
It's an amazingly structured story of a downfall, full of references to Greek structure, style, and mythology. Death and decadence are everywhere. That Mann can cram so much into so little space is testament to his genius.
>>7776353
>full of references to Greek structure, style, and mythology
It was mainly this that bugged the hell out of me. It seemed completely out of place and over the top. He would describe everything by making an analogy to some Greek god, goddess or demigod. Mann describes everything 'classically', but in my opinion it only came across as an exaggeration.
>>7776373
I think you're confusing author and narrator - it's from the POV of a classically trained writer, an aristocrat in the 20s; there's no reason why this guy wouldn't see Greek thought everywhere (especially seeing that Greek references are everywhere in classic German literature - just look at Faust 2)
It's brilliant, faggot.
>>7776373
No, you're just simple af.
>>7776331
I am sure I would've thought this was a masterpiece if I hadn't been such a pleb and known of the Dyionisian/Appolonic duality. The homo bits are still good tho.
What was the deal with that red-haired guy he sees in the cemetary?
>>7776353
This.
Nabakov and so on.
>>7776407
Satan, fucktwat.
>>7776423
But why?
>>7776331
> Purple prose shit
Jesus Christ how plebeian can one get?
>>7776331
You might also want to consider the most important key into understanding Mann: irony.
>>7776425
I took a short fiction class in the last year of my undergrad, and we covered this story.
One girl kept asking: "but WHY does he like the boy???"
What I mean to say is: if you have to ask, perhaps you should revisit the story at a later time in your life.
It's one of my favorite short stories/novellas.
Mann was bisexual, and slightly incestuously attracted toward his own son.
Source: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n21/colm-toibin/i-could-sleep-with-all-of-them
In his diaries Thomas Mann made clear his own sexual interest in Klaus: ‘Am enraptured with Eissi,’ he wrote in 1920, when Klaus was 14 (Eissi was his nickname), ‘terribly handsome in his swimming trunks. Find it quite natural that I should fall in love with my son . . . It seems I am once and for all done with women? . . . Eissi was lying tanned and shirtless on his bed, reading; I was disconcerted.’ Later that year he ‘came upon Eissi totally nude and up to some nonsense by Golo’s bed’ and was ‘deeply struck by his radiant adolescent body; overwhelming’.
>>7777185
He likes him because he represents a great ideal he always worshipped in prose about but never was and never will be now that he's old and wasting away? It's been a while since I read it.
Wiki:
The boy in the story (Tadzio) is based on a boy (Władzio or Tadzio, nicknames for the Polish name Władysław or Tadeusz respectively) Mann had seen during a visit to Venice in 1911.
Władysław Moes was born on November 17, 1900 in Wierbka, the second son and fourth child of Baron Aleksander Juliusz Moes. He was aged 10 when he was in Venice, significantly younger than Tadzio in the novella. Baron Moes died on December 17, 1986 in Warsaw and is interred at the Powązki Cemetery there.
>>7776353
Mann is amazing. Everyone should read The Magic Mountain. Mann was also Yukio Mishima's favorite writer.
The story is ironic because Gustav is physically ill, but instead of treating his illness, he seeks escape in the beauty of a young healthy boy. Gustav's fate should come as no surprise.
>>7777710
It's death. Not Satan. He's constantly meeting people symbolizing death, like the ferryman. It's a really beautiful book if you enjoy that theme. The sort of thick air, feverish feeling, death and decadence. And Venice really is the perfect setting.
In German it is described as "Tragödie einer Entwürdigung", tragedy of a degradation. The man isn't tempted or tricked, he just decays and rots away. He becomes an old senile man chasing ideals of youth and lust and romance that throughout all of his live and career he looked down on as a man of intellect and self-control. He's like the 80 year old who feels death creeping up on him and desperately tries to cling to life with a young bride or modern clothing or young friends.
Also the influence on Mishima is very, very obvious if you're not some poltard who thinks Mishima died for the emperor.
>>7778157
Nice film adaptation. Don't like how they made Gustav into a musician, though.
