A short review because there are 3,000+ others! [Edited 1/30/23]A well-established older German man visits Venice and falls in love with a 14-year-old boy on the beach. Here is a key passage very early in the novella (about 75 pages) that illustrates the author’s writing style: “He [the 14-year old Polish boy] entered through the glass doors and passed diagonally across the room to his sisters at their table. He walked with extraordinary grace – the carriage of the body, the action of the knee, the way he set his foot down in its white shoe – it was all so light, it was at once dainty and proud, it wore an added charm in the childish shyness which made him twice turn his head as he crossed the room, made him give a quick glance and then drop his eyes. He took his seat, with a smile and a murmured word in his soft and blurry tongue; and Aschenbach, sitting so that he could see him in profile, was astonished anew, yes, startled, at the godlike beauty of the human being. The lad had on a light sailor suit of blue and white striped cotton, with a red silk breast-knot and a simple white standing collar round the neck – a not very elegant effect – yet above this collar the head was poised like a flower, an incomparable loveliness. It was the head of Eros, with the yellowish bloom of Parian marble, with fine serious brows, and dusky clustering ringlets standing out in soft plenteousness over temples and ears.”The older man constantly monitors the boy in the hotel dining room and at the beach and eventually starts stalking the boy as he travels through Venice with his family. But a plague is also stalking Venice. He considers leaving the city because of the 'miasma' but decides to stay because of the boy – a bad decision.Mann uses many classical references: in just a few pages Achelous, Phaedrus, Eros, Cleitos, Cephalus, Orion, Poseidon, Pan and others are mentioned.Truly a classic – from 1911. I first read it many years ago. Mann (1875-1955) was a German writer who won the 1929 Noble Prize. He fled Germany for Switzerland and then the USA, not because he was Jewish, but because he opposed Hitler’s ideology and he knew his sexually-charged writings wouldn't help. He lived in the US (Princeton and then Los Angles) from 1939 to 1952 and became a US citizen. However he was hounded by the McCarthyites as a ‘communist’ and went back to live his final years in Switzerland. I read The Magician, Colm Toibin's fictionalized biography of Mann, and thought it was a great book.The MagicianTop photo from c.pxhere.comMiddle photo from anamericaninrome.com Photo of the author from the Thomas Mann archives at nebis.ch