Returning

My reading has been disjointed these past few weeks. I started novels, then stopped. Yesterday was really the first time I sat down and read as I usually do. It was a beautiful day, so I sat outside with Death in Venice for an hour. And then I finished it today.

I'd read it before, but it's one of those that only gets better with rereading. And while I
remembered the basic plot, most of it felt new. Details and characters took on new significance in light of the outcome.

This time around, I read Michael Henry Heim's more recent translation. It's been a few years since I read the other one, so I didn't see much difference. (Well, I didn't remember the language being quite so flowery the last time around. I looked up the other version online and this one is indeed a bit more overblown. Not sure how well that reflects the original.) In the introduction to this version, Michael Cunningham waxes rhapsodic: "Here we have an Aschenbach who is harder to dismiss, whose fate is larger and nobler, if not exactly more comforting." That's a lot to put on a translation. And I'm not inclined to find Aschenbach's fate "noble." His is passionate, infatuated with beauty (which may itself perhaps be "noble"), but his actions are not. Isn't that what makes him so "hard to dismiss" in the first place? Why do we need to turn him into a hero in order to enjoy the book?

As usual, Mann's short (well...) fiction left me wanting more. I went over to the library to read some essays on Mann, but it wasn't the same. Like Dorothy, I may need to get my hands on Buddenbrooks soon.....