[.ca] The Real Tadzio: Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and the ... (ISBN 0786712473)

From Amazon.co.uk:
Gilbert Adair describes The Real Tadzio not so much as a biography but as, at least in part, a belated obituary to Wladyslaw Moes, the boy who inspired Thomas Mann to write Death in Venice. Like that novella, this is a slim volume; one in which Moes' actual life story only takes up a fraction of what is an impressive, 100-page or so, meditation on the lasting influence of Mann's half-factual, half-fictional creation. As Adair reveals, "virtually everything experienced by Gustav von Aschenbach in the novella, short of his premature death on the beach, had first happened to the author." In the summer of 1911 Mann had been staying at the Grand Hôtel des Bains in Venice with his wife and brother when he'd became enraptured by the angelic figure of Wladyslaw Moes, a fey 11-year-old Polish nobleman with a penchant for sailor suits. (In Mann's svelte masterpiece the object of von Aschenbach's interest, Tadzio, is the slightly more respectable age of 14. While in Luchino Visconti's cinematic version of the book Bjorn Andresen, the actor in the role, was a positively ancient 15 year old). Unfortunately, a week into the Manns' Venetian sojourn rumours of a cholera epidemic in Palermo, actually some distance away, panicked them into returning to Germany. Back in Upper Bavaria, Mann set to work on transforming his brief infatuation into a work of (very thinly embellished) fiction. Moes--the real Tadzio--despite being depicted by Mann as a boy who "would most likely not live to grow old", died in 1986 after fighting in the 1921 Russo-Polish war, being interned by the Nazis and enduring Poland's repressive Communist regime. Although the book was translated into Polish shortly after its initial German publication in 1912, Moes only really became aware of his fictional counterpart when Visconti's film appeared in 1971. Infuriatingly Adair, who convincingly argues that Visconti's film is largely a success because of Andresen's "godlike beauty", did not discover quite what Moes thought of his celluloid double (or slightly more annoyingly what befell Andresen after his mid-20s.) The real Moes (and for that matter Andresen) will always be overshadowed by Tadzio but Adair deftly sifts the myths from the men.--Travis Elborough

A Fascinating Approach to Art as Life vs. Life as Art:
Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice" written in 1911 has proven to be one of the more enduring, widely read stories in all of 20th Century literature. Originally published by Mann in a selection of short stories, the tale is one of the clash of the Apollonian and Dionysian conflict in the guise of one Gustav von Aschenbach, dropping his wholly cerebral life, to fall in love with a young Polish lad (Tadzio, who represents earthly Dionysian beauty at the stage of puberty) in Venice, Italy when the threat of cholera threatened the life of the city. The story has captured the imagination of philosophers, readers, historians, thinkers concerned with gender studies - and musicians and filmmakers! The story has been published in many languages, served as the subject for Luchino Visconti's hauntingly beautiful film (1971) by the same name, and resulted in Benjamin Britten's last opera (1973) also with the name "Death in Venice" in tact. Gender studies writers claim this novella to be one of the most successful stories of same sex love, and other famous writers took the lead from Mann in putting into novel form the 'unspeakable subject'. Gilbert Adair, a successful British writer ("Love and Death on Long Island" is a stunning book and was made into a fine film with the brilliant portrayal by John Hurt of the Thomas Mann-inspired character) has treated us with a significant bit of investigation and shows in well written prose and illustrated by many photographs that the story of "Death in Venice" is actually Mann's reporting on an incident that really did happen: Mann was in Venice in 1911, encountered a rich young Polish boy (one Wladyslaw Moes) while staying on the Lido, met all the same characters he later depicted, escaped the cholera epidemic that threatened Venice, felt the desire for the beautiful lad, but in Mann's case he did not die on the beach watching his desired young dream lad wandering away into the sea waves. Adair then follows the life of the real 'Tadzio' through his wealthy years in Poland, his trials during the time between WWI and WWII, his loss of all of his wealth in the post war period including his incarceration in a POW camp, his marriage and subsequent loss of his son, his response to seeing himself depicted in Visconti's movie version of Mann's novella, and his subsequent death in 1986. This is a fine bit of history, well presented with accompanying photographs of "Tadzio", his friends, his family, and his disappearance into obscurity while his impetus for Thomas Mann's novella lives on. Adair also examines the Visconti film and the Britten opera and manages to tie a century's worth of information into a short, eminently readable book. This is a must read for everyone who has fallen in love with this famous story.

A Fascinating Approach to Art is Life vs. Life is Art:
Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice" written in 1911 has proven to be one of the more enduring, widely read stories in all of 20th Century literature. Originally published by Mann in a selection of short stories, the tale is one of the clash of the Apollonian and Dionysian conflict in the guise of one Gustav von Aschenbach, dropping his wholly cerebral life, to fall in love with a young Polish lad (Tadzio, who represents earthly Dionysian beauty at the stage of puberty) in Venice, Italy when the threat of cholera threatened the life of the city. The story has captured the imagination of philosophers, readers, historians, thinkers concerned with gender studies - and musicians and filmmakers! The story has been published in many languages, served as the subject for Luchino Visconti's hauntingly beautiful film (1971)by the same name, and resulted in Benjamin Britten's last opera (1973) also with the name "Death in Venice" in tact. Gender studies writers claim this novella to be one of the most successful stories of same sex love, and other famous writers took the lead from Mann in putting into novel form the 'unspeakable subject'. Gilbert Adair, a successful British writer ("Love and Death on Long Island" is a stunning book and was made into a fine film with the brilliant portrayal by John Hurt of the Thomas Mann-inspired character) has treated us with a significant bit of investigation and shows in well written prose and illustrated by many photographs that the story of "Death in Venice" is actually Mann's reporting on an incident that really did happen: Mann was in Venice in 1911, encountered a rich young Polish boy (one Wladyslaw Moes) while staying on the Lido, met all the same characters he later depicted, escaped the cholera epidemic that threatened Venice, felt the desire for the beautiful lad, but in Mann's case he did not die on the beach watching his desired young dream lad wandering away into the sea waves. Adair then follows the life of the real 'Tadzio' through his wealthy years in Poland, his trials during the time between WWI and WWII, his loss of all of his wealth in the post war period icluding his incarceration in a POW camp, his marriage and subsequent loss of his son, his response to seeing himself depicted in Visconti's movie version of Mann's novella, and his subsequent death in 1986. This is a fine bit of history, well presented with accompanying photographs of "Tadzio", his friends, his family, and his disappearance into obscurity while his impetus for Thomas Mann's novella lives on. Adair also examines the Visconti film and the Britten opera and manages to tie a century's worth of information into a short, eminently readable book. This is a must read for everyone who has fallen in love with this famous story.