Death in Venice

A problem with the narration

The book itself is well worthy of the name "classic". It is deep, intelligent and moving, and the most impressive thing about it, to me, was the apparent ease with which the author portrays such a complex protagonist and such deep feelings. However, I was only able to reach these conclusions after reading a print version of the book, since in the audiobook I could only barely follow the story.

The problem with the narrator is very simple: his voice is just too deep. He's not an untalented narrator, in that his pronunciation is very clear and he reads without any errors (I think I detected a hint of accent -- South African, perhaps?). However, he reads at such a low pitch that it is very hard to decipher what he's saying. Most of the time it sounds like someone grumbling to himself in another room. This would be a perfect voice for some sort of "mountain-man" in an animated film, but constantly straining to understand the narrator is not what you want in an audiobook.

5 sur 5 personne(s) ont trouvé cet avis utile.

You Get What You Pay For

I bought this version of Death in Venice because it was really inexpensive, and the sample seemed decent enough. After I started it, I found the narration to be excruciatingly awful, and after about an hour of listening in the car, I made up my mind that this audio book had to go! The narrator has a deep, muffled, and throaty voice that simply croaked. He sounds like a heavy smoker whose respiratory system is about to give out at any moment. I decided to call it a loss and to download and listen to the more expensive version. The story itself is great.

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This is great. Now where is Magic Mountain?

Fantastic story, of course. Narrator's performance was acceptable to me.

Now please make an audio book of Magic Mountain ASAP!

2 sur 2 personne(s) ont trouvé cet avis utile.

Shatteringly beautiful

An aching requiem for love and reason set amidst the swelling sicknesses of Europe before the Great War.

I did eventually come to like the narrator very much- found his tone a bit monotonous at first, but perhaps in the end this was the right artistic choice considering the tone of the book.

All in all, great.

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Not the best of Mann's works

After hearing my professor reference this book so much and reading some other works by the author, I really wanted to go through at a deliberate pace. It was a bit of an underwhelming experience, but I kept turning the pages as Mann's style is great. All and all not that exciting, but, if you're in a contemplative mood or want a good philosophical discussion on the european conception of aesthetics, I would suggest this book.

This Is a Classic?

I know it's a classic and from a different, era, but this book was just no good. Though all writing from the pre-WW1 era seems a bit formal and pretentious, I usually enjoy works from the late 19th/early 20th century. Not this book—its pretension was off the charts. Perhaps the only clever or interesting thing about Death in Venice was the description of the old-man-trying-to-look-young as grotesque near the beginning, compared to von Aschenbach himself undergoing a similar treatment later in the book. The ending, however, was just stupid.

The narration was just so-so.

This book changed my life.

Where do I even begin.
The story is haunting, both disturbing and beautiful. Although the plot drags on pretty slowly, it will suck you in. It will suck you into a shocking, beautiful vision of a scary, paedofiliac psycosis. And still it is all pure. There are no crimes commited, no thaughts omitted, and it is all descriptions of thoughts that both makes you sympathize with, and despice the book's main character, Herr von Aschenbach. The work hasen't left my mind since the days i first listened to is, read it, and studied it, always coming back to the book I learned to recognize as a masterpiece. Give it a try, and study it, if not, you are missing out on some great lectures on the suprising ways of the human mind.

Started out well but quickly deteriorated

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The narrator had a good voice for listening to. His pace was fine in the first chapter or two. Then it was as if he was told to pick up the pace because he started reading so fast and blurring his words together it was unpleasant to listen to any longer. I was really getting into the story too. What a drag!

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator should have continued in the same pace he used at the beginning of the book.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment.