05.12.09
Who Cannot Love Thomas Mann?
(Excerpts from Death in Venice)
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Solitude gives birth to the original in us,
to beauty unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry.
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Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought – these are the artist’s highest joy.
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…was it not known and familiar to him, the artist? Was not the same force at work in himself when he strove in cold fury to liberate from the marble mass of language the slender forms of his art which he saw with the eye of his mind and would body forth to men as the mirror and image of spiritual beauty?
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His love of the ocean had profound sources: the hard-worked artist’s longing for rest, his yearning to seek refuge from the thronging manifold shapes of his fancy in the bosom of the simple and vast; and another yearning, opposed to his art and for that very reason a lure, for the unorganized, the immeasurable, the eternal – in short, for nothingness.
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At the world’s edge began a strewing of roses, a shining and blooming ineffably pure; baby cloudlets hung illumined, like attendant amoretti, in the blue and hushful haze; purple effulgence fell upon the sea, that seemed to heave it forward on its welling waves; from horizon to zenith went great quivering thrusts like golden lances, the gleam became a glare and rolling flames streamed upwards, and with flying hoof-beats the steeds of the sun-god mounted the sky. The lonely watcher sat, the splendour of the god shone on him, he closed his eyes and let the glory kiss his lids.
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But evening too was rarely lovely: balsamic with the breath of flowers and shrubs from the near-by park, while overhead the constellations circled in their spheres, and the murmuring of the night-girted sea swelled softly up and whispered to the soul. Such nights as these contained the joyful promise of a sunlit morrow, brim-full of sweetly ordered idleness, studded thick with countless possibilities.
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Who shall unriddle the puzzle of the artist nature?
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Photo Credits:
V. Galvez
T. Martin
Ahhoi
H. Boot
sopraninigabi said,
May 13, 2009 at 6:51 am
Was reading my own copy about a month ago :) Meewa, sinong translator ng DEATH IN VENICE mo? Si Lowe-Porter pa rin? My own copy doesn’t seem to be half as poetic.
Miracle ♪♫ said,
May 13, 2009 at 7:08 am
Oh, that’s too bad. =( I was even thinking that if Doktor Faustus showed Mann’s philosophical side, Death in Venice presents his extremely poetic side. It’s still by Lowe-Porter, Gabi. I’ve also read passages of other translators and I really prefer hers. I strongly believe Thomas Mann would have, too.
I’ve also heard about one translator though I can’t remember who, who put emphasis on the homosexual themes - because he himself was homosexual - and therefore losing the more important aspects of the novella.
It’s in reading Mann that I’ve realized how important translations are.
jonathan hawk follows closely said,
May 13, 2009 at 8:53 am
I loved these particular passages, are they all as such? They’re going in my phone, so I can feel them in the most delicate of places. Lingering thanks.
Miracle ♪♫ said,
May 13, 2009 at 9:14 am
Yes! It would be difficult to imagine an artist who cannot love Mann, wouldn’t it? I’m glad to know that the artist in you is bent to these passages, Jonathan. “Lingering” is truly a fitting word to describe these. You’re most welcome.
mika said,
May 14, 2009 at 12:56 pm
waah, one of my favorite stories! i love how sensual his writing is. it really stays with you even after the end.
Miracle ♪♫ said,
May 14, 2009 at 4:05 pm
That is true, Mika… and he draws you to his characters and into his scenes and they never ever leave you…and vice versa…
elaine said,
May 14, 2009 at 8:14 pm
this story is so poetic and heart breaking. it hits you right on. it is written in a very detailed and honest way.
Miracle ♪♫ said,
May 14, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Honest, indeed, Elaine. It’s a rather courageous story in a sense… and I love it for its reflections about art above all. =)
mika said,
May 14, 2009 at 10:37 pm
WAHHHH!!!!! MAAAAAAAAAAHLEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!!!! this is the first work of mahler i ever heard - and that first time was just a one-minute excerpt on some music site. i fell in love with the music right away. i never heard music like this. i always knew music was an emotional art, but never had music touched me so deeply! thanks for posting the music from the film too. :)
Miracle ♪♫ said,
May 14, 2009 at 10:58 pm
YEESSSSSSS!!! Hahaha… It’s my pleasure, Mika. The music, like Mann’s work, is haunting…and so much more.
Wait, you did know that Aschenbach’s character was partly based on Mahler, right?
mika said,
May 16, 2009 at 10:27 pm
even in the book?! i thought the Aschenbach in the movie was the one partly based on Mahler.
btw, this is regarding Doktor Faustus, but would you happen to know if Adrian Leverkuhn’s character was partly based on Nietzsche’s life?
Miracle ♪♫ said,
May 17, 2009 at 7:10 am
Even in the book, Mika. =)
As for Doktor Faustus, there is indeed evidence of a Leverkühn-Nietzsche kinship especially with the blatant clue that both had syphilis. Yet it is also interesting that in Mann’s important works, there is always a shadow of Nietzsche playing a role somehow.