The Desire & Pursuit of the Whole

The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole is a scurrilous sensual fantasy, a vindication of a man who felt betrayed by his friends, and a testament to a fervent affection for the city of Venice. Highly autobiographical, it chronicles the hectic descent of Nicholas Crabbe into destitution and starvation amongst the glories of Venice. His passage is brightened only by his love for his servant the boy-girl Zildo; a love which becomes ever more obsessive. Written a year before Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, this novel is both more passionate and more deeply autobiographical. It was never published in the author's lifetime because of its libellous content and the homoerotic aspects of the narrative, and when it eventually found a publisher in 1934 it was altered throughout. This is the first complete edition.

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.