Review of "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann

Oh my, what a snoozefest! This reliably put me to sleep in about three minutes. The first story, Death in Venice itself, was kind of atmospheric, and it was possible to appreciate the central character's wrestling with his almost unacknowledged homoerotic attraction...though Mann rarely used one word where a couple of pages will do. It's a short book, but it felt much longer, perhaps because almost nothing happens, very slowly. That sort of fits with the scenario of hot, cholera-infused Venice - and I rather liked the rather contemporary threads about misinformation regarding the course of the epidemic. So I guess I'd give that story three stars. The second, Tristan, about not-very-ill patients in a sanatorium maybe two stars, and Tonio Kroger perhaps one star, if no lower ratings are permitted.