Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Quite an amazing tale, reminded me a bit of The Immoralist by Andre Gide. Both Michel (I think it is Michel) and Mann's Aschenbach are sober, Apollonian characters that go to the Mediterranean where they are enticed by young, beautiful boys (Arabs in Michel's case, and the divine, Polish Tadzio for Aschenbach). Different set of dualisms govern the narrative in these stories: in Michel's case, it is the movement from sickness to health, from intellect to body (with an opposite movement happening in his wife, Marceline(?) as they go further into the Mediterranean), while for Aschenbach, there is a movement from the Apollonian to the Dionysian.

The ending of Death in Venice was incredibly cinematic, as Aschenbach's gaze is fixed on Tadzio playing on the beach with his playmates, and then Tadzio's gaze eventually returns to a dead Aschenbach. Not sure when Mann wrote this book or if he was a fan of cinema, but this last scene in the book reminded me of the ending of The Passenger by Michelangelo Antonioni.

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