The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole (New Editions: A Memoir of Venice) - Softcover

Rolfe, Frederick; W.H. Auden

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1903933145 ISBN 13: 9781903933145

Publisher: Gibson Square Books, 2002

Synopsis

The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole stands as a uniquely scurrilous sensual testament to Frederick Rolfe's fervent affection for the physical beauty of the city of Venice and it's a inhabitants. This is the Death in Venice, Thomas Mann would not have dared to write and is one of the classic books on Venice at a time when it served as an home for undesirables from all over Europe as well as erotic vacation destinations for some in the way Asia is today. Published posthumously in 1934, the original edition was heavily edited version and only first published in its entirety in 1993. Since new photographs of Rolfe and his world have come to light and this is the first annotated edition which clearly identifies who is who in the book.

About this title

About the Author

Frederick Rolfe was the eldest son of a Protestant piano builder. A convert to Catholicism, he studied for the priesthood in Rome until he was expelled for making remarks such as 'Oh what beautiful legs' during dinner silence.

When he wrote The Desire and Pursuit, a heady and startling memoir of love, longing, lust and revenge, the imminent lapse of his 25-year vow of celibacy was heavily on his mind. The book was meant to revive his literary success of the Stories of Toto in the Yellow book 12 years earlier.

However, the highly libellous contents of the book prevented it from being published in 1909 and in fact precipitated the end of his good fortune in Venice. He was reduced to solliciting money from a schoolmaster in exchange for helping him find gratification with gondoliers.

From Kirkus Reviews

Rolfe (1860-1913) was an abusive, learned English writer (pen name: Baron Corvo) whose most famous work was Hadrian the Seventh. Set in Venice, the novel at hand was written in 1904 (a year before Mann's Death in Venice) but not published until 1934, with its homoeroticism pruned. This is its first complete, nonbowdlerized publication. Rolfe's relatives detested the posthumous manuscript and though it should be burned. Like Rolfe, its hero--Nicholas Crabbe- -has a genius for making enemies and, like Rolfe, Crabbe is rejected for the priesthood by the Roman Catholic Church (to which he'd converted at 25), takes up painting, then writing, and at the beginning of the story here is first seen aboard a small boat he's provisioned with the intent of retreating utterly from mankind for several months. But one night an earthquake ashore destroys a town before his eyes, and the next morning he rescues the only creature there still alive: an androgynous but breastless boy/girl of 17 who goes variously as Ermengilda and Zildo and who becomes Crabbe's shipboard servant. The surprised Crabbe falls into an obsessive craving for Zildo while sinking into dire poverty amid the glories of Venice. Though brought up as a boy, Ermengilda is the daughter, through many generations, of three Doges of the Middle Ages, has the gait of a goddess, radiant splendor, magnificent muscular curve of neck and shoulder, superb saturnian form, a clear-souled gaze, and the unwrung pluck and poise of ages past. Crabbe must marry Gilda/Zildo and have his/her ``bud''--but, first, can Crabbe's exquisite angel save him from starvation? A bizarre gay fantasy finds the right age at last. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Gibson Square Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1903933145
• ISBN 13: 9781903933145
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 330