Aschenbach’s mountain house
Unnamed or fictional setting in Death in Venice; pinned at a inferred location within Bad Tölz.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Death in Venice | Thomas Mann | backdrop | Aschenbach lives in Munich but spends the rainy summers in a cottage he built in the mountains, and he dreads another summer there, which prompts the trip. |
Death in Venice — Thomas Mann (1912)
Source: Death in Venice · Readwise highlight
He dreaded the summer in the country, all alone in the cottage with the maid who cooked his meals and the man who served them; he dreaded the sight of the familiar mountain peaks and slopes that would once more encompass his torpid discontent.
- Role: backdrop
- In the book: Aschenbach lives in Munich but spends the rainy summers in a cottage he built in the mountains, and he dreads another summer there, which prompts the trip. He orders the country house made ready for occupancy within four weeks before leaving. At the Lido he recalls the house, its low clouds, storms and ravens, and in his dream he sees a mountain region like the one around his summerhouse.
- Why it matters: The house stands for the sober life of work he is escaping. The mountain landscape returns in the Dionysian dream that undoes him.
- Real vs. fictional: fictional house; real model likely
- Where is it?: ⚠️ inferred. Clues in the text: “the rustic cottage he had built for himself in the mountains and where he spent the rainy summers”; “he would recall his house in the mountains, scene of his summer labors, where clouds drifted low through the garden, violent storms blew out the evening house lights, and the ravens, which he fed, soared to the tops of the spruces”; “he gave orders for his country house to be made ready for occupancy within four weeks”; “a mountainous region similar to the one in which his summerhouse was located”. Reference works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas\_Mann (‘Katia Mann was able to purchase a summer property in Bad Tölz in 1908’; ‘they built a country house the following year, which they kept until 1917’); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad\_T%C3%B6lz (Mann had a summer villa there 1906-1917) Chosen: Bad Tölz, Upper Bavaria (Thomas Mann’s own summer house). The text names no place, but gives Munich as his home and a cottage in the mountains for rainy summers. Mann had exactly such a country house in Bad Tölz in the Bavarian Alpine foothills, an easy trip from Munich. Alternatives: Elsewhere in the Bavarian Alps (unnamed)