Octavio Solis’s Reviews > Death in Venice and Other Stories > Status Update

Little Herr Friedemann, The Joker, and The Road to the Churchyard are three very distinct short stories by Mann that feel so absurd because the protagonists in them are woefully undone by the presence of beauty, grace and happiness as embodied in objects of distracted affection. In the case of The Road to the Churchyard, it’s simply a passing bicyclist enjoying his country ride that enrages and destroys.

Three stories down, three to go.

“This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty— this city, half fairytale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism. Gripped by his adventure, the traveler felt his eyes drinking in this sumptuousness, his ears wooed by these melodies…”