Deaths in Venice

by Philip Kitcher

  138. Joyce recognizes a similar problem and a similar solution in the “Lotus Eaters” chapter of Ulysses, where Bloom observes the gelded carriage-horses and reflects on this as a possibility (63; 5:217–219).

  139. Briefe Grauthof/Boy-Ed 68.

  140. Joyce takes this route and thus invites the charge leveled by the moralizing narrator. His answer is to “see life foully,” to expose and probe again and again—and to come to forgiveness out of the deepest knowledge of what is to be forgiven.

  141. Mann sides with Tonio Kröger against Nietzsche on this. Schopenhauer serves as his mentor (Erzieher) here.

  142. Von Josephs Keuschheit (“Of Joseph’s Chastity”), JSB 823–832.

  143. JSB 831–832.

  144. As Bence Nanay pointed out to me, the link between beauty and the erotic is essential to the quasi-Platonic argument reconstructed here. He also suggests that the coda to the novella reveals Mann’s exploration of a different conception of the aesthetic, one that rejects erotic arousal in favor of calm contemplation. Perhaps that aesthetic attitude is attained in Aschenbach’s final moments—see section 7 of chapter 3.

  145. See John Bridcut, Britten’s Children (London: Faber, 2006) for a discussion of Britten’s relationships with young boys.

  146. Humphrey Carpenter, Benjamin Britten (New York: Scribners, 1992), 550.

  147. For a very thoughtful discussion of the film, its relations to Mann, and the reactions of critics who have compared film and novella, see Hans Vaget, “Film and Literature. The Case of “Death in Venice”: Luchino Visconti and Thomas Mann,” German Quarterly 53 (1980): 159–175. See also Philip Reed, “Aschenbach Becomes Mahler: Thomas Mann as Film,” in Benjamin Britten: Death in Venice, ed. Donald Mitchell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 178–183. Chapter 3 will take up some of the issues raised by these two excellent essays.

  148. As in several of the contributions to Mitchell’s Benjamin Britten: Death in Venice. See, for example, the essays by Colin Graham and T. J. Reed. Patrick Carnegy acknowledges a critical consensus on the point (168) but then develops a more complex view of the relations between Britten and Mann. See also Peter Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 523.

  149. The letter is quoted by Carnegy; Mitchell, Benjamin Britten: Death in Venice, 168.

  150. Although the marriage was one of convenience, Auden occasionally visited his nominal father-in-law. According to Edward Mendelson (in conversation), Erika had originally approached Christopher Isherwood in her search for a British passport, only to be turned down; Auden, by contrast, was willing, and apparently reprimanded his friend, allegedly asking rhetorically, “What are buggers for?”

  151. On March 9, 1948, Mann recorded in his diary that he had played the records of Britten’s “Serenade” and commented “to hear again” (TB [1946–1948], 234). In a letter to Ida Herz of January 16, 1948, he had written that he knew the composer’s name but not his music (TB [1946–1948] 720).

  152. TB (1946–1948) 243; entry of April 1. The third song of the serenade is a setting of Blake’s “O Rose, thou art sick.”

  153. Mitchell, Benjamin Britten: Death in Venice, 168.

  154. A diary entry, admittedly written at a time when Mann was vexed by Schoenberg’s angry response to Doktor Faustus—the real composer resented the fact that his musical ideas had been assigned to his fictional counterpart without attribution—compares the song of the Rhinemaidens at the end of Rheingold (which had moved Mann to tears) with the efforts of Wagner’s successors: “I would trade the entire works of Schoenberg, Berg, Krenek, and Leverkühn for this one piece alone” (TB [1946–1948] 227). The sequence of Tagebücher records the music Mann listened to over many years and reinforces the idea that his tastes were relatively conservative. Although Wagner features a lot in his listening, it would be wrong to conclude, from the overwhelming attention given to Wagner in his writings, that he was only secondarily interested in others. His musical tastes center on the romantic period, with little interest in music before Beethoven (Mozart and Haydn being more popular than Bach, and earlier composers almost unrepresented; for a disdainful remark about the “clichéd” and “mechanical” character of eighteenth-century music, see TB [1951–1952] 26 [February 21, 1951]) and some liking for Debussy, Ravel, and Prokofiev. There is a period in the latter months of 1935 during which he listened to a lot of Tchaikovsky. Berlioz, especially Harold in Italy, was another favorite; Beethoven and Schubert are always much admired. For an excellent discussion of Mann and music, see Hans Vaget, Seelenzauber (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2006).

  155. The film, directed by Franz Seitz, appeared in 1982. It is available in a (German) DVD edition from Arthaus.

  156. Mann continued to listen to Britten. On January 29, 1949, he heard a radio broadcast of “an opera by Britten, tender and parodistic” (TB [1949–1950] 14). Almost certainly the opera was Albert Herring—which, unlike Peter Grimes, Britten’s previous opera, deserves the adjectives Mann chose.

  157. The “Serenissima” theme is heard as Aschenbach approaches Venice, at a moment in the novella at which Mann alludes to Platen (GKFA 8.1:521)—the unnamed poet who saw “the cupola and the bell-tower rising out of the water” (PL 92). Whether Britten intended his sensuous and ambiguous motif to capture the allusion to Platen—or whether either he or Piper knew of Platen—is a matter for speculation.

  158. See Rosamund Strode’s “Chronicle,” in Mitchell, Benjamin Britten: Death in Venice, 41–44.

  159. For an illuminating discussion of issues of balance between the two acts, see Peter Evans, The Music of Benjamin Britten (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), chap. 21 (on Death in Venice), esp. 547.

  160. For reasons given in section 3 of chapter 1, highlighting the Apollo-Dionysius opposition in this way oversimplifies the problems explored in the novella and, again, points toward the caricature of “Eminent Repressed Writer Undone by Forbidden Passion.”

  161. As I see and hear the opera, there are echoes of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and of the two angels who compete for Faustus’s soul.

  162. The prominence of the hotel manager suggests thinking of him as the dispenser of pleasures to the denizens of a bourgeois order, one that is now ending, who, in his role as Dionysius is all-powerful in setting and exacting the costs of pleasure, specifically death.

  163. The link between Death in Venice and Billy Budd is also explored by Colin Palmer in “Toward a Genealogy of Death in Venice,” in On Mahler and Britten: Essays in Honor of Donald Mitchell, ed. Philip Reed (London: Faber, 1995).

  164. Characteristically, Britten is faithful in setting Melville’s story. The references to Billy as “Beauty” are already there in the original (although with less of the homoerotic overtones they take on in Britten). The opera amends Billy’s final words by introducing the dramatic touch of having the boy use Vere’s nickname (“Starry Vere”). The Christian allusions, already present in Melville, are heightened in Britten’s version. In particular, instead of following the original, where Vere dies in action early in the Napoleonic wars, Britten has the captain live on, and he is thus able to reflect in his closing monologue on the “redemption” Billy has brought him. Interestingly, Melville’s story is rich in classical references—Billy is compared to Apollo, for example—a fact that invites connections to Death in Venice.

  165. There is also a lesser kinship with the opening declamation (repeated later with variation), “J’ai seul la clef de cette parade, de cette parade sauvage,” of Les illuminations. Perhaps we should also connect all three operatic figures with Britten’s Rimbaud-persona.

  166. As already noted, the next chapter will scrutinize this idea.

  167. For the passage in the novella where Aschenbach observes Tadzio’s teeth and records his inchoate feeling of satisfaction, see GKFA 8.1:541; LP 34, L 224–225, K 29, H 62. Britten does not set either this or the earlier recognition of the boy’s pallor (GKFA 8.1:531; LP 26, L 217, K 22, H 46–47), but the display of
pride and scorn toward the Russian family serves the same end. In Piper’s libretto, Aschenbach comments: “There is a dark side even to perfection. I like that.”

  168. Once again, Britten introduces a sexual focus where the novella is more open and ambiguous. After Aschenbach has heard about the cholera epidemic and considered warning the “lady with the pearls,” Mann portrays him as appalled by the vision of a return to Munich: he immediately conjures up an image of the mortuary chapel, the scene that prompted his journey south, and he commits himself to remaining silent. There follows one of Mann’s sinuously ambivalent sentences: “The image of the plague-afflicted and dilapidated city, hovering desolate before his consciousness, aroused in him intangible hopes, that overrode all considerations of reason and were of monstrous sweetness” (GKFA 8.1:581; LP 66, L 255, K 56, H 125). Piper’s “What if all were dead, and only we two left alive?” is far more definite—and, to those of a certain generation, unfortunately reminiscent of the song “If you were the only girl in the world, and I were the only boy …”

  169. Although Britten was evidently much moved by religious texts and set them with great sensitivity and subtlety—from the beautiful “Hymn to the Virgin,” composed while he was still a schoolboy, to the War Requiem and beyond—he was no orthodox Christian. His religious and spiritual attitudes evolved throughout his life, always shaped by his moral commitments and ideals. Thus he could see Billy’s action as redemptive without subscribing to any of the various standard versions of Christian doctrine about Jesus as Redeemer. For discussion of Britten’s religious sensibility, see Graham Elliott, Benjamin Britten: The Spiritual Dimension (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

  170. Mann considers this possibility and, in one of his deftly ironic pieces of “historical commentary,” laments the fact that the “folk traditions” have developed it as an “oversweetened fiction.” The “truth,” the commentator claims, is that there were no further meetings between Joseph and either Mut or Potiphar (JSB 1085–1088).

  171. The obsession with Tadzio might truncate his life. For reasons I shall give in the next chapter, one should be cautious in drawing firm conclusions on this issue.

  172. The post-Enlightenment modification is developed in different ways by Kant, Wilhelm Humboldt, and Mill.

  173. In July 1948, Mann learned of a report that the secretary of the Swedish Academy had proposed awarding him a second Nobel Prize in literature. He heard a similar rumor in March 1949 and was led to reflect on the “great success” in Sweden of Lotte in Weimar and Doktor Faustus. Apparently, in both instances, the prize committee did consider the possibility and decided not to give any individual a second prize within the same field (TB [1946–1948] 290; TB [1949–1950] 33).

  174. The diaries record in some detail the number of hours Mann slept, his difficulties in falling asleep, the medicines he took to induce sleep, and the procedures he followed when he had most trouble—moving to a chair, or going to Katia’s room.

  175. See, for a small selection of examples from the diaries, the entries of December 24, 1919 (TB [1918–1921] 349); November 20, 1933 (TB [1933–1934] 251); December 24, 1936 (TB [1935–1936] 412); November 4, 1938 (TB [1937–1939] 316); August 10, 1948 (TB [1946–1948] 293).

  176. For Katia’s ministrations to Heinrich, see, for example, TB (1949–1950) 37–39. Interestingly, despite the length of her acquaintance with Heinrich and despite the many services she rendered to him, her reports of exchanges between them record them as always addressing one another formally—using Sie instead of Du: see KMM 155 for an example from very late in Heinrich’s life.

  177. Mann’s attitudes toward Jews were complex. Despite his opposition to Nazism, as well as the fact that he had married into a prominent Jewish family, he was sometimes inclined to make anti-Semitic remarks and jokes and to introduce stereotypical figures into his works (a prime example is the impresario Saul Fitelberg, who is presumably to be a source of comic relief in chapter 37 of Doktor Faustus). Attempting to fathom this aspect of Mann’s psychology and its impact on Katia and her family would introduce a range of materials that would lead me far from my central topics.

  178. TB (1946–1948) 264. The attraction is acknowledged and steered away—“normalized”—by supplying a family context and a gentle reminder that women, too, can be beautiful.

  179. TB (1944–1946) 160–161. See also the entry for February 11, 1940, when Mann was reminded by a congratulatory telegram (TB [1940–1943] 24).

  180. TB (1937–1939) 438, 439. See also TB (1933–1934) 482; TB (1935–1936) 148–149.

  181. TB (1937–1939) 168.

  182. TB (1940–1942) 389.

  183. GKFA 11.1:526.

  184. KMM 175.

  185. Strictly speaking, one might leave open the possibility that Michael’s death was an accident, that he simply misjudged the combination of alcohol and pills he ingested. Yet his friends reported earlier efforts at suicide, and the poetry written shortly before his death suggests that suicide was on his mind. For an accessible account, see Marianne Krull, Im Netz der Zauberer (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2002).

  186. TB (1946–1948) 285; entry of July 12, 1948.

  187. TB (1946–1948) 285; entry of July 13, 1948.

  188. Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus. Thomas Mann, Doktor Faustus/Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus (Frankfurt: Fischer), 679–829. TB (1946–1948) 286–288.

  189. TB (1946–1948) 295; entry of August 14, 1948.

  190. Krull suggests that the elder Manns developed a fatalism about Klaus (Im Netz der Zauberer, 16).

  191. “My deepest sympathy with the maternal heart and with E.” “K.’s sighs, Eri’s pain, pierces my heart beyond words. I kiss them.” “Eri very sad and suffering. K. self-possessed.” “Erika often in tears.” TB (1949–1950) 57–59. Krull makes much of the fact that Mann’s “paternal heart” was not touched (Im Netz der Zauberer, 15), and that is surely one interpretation of his words. It is, however, possible to ask if his conception of his own role as “head of the family”—and of masculinity—convinced him of the primary importance of comforting the living.

  192. Reich-Ranicki, Thomas Mann und die Seinen, 326.

  193. Briefe 3:91.

  194. TB (1918–1921) 18; entry of September 28, 1918.

  195. TB 1918–21 378; entry of February 13 1920.

  196. Krull, Im Netz der Zauberer, 441.

  197. Later references in the diaries suggest that Bibi continued to be viewed as a problematic presence. In April 1936, the then teenager experimented with some of his father’s prescription drugs, and a physician had to be called—“a harmless incident, but something of a disturbance to the household” (TB [1935–1936] 291). A year and a half later, Michael suffered from extreme sensitivity to light, and the doctors prescribed careful treatment: “a serious business, that will make it impossible for K. to go to stay in Arosa” (TB [1937–1939] 146). Michael recovered his sight and six months later was back at his musical education. After he had played for the family, Mann commented, “Bibi’s playing shows hard work, but to my mind nothing of the violinist’s spark [Impuls]” (TB [1937–1939] 259). Did Michael’s father convey that judgment to him? The negative view of his youngest child persisted until late in Mann’s life. In 1951, Michael quarreled violently with Yalta Menuhin (with whom he sometimes performed) and apparently hit her above the eye. On the following day, Mann commented: “I must confess that I shall be happy when he has left. I don’t really care for who he is [sein Wesen], including his laugh. But I talked nicely with him during the meal, and told him that he didn’t really need the connection with Yalta.” (TB [1951–1952] 130, 131; entries of November 4 and November 5, 1951).

  198. TB [1933–1934] 57, 82, 90.

  199. See Erika Mann, Mein Vater, Der Zauberer, 2nd ed. (Hamburg: Roholt, 2005), 91–93. For the further sequence of letters—in which both parents participated—see 93–108. The earlier disagreement is expressed in a letter of September 28, 1933 (84). Mann’s reflections on these di
sputes are recorded in TB (1933–1934) 197–199 (note the praise for Erika’s “organizational and intellectual work” at 199) and in TB (1935–1936) 245–249.

  200. See, for one among many examples, TB (1946–1948) 115.

  201. See, for one among many examples, TB (1946–1948) 182.

  202. TB (1949–1950) 56. Despite Mann’s appreciation of Erika’s valuable service, his diaries often reveal concern about the strain she caused for Katia: see, for example, TB (1951–1952) 43 (April 3, 1951), and TB (1953–1955) 192–193 (March 7, 1954).

  203. The couple married on November 23, 1939 (for Mann’s feelings, see TB [1937–1939] 503). On subsequent visits with Medi and her husband, there are tearful partings (TB [1940–1943] 238), increasing irritation with Borghese’s pomposity (TB [1944–1946] 134, 135), growing perception of Medi’s marital predicament (TB [1944–1946] 221), and a sense of her unhappiness (TB [1946–1948] 156).

  204. Fridolin was the eldest son of Michael and his wife, Gret. The diaries are full of Mann’s delight in playing with and reading to this newfound favorite—who served as the model for Nepomuk (“Echo”) in Doktor Faustus, the adored child who dies from an agonizing meningitis. Krull reports that Fridolin found the identification—and perhaps the attention of his besotted grandfather—oppressive (Im Netz der Zauberer, 443).

  205. TB (1918–1921) 114.

  206. TB (1918–1921) 444, 529. Interestingly, as the next pages reveal, Monika fell seriously ill a few days later.

  207. TB (1933–1934) 526.

  208. TB (1935–1936) 345, 382, 412; TB (1937–1939) 3.

  209. TB (1940–1943) 273, 419. See also TB (1953–1955) 101 (August 20, 1953).

  210. TB (1949–1950) 25, 26.

  211. Golo receives little individual mention in the early Tagebücher (1918–1921), but his appearance in the pre-Christmas play (1919) represents the impression he makes: “Golo as a lady in mourning uncannily funny in the highest degree” (TB [1918–1921], 348).

  212. Golo’s historical study Wallenstein is rightly regarded as a classic. That status could not, I think, be awarded to any of the writings of his siblings.