solitary_summer: (Default)

(Five free days for me, starting tomorrow...)


[TM diaries]

... über das Quälende der Atmosphäre dieses Landes, andererseits der Klein- und Einheit der Welt, in der es kein Entkommen mehr gibt. Immerhin die europäische Luft adäquater und die Erde vertrauter, darin zu ruhen. (30. 11. 51)

Meist graut mir vor allem. Ich habe fast keine anderen als peinliche Erinnerungen, und die Zukunft scheint nur Versagen zu bergen. Mein Leben scheint mir eines Umsturzes, wie er geplant ist, nicht mehr wert zu sein. Wenn ich in die Schweiz gehe, tue ich es nicht, um dort zu leben, sondern um dort zu sterben. Aber der Körper ist noch sehr widerstandsfähig. (15. 12. 51)

Man zögert, auf seine Lage das Wort »verzweifelt« anzuwenden, tut es aber heimlich doch. (19. 12. 51)
solitary_summer: (abarat.night)

Feeling more balanced recently, more grounded, more like myself; reading more - serious stuff, that is - with more pleasure, and greater concentration - cause and effect (??), but which is which?

At the same time, scrolling down, I get the feeling that my journal entries have become bland and boring (or maybe more so), either trivial or merely observing/analysing, but in either case rather impersonal. There must be something to write about, a way to express emotions, even when I'm not in depressed drama queen mode for once...

.:.:.:.


[TM diaries]

»Faust muß in die Welt geführt werden.« Aber ich besitze wenig Welt. (22. 7. 51)

Sehr warm. Sonne, die Feindin. Soll scheinen, aber nicht auf mich. (20. 8. 51)

Gondel-Drahtseil-Fahrt zu vieren mit der melancholischen Edith, auf den, ich glaube Stubenkogel. Kalter Sprühregen. Antipathie gegen die Gipfelkahlheit. (27. 8. 51)

13 Stunden! Die natürlich völlig verschoben und verwirrt werden. Ich nenne es »Mitternachtssonne mit Frühstück«. (15. 9. 51)

Gefühl, daß dies alles meinem Schreiben und Lieben und Leiden, meiner Humanität zum Grunde liegt (4. 10. 51 - Chicago naturhistor. Museum)

Bewegt von alldem. Gingen noch durch die Unterführung ins Aquarium hinüber und schritten es ganz ab, vertieft in den Anblick dieser nach einem Gundprinzip so vielfach abgewandelten Geschöpfe, rudernder Schildkröten, den Schild mit grünem Moos bewachsen, glotzende Teleskop-Augen, Kiemenarbeit, langsam schnappende Mäuler, kleine Haie mit spitzen Zähnen, flunderflache und plumpe, rundliche Wesen, winzige, zusammen mit großen, die offenbar unagressiv, höchst putzsüchtige in kompliziertem federartigen roten Schmuck, das größere und reichere davon vielleicht das Weibchen. Unermüdet von diesem Schauen. Keine Kunstgallerie könnte mich so interessieren. (6. 10. 51; Befremdung über Gide.)

Buch über amerik. Homosexualität, von einem Beteiligten. (9. 10. 51)
solitary_summer: (Default)

[TM diaries]

Warum schreibe ich dies alles? Um es noch rechtzeitig vor meinem Tode zu vernichten? Oder wünsche, daß die Welt mich kenne?

(25. 8. 50)

- - - - -


[Random.... Went through my listed interests recently, because too many things no longer strictly relevant have accumulate there, and maybe tend to give the wrong impression of who I am (and why am I so obsessed with that? - creating the right impression, that is.), and was on the verge of deleting Suede, but upon re-listening I find I still like at least the Anderson/Butler cds a lot, they've really got a very unique mood...]
solitary_summer: (abarat. tower)

[TM diaries]

Love is a frightening emotion in its total, powerful irrationality. Platitude? Probably, but it's possible to read something again and again and shrug it off and then a certain manner of expression suddenly makes it strike home; makes you realise the truth of it. When after reading six years of journal entries that are... not lacking in emotion, but certainly very restrained and detached in its expression, the clipped, often almost (self-)ironic style suddenly flowers into something much more candidly poignant...

Sad, too. Vorbei. Vielleicht ist es schon vorbei, und es wird wohl eine Erleichterung sein - die Rückkehr zur Arbeit als Ersatz für das Glück, so muß es sein. Es ist die Bestimmung (und der Ursprung?) allen Genies. And yet, the dissatisfaction with the resulting Michelangelo essay - matt und wenig gut geschrieben -, bei dem doch viel mehr mein Herz war.

.:.:.:.


My father will be in Poland for a week... visiting Auschwitz, among other things. I respect that, because I don't think I could. Maybe I'm a coward, but at school we've been to Mauthausen, and that was horrible enough, even knowing a lot less than I do now. Auschwitz... reading any survivor's story, the old testament concept of blood guilt suddenly makes a lot of sense in a way that transcends every rationalisation.
solitary_summer: (Default)

After almost three volumes I'd like to be able to say something (*cough* ) intelligent & insightful (*cough*) about reading TM's diaries... Impossible, so far, and that's an odd state of mind for me, because I usually have no difficulty dissecting & analysing things to death. It's not so much being at a loss for words, rather a loss for thoughts, or sufficiently defined thoughts. Difficult enough with the novels - I sympathise with his american publisher, who wrote à propos Doktor Faustus, I cannot flatter myself (...) that I have understood more than a part of the book but the diaries? What exactly is the attraction?



Das Wetter wieder zu warm und sonnig. - In diesen Tagen viel leidende Begierde und Nachsinnen über ihr Wesen und ihre Ziele, über erotische Begeisterung im Streit mit der Einsicht in ihr Illusorisches. Das höchste Schöne, behauptet als solches gegen eine Welt, ich würde es nicht anrühren wollen. Reisingers »Was will man?«, einmal auf einem Spaziergang in Küßnacht, als von Clawdias Armen die Rede war. Über das alles bekennend zu schreiben, würde mich zerstören. - - - Lange gearbeitet. - Neue Bekachelung in den Badezimmern. Neubau-Unordnung. Im Studio geruht. Im Garten Exterminierung des vernachlässigten und halb abgestorbenen Lemon-Trees. Viel Post. (...)
[4. XII. 49]
solitary_summer: (Default)

[Still in TM's diaries, will take a while. Especially the sheer length of the comments part (about 2:1 in the later volumes at least) can occasionally be tiring, even sticking to the read two months of entries, then browse through the comments, rule. Moreover, frustratingly enough often things I'd like to be explained aren't.]

It's equally frightening and depressing how politically acute some of it is - or at least appears to be, taking into account the (my?) tendency to draw over-simplifying parallels. (Then again, when we're apparently reduced to fighting islamistic terror via women's headscarves, it does smack of the beginning of hysteria and not a little insecurity about what we're actually fighting for, or against...) But too many passages from the 1949 unpublished essay Anläßlich einer Zeitschrift show how little has changed, except the name of the enemy/'enemy'...

»Was den Völkern fehlt, ist nicht das Wissen um die Kluft zwischen einem Katalog der Menschenrechte und den Zuständen hinter dem Eisernen Vorhang, sondern das Vertrauen zu der Aufrichtigkeit derer, die mit dem Programm der Menschenrechte Politik machen.« Das ist wohl der wichtigste Satz den das Schweizer Blatt gedruckt hat, ...


I feel like I'm ofter too frustrated with politics, to the point of wanting to throw up my hands in despair & turn my back on the whole mess, and that can't be healthy, at least not at my age, but then again, the one party I ever voted for with real conviction and sympathy disappeared from the political stage after only a few years, because Heide Schmidt, perhaps having come to the conclusion that after years in the FPÖ every further compromise would have been one too many, refused to make concessions in order to be more popular. Intelligent, liberal leaning to the left, no dumbing down, no more easy populism - apparently a deadly combination & mistake in Austria.

It must have cost her, I can't help thinking that. I heard her speak once publicly during a manifestation against a (then still only) possible coalition between the ÖVP and FPÖ, and even being hoarse from a cold she was great, very charismatic. She must have known that she could have had more success if only she'd been willing to modify her aims and means a little.

They accused her of being too intellectual, too cold. Too intelligent.

When I now see what a party, one of whose more prominent functionaries years ago cheerfully and unrepentedly admitted in public that in all his life he'd read but one book, is tying to sell us for president under the catchword of feminism I want to gag. I doubt, or really, really want to doubt, that her favourite movie is, in fact, Pretty Woman as she mentioned in one of those questionnaires, but I can't help thinking playing dumb is even more unforgivable a sin in a female politician than in a male one.

There must be something terribly wrong with a state of things where intelligence (or any appearance thereof) is detrimental to a politician's career.
solitary_summer: (Default)

Read during lunch break, from Th. Mann's diaries: (...) Mißlungener Versuch, mir morgens Kaffee zu bereiten. (...) [13. 8. 48]

However did men of this class survive?!


In other news, lots of work, preparing for inventory... tired.

Temperatures have dropped again.
solitary_summer: (abarat. tower)

Looks like it's finally turning spring... Temperatures are rising, the last snow melted in the yard today, the Schneeglöckchen are out.

Had to drive out & check on the horse because Ch. is sick (again), feeling extremely irritated, but it turned out rather nice, I even got to ride; followed by family lunch, exasperating as usual, no surprises there.

.:.:.:.


Otherwise, continuing to read Th. Mann's diaries & enjoying it...

It must be about ten years ago now, I borrowed from the British Council library a volume of Virginia Woolf's diaries (or letters, can't quite remember which), and was suddenly struck with an acute sense of guilt at the voyeurism of reading something that was never meant for me to read. I vowed (sort of) never to do it again and one way or another actually kept the promise, though that might have been at least partly due to the fact that no author since sufficiently tempted me to want a direct glimpse into his/her life.

For whatever reason, reading Mann's diaries doesn't feel like such a breach of privacy. Either my attitude has changed, or the style and brevity make the reader feel less like a voyeur (was he aware that they might/would be published after his death? did he care?), or again, because his novels are in many ways much more intimate than the accounts of daily comings and goings, dinner parties, letters or problems with household staff.

What I found interesting in reading about the process of creation of 'Doktor Faustus' is how the relationship between Adrian and Rudi was consciously made more vague, all (comparatively) explicit mention of homosexuality erased. (Möglichkeit des geheimnisvollen Verschleierns [10.9.46], Knappe Kondensierung, Disretisierung der Äußerungen über Adrian-Rudi [21.12.46])

Geheimnisvolles Verschleiern, indeed. Across the cultural and linguistic barrier of fifty years and dealing with a character so emotionally distant as Adrian, who barely even has friends, for the greatest part of the novel (until Adrian's ... daß ich [...] lieben dürfte in Fleisch und Blut, was nicht weiblich war... ) I never was altogether sure how this was meant to be read, as friendship tinged with mostly sublimated sexual elements or outright sexual attraction/seduction. Maybe it doesn't matter at all and it's a misguided tendency of this day and age wanting to compartmentalise everything and slap a label on it, but it's interesting that where in the manuscript 'love' and 'sensuality' are presented as an unity there is only 'love' in the novel.

I think the cut makes sense, though - the reasons aren't given in the diary (and may be artistic, first and foremost) but the manuscript-text in question reads very much like a justification and I could see how he might have wanted to avoid the impression that there was a need for justification, especially with a first person narrator. Adrian's sense of guilt and subconscious destruction of the one person he dared love are ambivalent enough. (Just a thought, though, I may be wrong. Probably am.)


The way Mann tends to treat (read: kill off) his gay characters always bring to mind what his contemporary, E.M.Forster, another of my favourite authors, though dating back to an earlier period of my life, wrote in respect to his (unpublished until after his death) novel Maurice:

A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood. I dedicated it 'To a Happier Year' and not altogether vainly. Happiness is its keynote - which by the way has had an unexpected result: it has made the book more difficult to publish. (...) If it ended unhappily, with a lad dangling from a noose or with a suicide pact, all would be well, for there is no pornography or seduction of minors. But the lovers get away unpunished and consequently recommend crime.

It's maybe not the best novel ever, but I think one can't but admire the attitude, especially in the light of the fact that his love for personal honesty ultimately ruined his career as a writer. ("I should have been a more famous writer if I had written or published more, but sex has prevented the latter")
solitary_summer: (Default)

:: sigh ::

...some books I actually did manage to finish

[livejournal.com profile] 50bookchallenge:

#4: Akif Pirincci, Cave Canem
Not badly written, an original voice, quite a few very touching moments and as a kind of allegory about racism and ethnic violence it's effective, but never over-moralistic. Still, this crime-novel-featuring-cats thing is a little too unrealistic for my taste. I might be tempted to check out something else by the author, though...

#5: Kathryn M.Drennan, To Dream In the City Of Sorrows
Irritating. I don't usually read tie-in books, but I bought this in a fit of B5 enthusiasm/addiction to bridge the time until S4 is released on DVD. And maybe I expected too much and this kind of book shouldn't be measured against normal standards of literature, but as B5 itself sets some very high standards... I expected better.

Actually I think this book might have been better if it'd been written by anybody but JMS's wife. For all it comes with the official seal of approval of being 110% canon it's flat and lifeless, it just drags on and on; I had to force myself to actually finish it. The writing is very average, workmanship like; bemüht, but never inspired. 'Show, don't tell' obviously isn't a concept she's familiar with: every thought, every emotion is spelled out in excruciating detail. It lacks almost everything that makes B5 so special, the subtle foreshadowing and stunning revelations, the emotional impact. In the introduction JMS says how his wife was 'not just rigorously logical', but 'relentlessly logical' and maybe she is, but logic alone doesn't necessarily make good writing. In fact I'd rather put up with a few minor plot-holes.

It's the kind of fanfiction that while not toally OOC always leaves you with a slight feeling of disorientation and disappointment, because the characters are so much less than how you perceive them.

I would maybe be less harsh in my judgment, if the book's subject were a different one, but Sinclair's arc and its resolution in 'War Without End' to me has always been one of the most stunning story elements on B5 and to have it flattened like that... E.g. when Sinclair says "All my life, I've had doubts about who I am, where I belong. Now I'm like the arrow that springs from the bow. No hesitations. No doubts. The path is clear." this is an awesome moment, in a shiver-down-your-spine way. And K.M.Drennan tortures this metaphor to death throughout the book. What's more, it's applied to him by the Vorlons, while Sinclair resents and continuously rejects it for himself.

Finally, not only is the writing flat and uninspired, where the plot is concerned personally I have a harder time connecting the Sinclair at the end of this book with the Sinclair in WWE than the Sinclair at the end of S1. I can't see him being quite so zen when he'd only recently lost Kathrine to an uncertain fate, possibly death. It feels slightly wrong, just as the large part of the novel assigned to the Sinclair/Kathrine romance feels wrong and in terms of fanfiction smacks of Mary Sue. The vaguely open end just smacks of sequel.

#6: Thomas Mann, Tagebücher 1944 - 1946
I enjoyed that. On a personal level the style and form as well as the mostly emotionally distant tone fit my current mood just right; form a historic perspective it offers an interesting insight into the emigrants' world. But I enjoyed it on a literary level, too. There's a kind of unconscious poetry about the interplay between the leitmotif of daily activities, walks, lunches, weather, and the variations and breaks from it. The mostly rather restrained, almost laconic tone of voice emphasises when he does depart from it and becomes more personal and emotional and lends certain statements a whiplash quality.

Also? Occasionally it's dead funny. ("Schuhe und Anzug zum Reinigen. Nie wieder Strand-Ausflug")
solitary_summer: (Default)

Going through all the accumulated memos which fortunately [or not, as I'm beginning to think at close to 1 am] weren't deleted...

I actually read these books in summer/early autumn, but well. I'm lazy like that when it comes to actually bringing vague thoughts into any kind of coherent writing. Not saying that I've succeeded, either...


ExpandThomas Mann, Königliche Hoheit )


ExpandLotte in Weimar )


"Ich kam, um mich nach dem Möglichen umzusehen, dessen Nachteile gegen das Wirkliche so sehr auf der Hand liegen, und das doch als ›Wenn nun aber‹ und ›Wie nun erst‹ immer neben ihm in der Welt bleibt und unserer Nachfrage wert ist. Findest du nicht, alter Freund, und fragst du nicht auch mitunter dem Möglichen nach in den Würden deiner Wirklichkeit? Sie ist das Werk der Entsagung, ich weiss es wohl, und also doch wohl der Verkümmerung, die wohnen nahe beisammen, und all Wirklichkeit und Werk ist eben nur das verkümmerte Mögliche. "
solitary_summer: (Default)

:: Hits 'Update' button. Hard ::

Seriously, this has been lying on my HD in various states of unfinishedness since summer.

It still feels like I'm groping for words and not exactly succeeding, but I'm getting rather tired of it by now and wanted to write & post my interpretation before reading the official ones.

[ Apologies in advance to [livejournal.com profile] soavezefiretto if this is, like, very horribly wrong. ]


ExpandThomas Mann, 'Doktor Faustus' )

[Edited for mangling the very title. Sloppy much? ]
solitary_summer: (Default)

"Das Leben wäre nicht möglich ohne etwelche Beschönigung durch wärmenden Gemütstrug, - gleich darunter aber ist Eiseskälte."
solitary_summer: (Default)

"... und es war, als scheute er vor jeder Bindung an das Wirkliche zurück, weil er einen Raub am Potentiellen darin sah "

"Die häufigste Redensart in seinem Munde war das Wort »Man Sollte«. Es war die Formel für ein wehmütiges Erwägen von Möglichkeiten, vor deren Erfüllung die Entschlußunfähigkeit stand"



I'm seriously in awe of Thomas Mann. I'd probably read a shopping list, if it were written by him...


[ Been feeling weird & dizzy all day, not quite there at all, headache coming and going; horrible in the morning, a bit better after I took the horse out for a ride... low blood pressure? no idea. I'm usually not weather sensitive, but the recent changes were a bit abrupt... I haven't been eating that little, so it can't be that - unless maybe chocolate withdrawal symptoms ?

going to bed now, I think...]


Copy control. :: rolleyes ::. I bought the new APC cd, and while it does play on my computer there's an annoying pause a couple of seconds into the first and second tracks.

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