About this title: Mann's bestselling work of fiction now appears in a trade paperback format with a striking new jacket. Sales of the classic have totaled over 800,000 copies and average 42,000 copies a year.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA, New York
Date Published: 1962
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. pages somewhat yellowed due to age. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books, New York
Date Published: 1963
Description: Good. No Jacket. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Nice clean pages. with no markings. 2 names neatly printed on the first page. Price written on front cover. Corner crease on front cover. Light edge wear. No spine creasing. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date Published: 1964
Description: Good. ---404 pages. Interior has light pen marks otherwise clean and tight. Nice overall condition. -Publish Place: New York-Size: 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1989
ISBN-13:9780679722069ISBN:0679722068
Description: Good. Standard used condition. May have light reading or storage wear. All orders processed within 2 business days. Ships from Foxboro MA. read more
Description: Acceptable. Book shows wear to cover edges and spine. Corners bent/rounded. Cover may have folds or creases. Otherwise in good reading condition. read more
Description: Mass Market Paperback. Good/As Issued No Jacket. Reprint. Classic stories by author of the Magic Mountain. Serious edgewear, corner crease, rubbing, and pages are beginning to brown a bit. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date Published: 1936
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Cover shows minor wear; primarily in first 2 stories-notes, underlining, circles; pages moderately tanned. Translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Knopf, United States of America
Description: Good. No Jacket. Good. No Jacket Textbook. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Vintage Books Edition, probably published ca. 1955. Stories included are Death in Venice, Tnio Kroger, MArio and Magician, Disorder and Early Sorrow, A Man and his dog, The Blood of the Walsungs, Tristan, Felix Krull. read more
Description: Good. 1989-Paperback----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Description: Acceptable. 1989-Paperback----Used-Acceptable-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1989
ISBN-13:9780679722069ISBN:0679722068
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. underlining and margin notes on some pages. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 402 p. Vintage International (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date Published: 1936
Description: Fair. Nice book, clean, bright, had substantial tanning from age (72 year old paperback) and water stain on first three pages, no real effect here, virtually no wear showing, no markings except stray pen mark on top left of cover. read more
"Finishing fantastic books should be like beating levels in Zelda...wait, WAIT! Here me out...
All I mean to say is that, as a reward for reading something as near-perfect as Death in Venice, Goodreads should unlock an extra star, so that we may properly rate such rare gems of literature...sort of like extra hearts in Zelda, no? Fine, fine, never mind.
You indulge in the illusion that your life is habitually steady, simple, concentrated, and contemplative, that you belong entirely to yourself-and this illusion makes you quite happy. For a human tends to believe that the mood of the moment, be it troubled or blithe, peaceful or stormy, is the true, native, and permanent tenor of his existence...whereas the truth is that he is condemned to improvisation and morally lives from hand to mouth all the time. So now, breathing the morning air, you stoutly believe that you are virtuous and free; while you ought to know-and at the bottom do know-that the world is spreading its snares round your feet...
"Thomas Mann is so good at describing Venice, that my dream is to go to Venice one day and discover the fatal beauty of it.
I told my youngest brother, if he wants to develop a good, balanced, progressive life... then to never EVER read this book. It is practically a handbook for artists who have the natural propensity to be sad by everything. Even for people who thinks they are artists (like me) in some way. Bad influence, but great, esoteric revelations. Like no one will understand you unless they themselves have read the book."
After reading the first three "short" stories - "Death in Venice," "Tonio Kroger," and "Mario and the Magician" - I simply could not slog through Mann's turgid, discursive, and sometimes anachronistic prose that did way more telling then showing without any success at all (some authors, most prominently Nabokov, Chabon, and Marquez, can do a lot more telling than showing successfully).
On top of the clunky prose comes the boring story.
With the possible exception of "Mario and the Magician," his storytelling was glaringly lacking as he spends way too much time on anything but the story in a gushing self-indulgent overflow of lengthy Latinate words and misplaced archaic words that make up the pale intimations of philosophical concepts derived from Nietzsche, Schopenhauer et al.
To make a long story short, Thomas Mann's "short" stories are poorly written and badly told; in short, they are insufferable.
Since short stories are significantly different from novels, however, I still have some hopes for his gigantic novels - The Magic Mountain and Doctor Faustus - and sincerely would like to believe what other reviewers had to say about them.
"if thomas mann were alive today, he'd be a screenwriter churning out Saw movies... well, i don't know about that, since i've never actually seen a Saw movie, and these stories are amazing while Saw is probably terrible. But these stories have these mean little moral truths in them, and after you read them, you're grossed out for a bit, and then you get it, or maybe not, but you definitely are left with images in your head.
Not all of the stories are gross, though. Some are sad, and Mann speaks to outsider-y ness and introverted-isness and all sorts of life of the mind kind of stuff. So German! intense!"
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