Baedeker combines the myth with reality–stressing the good view from the top of the mountain–signalling to the reader the need to rise above the pettiness in which most of the novel's characters are entrammeled in order to see clearly. Venusberg is thus an anti-Tannhäuser: an anticlimactic, anti-Wagnerian, anti-romantic tone pervades a story in which everyone is somehow let down.
Baedeker's approach combines myth and reality, highlighting the benefits of looking down from a higher vantage point to see beyond the mundane concerns that dominate the novel's characters. This is in stark contrast to Tannhäuser, where Venusberg's narrative tone is deliberately unexciting and anti-romantic.