Prior to a friend purchaseing this book and toteing it around, I had only known Kafka as an obscure author that I probably would never read unless forced to. The cover, somehow, caught my intrest, althoguh I'm not entirely sure why. Eventually, when my friend finshed reading it, I asked if I could borrow it, and he allowed me to.

I'm glad the simple little cover caught my attention. Kafka was simply full of amusing quips, dark and dieased plots, and stunning revlations and details. He was touching and he was poingent, and he was, most of all, a story teller. Even his letters had a unique presepctive that made them intriguing to read. The Metamorphisis is by far one of my favorite books to this day, and as it serves as the opener of the book, it is the perfect introduction to Kafka.. and the rest of this body of work.

Kafka is the most complex writer ive ever read, i enjoyed reading this book.it has exerts from metamorphisis and josephine the singer and short stories, parables and exerpts from his diaries, it is very interesting

If you are, then this book is the perfect introduction. For those of you (like me) whose short-story tastes were formed reading stories based on action-filled plots and scantily-clad women, or at least stunning climaxes (i.e., "The Lottery", "The Necklace", "Witness for the Prosecution") then all I can say is, expand your mind a little and read these stories. If they have any theme at all, it's alienation. Beyond that, it's every man, woman, and unknown creature for him, her, or itself. To this day I think about the protaganist in "The Burrow" and still wonder "what the *hell* was going on?" Kafka exposes the sick, malformed, diseased and twisted through his characters and situations, and by doing so (hopefully) helps purge the same in ourselves.

Thomas Mann was inspired to write Death in Venice after seeing the composer Gustav Mahler break down in tears on the train departing Venice. Mann, like James Joyce, had the rare ability to create a character of deep psychological subtlety whose thoughts and experiences transcend the superficial and the immediate, but become part of a deep and lasting identity with the spiritual and the everlasting. The beautiful city of Venice will be forever identified with Gustav van Aschenbach just as Dublin will always belong to Leopold Bloom. The beauty of this book is hard to express in words - it is word perfect! I suggest that anyone who has not read it has missed out on a deep and joyful experience. It is one of our departing millennium's greatest works of fiction. The brilliant Italian director Visconti (on a par with Fellini, in my opinion) made a film worthy of the book in 1970. When Dirk Bogarde (von Aschenbach asked him about a script, Visconti told him the book was the script- and to read it over and over again. At the commencement of filming he asked the actor how many times he had read it. Bogarde said "about 30 times". Visconti replied that he should read it another 30! The film is brilliantly decadent and melancholic, and captures the essence of the book to the Nth degree. (It was made on a shoestring budget, with the leading actress not being paid and Bogarde working for peanuts. As a work of art it towers over the profligate Titanic). Anyone visiting Venice should read this masterly work and view the film beforehand. Then I would recommend a visit to the Venice Lido (a ferry ride across the lagoon from St Mark's Square) and visit Hotel des Bains. Then walk the beach, Mann's novella in hand, and take a sample of Aschenbach's sand home with you. Then keep reading Death in Venice in honour of Mann and Visconti. What a joy!

This is a remarkable short story classic that will stay with you a few days after you finish reading it. Thomas Mann, the author, in a well reknown German-born author who gained success from his novellas. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929. He left Hitler's Germany in 1933 & settled in the US in 1938 until he eventually returned to Europe & died in Switzerland in 1955. This 'Death In Venice' story had a curious draw for me at is was referenced in the book Density Of Souls by Christopher Rice and in another book I'd read. The story is short and very philosophical about an aging artist on vacation in Venice, Italy. It is literally a beautifully written 'escape'. You feel the aura of Venice as you conjure mythic images in what the artist sees as beautiful. It really is a magical book in more ways than one. I loved reading the following lines in the book (just to pick a few): To persevere through all, however, had always been his motto.; To know is to forgive.; Art-understood as personal experience, too--is life raised to the higher power.; ...the foreign tongue turned the boy's speech to music...; Ultimately, we are only as old as we feel in our hearts and minds.; ...passion is our inspiration, and our true longing must always remain a desire for love. So...as you can tell, this short novella can be as deep as you make it. Excellent!!!

A few pages into this literary classic and one might be tempted to put this novel down in search of less challenging fare. Beginning with an in-depth description of the main character Gustav Aschenbach, the story follows Aschenbach's degeneration from respected moral beacon to a obsessed stalker. After being struck with wonderlust by the sight of a roughened traveller, Aschenbach, a man who has never let himself be free of his own internal discipline, is driven by some inner need to travel to Venice. Once he arrives, Aschenbach begins to loosen decades of emotional repression as he allows his aesthetic appreciation of a fellow vacationer, a young sickly boy, Tadzio, to grow into a lustful obsession. Tadzio's beauty so captures Aschenbach that he ends up dying for his love, as his need to be near the young boy becomes his all-consuming priority. The subject will strike many readers as sickening as we read of a man's lust for a pre-pubescent boy, yet one can appreaciate Mann's remarkable ability with the written word, and the realism he creates as we delve into Aschenbach's mind.