Gay-themed fiction or literature?

[Guest CURIOUS35]

>>:-) :-) :-)

>>

>> Sir thomas Mun.

>

>IT'S MANN.

 

I stand corrected on a sure bait i set up for someone to correct me. Yes , It is indeed Sir Thomas Mann! I initially typed man, but decided Mun was better

 

Excuses...excuses...excuses!

[Guest CURIOUS35]

> The 1971 film is unbearably slow. You could read Mann's

>entire novella before the film's credit scene ends.

 

I totally forgot which film versions I watched. I do remember Morte a Venezia in Italian and the American version, Death in Venice with a well known straight American actor...The colored version cast a TADZIO, who was an androgenous European child actor...I think he did continue to act, but as a young man, he lost his effervescent charisma.

>

>I find the film a negative portrait of a repressed gay man.

 

And that presented a challenge to both the writer and the director of the obra. The colored version, especially the pathetic scene where the character dyed his hair and mustache (?) not sure now..with some make-up was a bit disturbing. It shows how the gay culture is obsessed with trying to look good, albeit properly packaged.

 

>I'll concede he lived in times repressive. Yet he is so

>passive, so unable or unwilling to do anything to establish a

>REAL and meaningful relationship with a man.

 

I actually laughed at some scenes where in a chaplinesc way... he set up tryts, encounters, accidental meetings with Tadzio, who is always guarded by his family. The scene where the boy was finally alone for him to look at is very moving...I cried in the movie house and envisioned myself as an old ageing fart trying to fall in love with a much younger man...I felt like vomiting at my self destruction.

 

I once taught the

>film and novella and the students, many of them provincial and

>homophobic, seized on the negative image of the leading

>character.

 

I am sure they did...But there was one American friend of mine, who did a wonderful dissertation of the characters of the movie...I have to locate it...I don't even know if I still have it. he wrote to me, after I told him how I felt about the movie. His words...his allegorical explanation, after a while made sense to me...he practically stayed away from the gay focused and brought me to another level of understanding of the opera.

 

It pleases me to know, you are a mentor once. I bow my head to teachers like you. My high school teachers have given me a lot of learning grounds to understand life...my place and my beliefs and purpose in being!

 

I must re-read Death in Venice.

 

Peace LP!

>

>

>

>

>"I'd say that's a bit of an extreme reaction, now

>wouldn't you?" -- N.F. Bates

>

>

>Lankypeters

[AdamSmith]

>envisioned myself as an old ageing fart

>trying to fall in love with a much younger man...

>I felt like vomiting at my self destruction.

 

Well, if one has to try...! :-)

 

Hollinghurst floored me with Swimming Pool Library. Best thing since Nabokov, I thought. Then The Folding Star was good, if a bit more of the same. But then with Line of Beauty, all its real-world topicality, which some liked, seemed to me just a way to wring yet a third run out of essentially the same old business. It put me in mind of Flannery O'Connor's remark that, regrettably, it is possible for a writer to use up his material.

[JamesK840]

http://www.asstr.org/nifty/gay/authoritarian/taking-marks-virginity/

 

Best erotic story I've yet read, the theme that forms through it is quite impressive.

[Boomer]

In the Italian movie directed by Luchino Visconti, Dirk Borgarde plays a composer, modeled after Mahler. Mahler's 5th, particularly the "Adagietto" is used throughout the film. Parts of it are quite moving. The movie is like watching a painting. There's not a lot of dialouge. Great period wardrobe, with lush colors and texture. The boy who plays Tadzio is quite androgynous and beautiful. There's a book about the actor called, "The Real Tadzio." Actually it's more of a long essay. After the film, his career pretty much stalled. Marisa Berenson is also in the movie. Yes, it does paint a bleak picture of a repressed gay man. There are lessons here to be learned. However, there are other themes that resonate regardless of sexual orientation. The book/movie also took place during a very tragic era, as cholera was spreading quickly throughout Europe. So yes, it's a bleak, sad story about youth, age and death, and unrequited attraction. "Death in Venice" is a masterfully written novella (Thomas Mann) and a beautiful film. I've probably watched it a dozen times, but I'm quite aware that it's not to everyone's taste. I've shown it to friends who were absolutely stunned that I thought it was so brilliant.

[Boomer]

RE: Gay-themed fiction or literature?I

 

"Giovanni's Room" is unlike any of Baldwin's other books. It's not a polemic and race is not a topic. It's a bitter-sweet love story.

[Lookin]

John Rechy's "City of Night" came out when I did, in the early sixties. He described that world perfectly, from a young man's point of view, and it was one I knew I wanted to be part of.

 

If you like light humor à la P. G. Wodehouse, check out Joe Keenan's stuff: "Blue Heaven", "Putting on the Ritz", or "My Lucky Star". All gay, all the time, and not a serious thought in the bunch.

[pegasian]

>John Rechy's "City of Night" came out when I did,

>in the early sixties. He described that world perfectly, from

>a young man's point of view, and it was one I knew I wanted to

>be part of.

 

 

The BIO of JOHN RECHY is a FASCINATING READ TOO

[Guest alanm]

Thomas Mann was a Noble Prize winning German author, who was in the closet for his entire life (1875-1955). He did have several gay affairs, although he was married and had six children. There are gay themes in all his short stories and books. Most people would consider "The Magic Mountain" to be best book, although it clocks in at 700 pages. It is

one of the four or five best books I have ever read.

 

Mann left German when Hitler came to power in 1933. He lived in Switzerland and then the United States (Princeton and near Santa Monica). During WW2, Mann was the most celebrate anti-Hitler German expat (w/ Einstein and Dietrich). He financially supported a large part of the European exile community in California.

 

"Death in Venice" was also made into an excellent opera by Benjamin Britten. There have been several first-class ballet productions of "Death in Venice," most recently by the Hamburg Ballet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

[swallows22]

I read it on the flight from SF to HI, drinking Mai-Tai's and crying my eyes out.

 

Later was surprised to see how many of my straight friends read it.

 

At one time there was talk that Paul Newman would play one lead if Robert Redford would play the other. The latter wasn't interested.

 

Cheers!