¡Feliz Cumpleaños, Thomas Mann!

Born June 6, 1875. Died August 12, 1955.

He was a famous German writer of mixed ethnic ancestry who wrote such novels as The Magic Mountain and Buddenbrooks. He also wrote the novella "Tonio Kruger", which indirectly inspired my blog name, and in 1929, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Needless to say, he also inspired the creation of this blog. Which makes him my muse, so to speak. Or at least one of them.

¡Feliz Cumpleaños, Thomas Mann!

Born June 6, 1875. Died August 12, 1955.

He was a famous German writer of mixed ethnic ancestry who wrote such novels as The Magic Mountain and Buddenbrooks. He also wrote the novella "Tonio Kruger", which indirectly inspired my blog name, and in 1929, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

More Quotes I Like

People look for themselves in books and movies. They count on those touchstones, not so much for gospel as affirmation that others have walked the same path.
--Lily Burana

And still -- he was happy. For happiness, he told himself, is not in being loved -- which is a satisfaction of the vanity and mingled with disgust. Happiness is in loving, and perhaps in snatching little fugitive approaches to the beloved object.
--Thomas Mann, “Tonio Kruger”

I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither, and I suffer in consequence. You artists call me a bourgeois, and the bourgeois try to arrest me... I don't know which makes me feel worse.
--Tonio Kruger in Thomas Mann's “Tonio Kruger”

I have taken Caliban's advice. I have stolen their books. I will have some run of this isle.
--Richard Rodriguez, The Hunger of Memory

Through my reading, however, I developed a fabulous and sophisticated sexual imagination. At seventeen, I may not have known how to engage a girl in small talk, but I had read Lady Chatterley's Lover.
--Richard Rodriguez, The Hunger of Memory

Who Is Tonio Kruger -- And Why Is He Saying All These Awful Things About Himself?

Tonio Kruger is the user name of one R______ M. M______, a self-styled blogger of Mexican and Polish descent. He originally borrowed the name “Tonio Kruger” from the title character of an old Thomas Mann novella.

Who is this title character? A German writer of mixed ethnic descent who like R______ has a mixed attitude towards almost everything including his own ancestry, not to mention of a history of -- er -- dysfunctional relationships. The literary Tonio is a bit more ambiguous in his sexual preferences than the real-life Tonio; i.e, the real-life Tonio is heterosexual. Yet the two of them still have many attitudes in common.

Quotes from the literary Tonio the real-life Tonio especially appreciates:

1. “He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer; in this hard and simple fact his fourteen-year-old soul had already been instructed by life; and he was so organized that he received such experiences consciously, wrote them down as if it were inwardly, and even, in a certain way, took pleasure in them, though without ever letting them mould his conduct, indeed, or drawing any practical advantage from them.”

2. “He surrendered utterly to the power that to him seemed the highest on earth, to whose service he felt called, which promised him elevation and honours: the power of intellect, the power of the Word, that lords it with a smile over the unconscious and inarticulate. To this power he surrendered with all the passion of youth, and it rewarded him inexorably, in return, all that it is wont to take.

“It sharpened his eyes and made him see through the large words which puff out the bosoms of mankind; it opened for him men's souls and his own, made him clairvoyant, showed him the inwardness of the world and the ultimate behind men's words and deeds. And all that he saw could be put in two words: the comedy and the tragedy of life.”

Hola

This is the first day of my new weblog. Mi nombre es Tonio Kruger -- no relation to the Thomas Mann character of the same name, natch -- and I'm an aspiring writer who probably reads too much for his own good. Right now I've taken a temporary break from collecting rejection slips and am now enjoying the holidays. I don't have much to write today pero tomorrow -- quien sabe?

By the way, the title of my blog has nothing to do with any of the Harry Potter books, but if you choose to see it as a homage, that's your choice.