Georges Rodenbach
Bruges-La-Morte
Title: Bruges-La-Morte
Author: Georges Rodenbach
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Pages: 78
Publisher: , 0
ISBN: 0905075234
Format: PDF / Kindle / ePub
Size: 9.3 MB
Download: allowed
Description
Hugues Viane is a widower who has turned to the melancholy, decaying city of Bruges as the
ideal location in which to mourn his wife and as a backdrop for the narcissistic wanderings of his
disturbed spirit. He becomess obsessed with a young dancer whom he believes is the double of
his beloved wife. The consequent drama leads Hugues to psychological torment and
humiliation, culminating in a deranged murder. This 1892 work is a poet's novel, dense,
visionary and haunting. Bruges, the `dead city', becomes a metaphor for Hugues' dead wife as
he follows its mournful labyrinth of streets and canals in a cyclical promenade of reflection and
allusion -- the ultimate evocation of Rodenbach's lifelong love affair with the enduring mystery
and mortuary atmosphere of Bruges.
Insightful reviews
Greg McConeghy: I read this in preparation of a production of the opera Die Tote Stadt by Erich
Wolfgang Korngold, which will be performed by The Dallas Opera in March 2014. The 23 yearold Korngold based his opera on this book. I suspect that Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo also owes a
debt to this story.
Francesco Fantuzzi: Da dove cominciare?
La mia storia con questo strano romanzo si originò dall'ascolto di un melodramma, Die Tote
Stadt di Erich Korngold, e dalla passione voluttuosa per quelle musiche e quelle atmosfere
conturbanti che ne derivò. Il libretto, infatti, rimandava debitamente a questo romanzo di
Rodenbach.
Ebbe così inizio una serie di inseguimenti e appostamenti alla ricerca dell'edizione Fazi, l'unica
italiana moderna, dato che il romanzo non venne più riproposto dopo gli anni venti. Anche
l'edizione Fazi, pregevolissima, come dirò, non venne più ripubblicata dopo la sua comparsa
alla metà degli anni novanta, ahimè.
Il romanzo
Non si può far finta di nulla: taluni aspetti di questo romanzo possono sembrare, al lettore
contemporaneo, vagamente datati, ma nel complesso la costruzione generale e il solido
impianto referenziale, ne fanno un'opera interessantissima ancor oggi(vorrei dire il suo essere
simbolista meno datato oggi, forse, di quanto non potesse suonare vent'anni fa...). Il perché
viene minuziosamente spiegato dall'ottimo corredo dell'edizione, ossia dalla prefazione di Marco
Lodoli e dalla geniale postfazione di Emanuele Trevi, utilissima, quest'ultima, specie per gli
spunti analitici proposti, suggeriti, o solo accennati. Ad esse non voglio rubare nulla, pertanto
qui sospenderò la mia valutazione dell'opera.
La trama
Una delle tematiche più evidenti sviluppate dal romanzo è quella del doppio (e ad essa si rifà
proprio la postfazione di Trevi, prendendo a titolo un'immagine del libro stesso, Il demone della
somiglianza).
A chi già concosce il melodramma, la trama è ben nota. A chi ha sufficiente confidenza con la
cinematografia potrà sembrare addirittura scontata. Mi preme mettere in rilievo qui la potenza
evocatrice con cui lo scrittore fa della città di Bruges (che oggi preferisce chimarsi Brugge...) e
dei suoi quais un elemento costitutivo imprescindibile dell'opera. Bruges è spesso personificata
da Rodenbach, in essa rivivono, come frammenti di un tutto, le comparse che animano la città
stessa; essa è attore e spettatore e fondale che accoglie e abbraccia la scena.
Il desiderio di recarsi in viaggio nelle Fiandre, proprio a Brugge, è fortissimo dopo aver letto il
romanzo; arrivare a riconoscerne i profumi e i colori, per analogia o conrtasto, è una tentazione
troppo forte, alla quale credo che non resisterò a lungo. Un simile esperimento, in modo del
tutto casuale, l'ho realizzato all'epoca di uno dei miei tanti viaggi berlinesi, nel periodo in cui
stavo leggendo Berlin Alexanderplatz, di Alfred Döblin: esperimento suggestivo e riuscitissimo...
Conclusioni
Per ora i miei appostamenti sul mercato dell'usato, certo inevitabilmente incostanti, rivelatisi
infruttuosi, mi hanno costretto a rassegnarmi alla lettura "di biblioteca", ma la scoperta di un
buon romanzo in ottima edizione mi sprona a proseguire la ricerca di una copia tutta mia.
Bbrown: Georges Rodenbach's Foreword to Bruges-la-Morte makes clear his intent to have the
setting of Bruges be a character in its own right, casting the city as a guide and shaper of the
events of this story. It's a fine goal, one shared by Joyce with Dubliners and Ulysses, not to
mention a plethora of films (from Lost in Translation, to Midnight in Paris, to Ghostbusters), but
Rodenbach goes a little overboard with it here. Instead of an organic development of the
setting, Rodenbach explicitly states what the city means to the main character, and has whole
pages in this short work dedicated to describing the city and the psychological effect it's having.
If Rodenbach had some great insight into the whole "city-as-character" idea then this would be
fine, but his thesis seems to be little more than that cities "have a personality, an autonomous
spirit, an almost externalized character...[e]very city is a state of mind." It's not very insightful,
and moreover I think it's an overly-simplistic understanding as well- Calvino's take on this idea in
Invisible Cities resonated with me much more deeply.
Still, Bruges makes a good setting for what is a dark and melancholy tale of a man who has
voluntarily trapped himself in the past, chaining himself with memories of his deceased wife. He
has dedicated his life to worshipping his widowhood, to the extent that when he finds someone
who looks identical to his deceased wife, he sees her more as a conduit of further worship for
his deceased wife's memory than someone to rekindle his affections. At first, anyway- later
Rodenbach inexplicably has him fall in love with this doppelgänger without a buildup that made
it feel organic. Read Swann's Way, particularly the section concerning Swann and Odette, to
see this type of development done masterfully. The main character's housekeeper is a devout
Christian (along with nearly everyone else in the city), and she must react to her employer's
scandalous behavior. It briefly seemed as though Rodenbach was drawing parallels between
the housekeeper's religious devotion and the unnatural devotion of the main character to his
deceased wife, but I don't think Rodenbach meant to suggest that religious faith is warped in the
same way. Even if he did, that thread of the narrative never came to fruition.
Overall, and perhaps not surprisingly given how slim this book is, there's not too much going on
in this story. If you want a tale that's a bit doleful, or one set in Bruges, look no further, but
Bruges-la-Morte didn't develop the setting or story organically enough and didn't delve deeply
enough into the psychological morass of the main character or his city to impress me.
Luke: Belgian Symbolist author Rodenbach controlled to pack a load of perversity into this one.
A story of doppelgangers and misplaced love in a apparently rudderless town, previously a
advertisement and political powerhouse, there is a lot to like. it sort of feels visible that
Boileau/Narcejac's D'entre les morts - identified to so much people because the foundation for
Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo - borrowed seriously from the work. there is a detailed Hitchcockian
feeling to the story.This Dedalus version is among the most sensible model of the book. It
positive aspects an creation by means of Alan Hollinghurst and a few new photos, in addition to
a Rodenbach essay at the loss of life of cities. attention-grabbing stuff. Curiously, there is no
statue of the man in Bruges, as citizens have been aghast that he'd equated town with, well,
death. the quantity of popularising he'd performed for where is on par with Kafka and Prague,
and may be honoured, I suspect.
Rob: Rodenbach’s little identified symbolist masterpiece is herewith interestingly translated and
released in English by means of the particularly imprecise college of Scranton Press. Scranton,
let’s no longer forget, is the atmosphere for the united states model of television’s "The Office",
yet there the comparisons end. This vintage of Belgian literature epitomises the decadent
ultimate years of the 19th century, a north of the border significant other piece to the poetry of
Baudelaire and Verlaine, wealthy in dreaminess and mysterious in intent, a piece of excessive
seriousness a global clear of the nut and bolts surroundings we inhabit today.The major
personality Hugues Viane’s lately deceased spouse is visible as at one with the town of
Bruges, its clammy iciness chilly splendidly described; its silences damaged in simple terms by
way of the portentous pealing of bells and coffee hum of the devoted. It’s an remoted city, its
canals and waterways lengthy bring to an end from the sea, encircled via a hoop of water and
permeated via death. Personally, I mostly have extra time for the realist works of the period: the
very culture that symbolism used to be built to oppose; yet there does appear to be room for
either Zola and Mallarmé, de Maupassant and Rodenbach. The ebook is brief and the in poor
health instructed affair undertaken via Viane is plotted in grim detail. Such obsession, on a par
with that of Swann within the later "A los angeles recherche du temps perdu" might see Viane
denounced as simple frightening those days. regardless of the darkish tone, the publication it
seems that provoked a vacationer rush to the Flanders urban of the period: an anticipation of
the same inflow lately following the discharge of “In Bruges”. Otherwise, Viane and Colin Farrell
have little in common.
Eadweard: this can be going instantly to my Favorites shelf. " Ten years of this happiness, ten
years not often noticed, so fast had they passed. Then his younger spouse had died, simply as
she reached her 30th year, limited for a couple of brief weeks to her bed, which fast turned her
deathbed, a picture that will stay with him for ever: light and white, just like the candle burning at
her head, the lady he had cherished for the great thing about her radiant complexion, of her
eyes, black, dilated scholars set in mom of pearl, their darkness contrasting with the amber
yellow of her hair, hair which, loosened, coated the entire of her again in long, wavy tresses.
The Madonnas of the Primitives have related flowing locks, descending in calm ripples. over the
last days of her illness, this sheaf were braided right into a lengthy plait and Hugues had
minimize it off from the recumbent corpse. isn't really demise merciful in this? It destroys
everything, yet leaves the hair intact. The eyes, the lips, every thing crumbles and disintegrates.
The hair doesn't even lose its colour. it truly is in that by myself that we are living on. Even now,
after 5 years, the tresses of his useless spouse that he had saved had scarcely pale at all,
regardless of the entire salt tears shed."---"In this solitude, that was once either night and
autumnal, with the wind sweeping up the remainder leaves, he felt greater than ever the need to
have accomplished with existence and impatience for the tomb. It appeared shadow used to be
solid from the towers over his soul, a notice of information reached him from the previous walls,
a whispering voice rose from the water – the water coming to him because it got here to
Ophelia, in line with what Shakespeare’s gravediggers tell. greater than as soon as he had felt
this seduction. He had heard the gradual persuasion of the stones, he had actually discerned
the character of items there, to not live to tell the tale the demise all around. He had concept
hard and long approximately killing himself. That woman, oh, how he had cherished her! He
nonetheless felt her eyes on him, nonetheless wanted her voice, now fled to the some distance
horizon."---"All this coalesces in a single profound mortuary impact which bit by bit the city finds
to us and that is sustained even right here within the sombre cathedral the place dwell these
relocating tombs of Charles the Bold, mendacity on his back, palms folded in prayer, ft upon a
lion, symbolising strength, and of Mary of Burgundy, in a costume of marble, her ft resting on a
heraldic greyhound, image of fidelity. And such a lot of different tombs: all of the slabs are
memorial stones, with skulls, names chipped away, inscriptions already eaten into as though
through lips of stone. the following dying itself is expunged via death!"
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