What do You think about The Quest For Corvo: An Experiment In Biography (2001)?
About Fr. Rolfe's lost novel Don Renato, or An Ideal Content, A.J.A. Symons writes:No writer ever set himself a more difficult task. He, or rather Dom Gheraldo in his entries, tells a story: he reveals by slow and feline touches the character of the priest from within; and at the same time he attempts to give an English equivalent for the verbal mix-up of the pretended original. And in all this he succeeds, though in retaining Dom Gheraldo's macaronics he almost makes the book unreadable. Fortunately, he provides a glossary, so that it is possible to understand, without a headache, the exact meaning that he meant to extract from such constructions or compounds or rarities as argute, deaurate, investite, lucktifick, excandescence, galbanate, lecertose, insulsity, hestern, macilent, effrenate, dicaculous, pavonine, and torose. Even so, Don Renato is not a book to read at a sitting, but rather one to be dipped into at odd hours when the mind can be stimulated by puzzles in verbal ingenuity.About his own life, writing back to a friend who accuses him of selfishness, Fr. Rolfe writes:Selfish? Yes, selfish. The selfishness of a square peg in a round hole.
—Jacob Wren
I read this book years ago, when I was a young woman living in -- and, of course, in love with -- New York City. I immersed myself in its arts and culture, and its bustling liveliness, and prayed for some kind of mystical ascension, whereby I would become one with the grey heavens of Manhattan. Perhaps that's why I fell in love with the nutty Baron Corvo, whose love for Venice, and whose decadence -- contained only by purifying bouts of asceticism -- twanged a chord or two in my own mind and soul. I wonder whether I want to read it again now, if it would hold the same magic.
—T.D. Whittle
This groundbreaking 'experimental biography' is a comical but curiously sad portrait of Frederick Rolfe, self-styled Baron Corvo. Rolfe was a consummate eccentric who also happened to be a talented writer. A.J.A. Symon's disappointment at not being able to find out anything to speak of about Corvo after reading one of his obscure books led to the 'quest' of the title. Symons was fascinated by Corvo, and we in turn become fascinated as well. Corvo was a tortured soul, given to quarrels and paranoid delusions. He seemed to have been besieged by the sort of extravagant bad luck that always follows those who feel the world doesn't fully appreciate them. But he was also an charismatic charmer, leading at times a high-rolling life that contrasted sharply with periods of abject poverty. His writing was likewise distinct -- erudite and lavishly ornamental. A noted homosexual, Corvo converted to Catholicism and even aspired to the priesthood, but he was so distracted by other "callings," including an obsession with the Italian Renaissance, that he never manged to become a priest. He was, in short, a fantasist - a man who lived more in a world he created himself than the real world.
—Kay
