Beached.

I am not a big fan of reading on the beach, believing that the interplay of sand and surf, the changing hues of the sky, the human scenery parading past should be sufficient distraction. One's shore experience, in other words, should be primarily sensual--something, that is, straight out of a Gordon Merrick novel ("As the sun set over the darkening waves, Jerry looked into John's eyes swimmingly") but not the consumption of a Merrick tome itself.

On a recent late-summer afternoon along the sea, however, I violated my usual creed by reaching into my beach bag and pulling out a copy of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. Perhaps because of its brevity, this 1912 novella is one of those classics that people not only refer to but have actually read. I had devoured its 60-odd pages as a high school senior, thrilling to the story of the writer Aschenbach and his intense longing for the adolescent Polish boy Tadzio, and had revisited the story only once, a few years later, via the overwrought film adaptation directed by Luchino Visconti.

I never expected to be rereading Death in Venice. I had consigned it to my collection of what Mann, in the book, describes as one of those "early, exquisite afflictions of the heart" that would wither under adult scrutiny. But someone had sent me a new translation, by Joachim Neugroschel, to which "controversial" passages previously excised from English editions had been restored, and I thought, Why not take a look?

Neither the existence of this material nor the fact that Mann himself had a homoerotic side is a revelation. From his letters and diaries we have long had evidence of his same-sex desire, and a few years ago the cultural historian Anthony Heilbut published a study on the subject. But now that the central artistic rather than personal document of Mann's gay side was being published in English, I wondered whether it would alter my view on the nature of his achievement.

It did not. As a group of children started building sand castles in front of me, I worked my way through the novella, taking note of the new material, which intensified Aschenbach's longing but, somewhat disappointingly, provided no real enrichment of his character. While the added passages certainly make it easier for even the casual reader to grasp that Aschenbach's attraction is not just a connoisseurial appreciation of classic male beauty but also a more explicitly sexual arousal, I realized I had already understood that from earlier editions. Resigned to the lack of fresh perspectives, about two thirds of the way through my reading I found my mind wandering from the specifics of the story to the more general question of older men's attraction to much younger boys.

It's a popular topic these days, especially at the movies. Two of this year's standout performances, in fact, are given by old goats pining for smooth flesh. In Love and Death on Long Island, John Hurt plays a doddering English writer smitten with a cheesy American actor (Jason Priestley), and in the upcoming Gods and Monsters, Sir Ian McKellen enacts film director James Whale's autumnal ardor for the kid (Brendan Fraser) who cuts his lawn.

While there is something inherently touching about all these older men, a certain sameness always settles in around their situations. Their loves are always impossible, unrequited, destructive; and the men are generally unhappy, not least because the hunks are straight and thus not only unavailable but--worse!--predictably devoid of irony.

What most distinguishes Aschenbach and his kind, however, may be the fact that sex for them is primarily mental. While I accept this choice as having artistic troth, it is only a partial depiction of what happens for older guys in real life. In other words, it is ridiculous to assume that anyone past a certain age can only look at someone attractive without any expectation of getting him into bed. Just as my dissatisfaction in this area was threatening to prevent me from finishing Mann's book, I looked up and saw a beautiful boy strolling along the sand. In a flash my mind constructed an elaborate, very satisfying fantasy about what I would like to do to him. I put down the book and stood up for a better view, realizing, Perhaps it's all in the mind after all.