title: Death in Venice and Other Stories (Everyman's Library)
author: Thomas Mann
description: ed author, Gustave Aschenbach, burdened by his successes, comes to Venice for a holiday and encounters a vision of eros -- a vision for which he pays with his life. Death in Venice, Thomas Mann's intensely moving elegy for a man trapped between myth and modernity, was written at the peak of his powers.
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  ![](images/Begl_9780307775948_epub_cvi_r1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **“BRILLIANT …**
  
  
  
  
  
  Begley disarms the reader with his elegant prose, his ample sentences and
  ornate syntax cushioning the keenness of his perceptions. In the end, however,
  the reader, like Max, is forced to confront himself in the role of bystander
  and onlooker: Begley takes the measure not only of his characters, but also of
  his audience.”
  
  
  — _Publishers Weekly_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Echoes of Proust abound here, as do parallels to Thomas Mann’s _Death in
  Venice_.… Beginning on the day of Richard Nixon’s resignation and concluding
  during the fall of Communism in Europe … _As Max Saw It_ points out the brutal
  consequences of dishonesty and self-deception in supposedly private matters.”
  
  
  — _The New York Times Book Review_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Richly layered.… In conjunction with Begley’s first two books, _As Max Saw
  It_ completes what now seems a trilogy that traces the quest for individual
  grace and love amid the last 60 years.”
  
  
  — _US