I could not help contrasting my own trip to Venice a few years ago with his: I carried my own luggage, unpacked it, was never rude to those serving me as he was on several occasions, beginning with the gondolier, and would never have dreamed of sitting on critical public health information simply so I could prolong my sense of amusement (the protagonist knew that the city was in the grip of an epidemic and that he should leave, but made no effort to pass this information along to the probably-less-well-informed Polish family who for all we know also succumbed to it). The result is a fairly close approximation to the old man on the ship who had so appalled Aschenbach.

Die Liebe weder begehrt noch wertet vergängliche Formen, sondern schaut, erkennt und umarmt das Innere: die Seele. Aschenbach at first ignores the danger because it somehow pleases him to think that the city's disease is akin to his own hidden, corrupting passion for the boy.Yet, always something new and such great pleasure in the perfection of its structure and eternally beautiful prose. A partir de um tema pra lá de delicado, o amor homoerótico entre um homem maduro e um jovem rapaz, algo que mais ou menos contemporaneamente à novela, destruíra a vida de Oscar Wilde, prejudicara a carreira de Andre Gide e da qual Proust temia falar abertamente; Thomas Mann acaba abordando questões filosóficas fundadas na estetica, na beleza e na arte cujas raizes decorrem claramente de Platão e Nietzche. I]n the dining-room, on the very first day, we saw the Polish family, which looked exactly the way my husband described them: the girls were dressed rather stiffly and severely, and the very charming, beautiful boy of about thirteen was wearing a sailor suit with an open collar and very pretty lacings.

Only then can the viewer begin to understand how the author (Aschenbach) of his own work, Der Elender, could himself spiral downwards - as does the city Venice in its veiled attempt to hide the ravages of the plague infested city - into an "Elender" (sufferer, one in misery) himself , dying of plague, suffering unrequited love and engulfed in physical and mental deterioration. Mann was a member of the Hanseatic Mann family and portrayed his family and class in his first novel, Buddenbrooks. Immer wieder bedenkt der von der äußeren Erscheinung des Knaben hingerissene Aschenbach die Form so dichterisch-philosophisch, als sei sie etwas an sich Seiendes, etwas Wunderbares, ja: Göttliches: sie sei als Gottesgedanke die eine und reine Vollkommenheit. The publication in the October and November issues of Die Neue Rundschau preceded the rare limited edition printed by Hans von Weber.Aschenbach's name and character may be inspired by the homosexual German poet August von Platen-Hallermünde. Registered office: WSM Services Limited, Connect House, 133-137 Alexandra Road, Wimbledon, LONDON SW19 7JY. In the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation it is criticized for its "puritanism", which saw Lowe-Porter "tone down Mann's treatment of sexuality, especially homoeroticism".