Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (SPOILERS) PATRON ONLY REVIEW

Sounds good. Might give it a try.

Genuinely relieved to hear you made it through the hurricane okay.

Thank you for this review. Never read "Death in Venice" but I'll get to it. I did read "Buddenbrooks" and was expecting a difficult, somewhat boring classic, but I was surprised by the book's suspense and humour. Mann's way of writing makes even the most mundane scenes interesting, like when a burned-out character is shaving and dressing for a day in the office. If you want to get further into German literature, I cannot recommend Günter Grass's "The Tin Drum" highly enough. It is probably the darkest, funniest, most grotesque and surreal German novel of the 20th century, yet paints an accurate picture of German and Polish society during the Nazi era. I would even go so far to say: if you read one German novel, read "The Tin Drum".

Reminds me a lot of the movie "Possession", in its themes of obsession overwhelming and simultaneously destroying/enrapturing the subject's life.

Actually just finished Magic Mountain by Mann earlier this year. Excellent, but an actually intimidating intelligence

At a minimum, I hope you'll read some of his other short works. They're fantastic. And I keep beating this drum: Absolutely check out Doktor Faustus!