Search: tadzio rufus
Why: Do you know this song? It's pretty good. Also, HBO will air a new movie "Grey Gardens" about Jackie O's eccentric family this month:
Answer: He's a beautiful boy in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. A condensed synopsis:
Mann's novella is about an older German scholar (Gustave von Aschenbach) who is on holiday in Venice. Having repressed his sexual appetite all of his life, he allows himself the pleasure of observing, admiring and falling in love (from afar) with a beautiful young Polish boy named Tadzio. When a plague (most likely cholera) ravages the area where Tadzio lives, Aschenbach must decide whether or not to risk contracting cholera in order to warn Tadzio and his family about the disease. The major themes of the novella involve the struggle between man's passions and his rationality concerning love and the examination of whether or not it's better to have loved obsessively and died, or never to have known this passion at all.Source: RufusWainwright.com Boards
The More You Know: The album version of this song opens with a line from the documentary "Grey Gardens" (1975) spoken by Little Edie:
It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present... You know what I mean?
