two very different sorts of novels come together to form a beautiful hybrid. Box Hill is a highly romanticized dream of a first love that somehow, amatwo very different sorts of novels come together to form a beautiful hybrid. Box Hill is a highly romanticized dream of a first love that somehow, amazingly, is married to a compassionate slice of life with endearing, sensitive psychological portraits of both its protagonist and its supporting characters. sub bottom Colin meets dom top Ray and Colin's parents don't have much to say about it, they're just happy he's happy. this is a gay bodice-ripper lacking that genre's overheated emotional hysterics and it's also a book of kitchen-sink realism à la Mike Leigh or Ken Loach. I haven't read a book of this sort since reading the very different but still similarly griffin-like The Story of Harold.
the writing is many things: chatty and casual, poetic and yearning, dry and humorous, dignified and gracious, occasionally graphic yet disinterested in providing fap material. Adam Mars-Jones is a talented and very subtle author. he makes storytelling seem easy; his ideas are nonetheless moving and profound.
his treatment of Colin's parents and their challenges with co-dependency are at the heart of this book's nonchalant tenderness. the understanding attention they receive, unvarnished but gentle, sweet but dry-eyed, made me fall in love a bit with the author. likewise the empathy given to Colin himself. I am attracted to kindness.
it's interesting to read some of the Goodreads reviews of this book, including from some of my usually more insightful GR friends. they rather missed the boat, I think, with their discombobulated, sometimes aghast focus on the BDSM nature of the central relationship. "truly the cruelest thing I've read"... "profoundly unequal and damaging"... "gay men in unhealthy, abusive relationships in which the abuse remains unaddressed"... *SWOOSH* you're not getting it! hard not to chuckle at such responses. gay men, gay and straight women, and I imagine not a few straight men, will fantasize about severely asymmetrical romantic relationships, doms and subs, cold and powerful men who find satisfaction in controlling their naive and emotional partners. the book details one such fantasy relationship.
back in my 20s, I often had such fantasies - from Ray's perspective, that is- and even had such relationships (brief ones). it was an appealing thing to me back then, the idea of a fully compartmentalized relationship with a younger fellow, eager to please, obeying my dictates, at my beck & call, and with very little tedious Q&A about it all, and certainly not about what was going on in my head. but then, of course, I grew past such fantasies... because they were fantasies. even the actual relationships I had of this sort were basically extended fantasy scenes, for both of us. they didn't last for months, let alone years. fantasies are by their very nature ephemeral. people grow up; adults who yearn for relationships eventually realize that such relationships must exist beyond neat fantasy compartments. life is not a bodice-ripper. your fantasy submissive will need to be taken care of when they're sick; your fantasy top, likewise. humans aren't built to live in fantasy boxes forever.
SPOILERS AHEAD
what makes this sublime novel a story of fictional romanticism, rather than a portrait of a real relationship, is all there in the shape and length of the relationship itself. Ray appears when Colin turns 18, literally on his birthday. he takes in the swooning lad, then takes his virginity as well and makes him his mate. a BDSM relationship enfolds that is mutually satisfying, one that no doubt appears abusive and damaging to normies, both straight and gay alike (and I don't have the interest nor the patience to explain such things to people who can't imagine such things). they are together for 7 years, Colin clearly happy all the while, and then Ray abruptly dies, off-page. it is both convenient and absolutely necessary to the fantasy that he dies.
Colin and Ray don't grow old together, they don't come to learn that stiff roles established at the start can melt over time as people get to know and understand each other; Colin and Ray don't get sick and need to be taken care of during those times of weakness; they don't care about each other's past histories or contexts... they are both fully happy in their roles because this is a fantastical version of a relationship. perhaps this is a fantasy because Colin is recounting it through his romanticized memories; perhaps the author intended it as a fantasia based on how the original, swooningly romantic story was relayed to him. doesn't make a difference either way: this is a time-limited fantasy romance that exists entirely due to its roles and its rules.
in this fantasy relationship, Colin sleeps on the floor at the foot of Ray's bed; the roles of sub and dom are kept carefully in place. in a real relationship, Colin and Ray would eventually cuddle from time to time in bed, as humans do; roles would break down in that space because roles break down when time and reality, and sleepiness, intrude. but then, this is not a book about a realistic relationship, one where rules will break down over time and roles will eventually shift and loosen; it's a carefully built fantasy about an all-encompassing first love, one that obliterates while still providing meaning. but we can let Colin have his fantasies! no need to pathologize the sweet lad. or the sweet man, dreaming of a lost, idealized, and of course doomed love affair. people need their fantasies....more
her soft words like musical notes, her carefully composed sentences like verse chorus bridge refrain... she writes a song; the song is this book. thisher soft words like musical notes, her carefully composed sentences like verse chorus bridge refrain... she writes a song; the song is this book. this is a song for compassionate Patroclus, the best of men. this is a song of his lover Achilles, otherworldly yet knowable, loveable, even scornable, at times. this is a song of his friend Briseis, brave and vulnerable and lovelorn. all three are so beautifully made. this is a song against war and for love; this is a song about the stupidity of ego and the power of memories. at first I found the melody a bit off, distancing; the tone felt strange, oddly alien. but then, somehow and somewhere, the song took me over and I became entranced, enchanted. the archaic became timeless and I came to live in this sweet song. I did not want the song to end. I cried when it did. when can I go back?...more
Of all things to come from the mind of Robert Aickman, one of the most unexpected would be this novel: a tender, haunting, elegiac tale of a brief lesOf all things to come from the mind of Robert Aickman, one of the most unexpected would be this novel: a tender, haunting, elegiac tale of a brief lesbian love affair that changes its heroine's world, and her world view. Griselda starts the novel as a passive, placid young woman who is vaguely discontented with her lot in life yet willing to go with the flow. After the tragic extinguishing of that very brief affair, she is still a placid and passive woman, but one who makes an abrupt life change and is quietly determined to live life how she pleases. This shift is accomplished with all of the subtlety, ambiguity, and off-kilter sense of dislocation that are this superb author's hallmarks. As the Times Literary Supplement described his craft in their October issue: "an 'Aickmanesque' story envelops the reader like a mist, leaving uncertain clues and contradictory rationales." Such is the case with this novel.
Aickman has for many years been one of my favorite authors. I thought I knew him! A man given to telling strange stories, a semi-modern master of the weird tale, expert at conveying oblique threats and horrors in the most ordinary of settings. Also, someone with a distinctly conservative set of mind. And yet, should I have been surprised? He has always been interested in writing vignettes detailing peculiar, often shattering changes, in the inner lives of women, and in the friendships between them. The more I consider it, the less surprising this book becomes. But barely a whiff of the supernatural! The Late Breakfasters is almost defiantly mainstream, given the author's prior output. It still fits well within his oeuvre.
The two things within this excellent novel that gave me the most pleasure: the long time spent at a country manor during a weekend get-together, where Griselda meets the woman who will change her life, and the sublime ending. Regarding the former: I loved the leisurely comedy of manners of the manor chapters (over 150 pages of the book), the mundane yet intriguing characters, the mysteries left unsolved. That part was an immersive experience. To the latter: I love an ending where a character finds not what they have been specifically looking for, but instead has found something just as important. For Griselda, that would be her freedom to live as she sees fit, with people who feel similarly about life. An ideal ending, and one that was actually spelled out in the novel's first paragraph. I should have paid closer attention to that opening; if I had, I wouldn't have spent so much time worrying over Griselda's fate. One does not expect a happy ending from Aickman....more
Envy is the most embarrassing of the deadly sins, the one sin of seven that few would admit to, let alone identify as ruling their lives. But envy is Envy is the most embarrassing of the deadly sins, the one sin of seven that few would admit to, let alone identify as ruling their lives. But envy is a widespread disease: an abiding force within social media, gossip, work; often framing how a person looks at and presents themselves to the world. Kudos to this book and its author for creating a protagonist who so fully embodies envy's toxicity, in how it can dominate a person's goals and their perception of who they should or could be.
Jhanvi is a trans woman who has returned to San Francisco after a few years in Sacramento. Her mission: marry someone in the tech industry, use their workplace's healthcare benefits to pay for feminization surgeries, and then hopefully flourish in her newly updated body. A friend and fellow Stanford graduate - and a sexting buddy as well - is her first mark. And so on his doorstep she arrives, ready to convince him of her plan. Unfortunately, she hasn't reckoned with his roommates, or his own ambivalence to this project, or the distance between a goal and reality.
The book provides windows into the mind of an independent lady desperate to upgrade her life and into the world of wealthy young tech workers, idealistic and performative and superficial beyond belief, with money to burn on the most insubstantial of ideas. These techies are at first incredibly easy to mock; sardonic Jhanvi is just as easy to root for. At first. Slowly, my allegiances began to realign... these pretty idiots may be laughable, but Jhanvi herself is revealed to be just as unappealing. Perhaps even more so. Her mission and her envy consume her. Her new, rather unwilling roommates are operating from an embarrassing combination of social justice-induced liberal guilt and starry-eyed sex-positivity, but Jhanvi is coming from a place of almost complete self-absorption and a near-total disdain for the inner lives within nearly everyone inside of her orbit. A shallow techie still deserves agency and still needs understanding, despite their shallowness; a broke and lonely trans woman can still be monstrous, a grifting manipulator, despite how genuinely sympathetic her cause may be. It can be a challenge to root for anyone who thinks the world revolves entirely around them and their needs.
I was impressed with how ugly Naomi Kanakia was willing to make Jhanvi; she's so understandable and yet so completely awful at times. My God, the vicious things she thinks about the people she is trying to grift. This is a brave, highly intelligent iconoclast who has redefined herself in an unfriendly world; this is also an often thoughtless liar who has carelessly abandoned her supportive Sacramento community in order to manipulate a social circle that isn't her own. And yet I continued to root for her; I love an arrogant underdog. I appreciated the dark night of the soul (and body) that the author gives her, during one extended and grueling sequence. From which Jhanvi returns unbroken and even more determined. She may be a villainous person in so many ways, but she remains the heroine of this book, never the villain. There are no villains in The Default World.
Kanakia also scores numerous points in other directions: the way race and outsider status can be weaponized, used to guilt-trip; the marshmallow-like traits of certain well-meaning, tediously passive men who find it impossible to say the word "no"; my least favorite privilege, Pretty Privilege; the unspoken disqualifying rules at sex parties; the mindless group-think of some progressives. I particularly enjoyed the novel's take on how identity is often formed in opposition to other identities; how an in-group is often defined by how it is different from the out-group. Jhanvi sees her new tech friends as the default world that she yearns to enter; those friends define themselves as outside the default world of conformist normies.
The story reminded me of the decade in my life that started in the mid 90s, living with a bunch of friends in a wholesome anarchist collective that gradually turned into a loathsome hipster party house. So many people, so much performative grandstanding; visions of how to build a better society; rejection of the mainstream, of normies. The drugs the sex the music the parties, the random interlopers, the fun. Of course, there were many differences between my scene and the scene within this book (just as San Francisco then is so different from San Francisco now): although about the same age, my friends were struggling punks and broke activists, not overpaid and overworked technocrats; my deadly sin as a grouchy outsider with a 9-to-5 job wasn't Envy, it was Wrath. That said, the many similarities between this world and my old world were haunting. Both worlds decidedly rejected the default world, yet lived in it still....more
I had the day off today and thought, Why not read a romance novel? Why not read two of them? Why not read two romance novels that I figured would neveI had the day off today and thought, Why not read a romance novel? Why not read two of them? Why not read two romance novels that I figured would never be published today? And so I read this one and I also read this one.
This is a romance novel about the relationship between a 19-year-old college student and a 13-year-old kid enrolled at a nearby boarding school. The younger kid is a sporty, self-assured little fellow who is very much into his clothes. The older fellow is an iconoclastic, aimless groomer lover of younger fellows. I mean, he actually self-identifies as a pederast. The two even have a frank conversation about pederasty, although they spend most of their time together taking tea, eating snacks, going on day trips, and taking artistic photos. There is quite a lot about college life and about boarding school life, the monotony and sometimes the fun of it. There is no explicit sex, which was a relief.
The prose is excellent and the dialogue is so convincing, so real. Angus Stewart has a superior ability in conveying longing and making everyday activities feel both banal and mysterious. The book is suffused with melancholy and yet feels light, even casual. After an accident that pulls them apart then brings them back together, the novel ends abruptly, shortly after the day of their planned departure to Europe (financed by the younger lad's understanding guardian!). But it does not end in despair. The relationship runs its course; their lives go on. Overall, I enjoyed this odd, uncomfortable novel. Actually saw myself in the younger kid.
Wild that this book was apparently a bestselling, critically acclaimed novel that was reviewed by serious mainstream journals and whose protagonist was not rejected offhand by those reviewers. Not sure how I feel about that. The late 60s were definitely a different era!
The cover of the e-book is unsurprisingly less erotic:
the bullied teen gets his supernatural revenge on his bullies, from beyond the grave. homophobia and self-loathing and ours is not to wonder why, oursthe bullied teen gets his supernatural revenge on his bullies, from beyond the grave. homophobia and self-loathing and ours is not to wonder why, ours is just to kill then die. told from the perspective of the bullies; told in second-person so that You Are The One Getting Punished. a short, spiky, and vicious tale, with some empathy for the closet case in love with the kid he helped kill.
Alyssa Wong is not quite pitiless, not completely, even for those undeserving of pity.
Hero was one of the It Books of 2007 (Young Adult subset): an angsty and heartwarming tale of a closeted teen superhero coming to grips with his sexuaHero was one of the It Books of 2007 (Young Adult subset): an angsty and heartwarming tale of a closeted teen superhero coming to grips with his sexuality, his macho dad, his literally invisible mom, his yearning for love and for belonging. It pushed all of the progressive buttons: an innocent ostracized by an othering society, middle class privilege, very pro-women/seniors/immigrants/disabled, very questioning of paternalism, and very prone to catastrophizing the present while ignoring past socio-political strides forward. Perry Moore was also rather an It Guy in those years: producer of the Narnia films and a healthy, horsey, very mainstream representative of gay men (including a moment as People's Sexy Man of the Week, complete with emphasis on his love of surfing).
RIP, Perry Moore! You seemed like a really sweet guy and you left us too soon.
I thought this was a perfectly pleasant book. It hit all the right spots for me. Moore wrote it due to a long-simmering anger at the various deaths bestowed on various gay & lesbian comic book characters - at one point, he even had a website parallel to Women in Refrigerators that listed all of the ways LGBT characters have died in comics. Point well taken. That said, kudos aside, I rolled my eyes a lot in this book because it is super melodramatic. Is that a power? If so, this book's superhero identity would be Drama Queen. Okay, and that said, I still thought this was sweet and kind and also page-turning and amusing, all the good things. There are plenty of plot holes (including an absurd murder mystery) and all the superheroes on display are transparent Justice League archetypes. I think a lot of Goodreads reviewers are holding those flaws against this book. I think a lot of Goodreads reviewers are also sorta missing the point....more
gay misery porn. the writing is polished and sophisticated, no surprise given that it is by the massively talented Gore Vidal. also, why aren't more pgay misery porn. the writing is polished and sophisticated, no surprise given that it is by the massively talented Gore Vidal. also, why aren't more people named "Gore"? this was absorbing despite also being boring and depressing, if that even makes sense. sometimes, strong writing can carry me through a maudlin experience. and it is interesting as a historical document. I had heard that the ending was dark but I didn't realize it would be that kind of dark. yikes! well, at least no suicide. sorry if that's a spoiler for you and you wanted the kind of tension in a book that is all about whether or not a depressed closet case will kill himself.
synopsis: handsome straight-acting gay guy can't find love and can barely accept himself and maybe those two things are linked, you know?...more
boy falls for older boy while at boarding school. is it a crush, true love, or the relationship that will come to define him? was he "in the making" aboy falls for older boy while at boarding school. is it a crush, true love, or the relationship that will come to define him? was he "in the making" and then, at the end, finally made, set, his trajectory predetermined? the idea is a dark one.
the imagery is intense; the prose is like honey. very easy to get lost in all of the beautiful sentences, the good kind of lost. a Faulkner kind of lost, with a Jamesian style. the characterization of this boy is so deep and rich, the story must include autobiographical elements.
the first chapter, exploring his world as an often solitary child lost in his thoughts and imagination, finding symbolic meaning in the world around him, was so beautifully written, sensual in its details, and resonant to me on a personal level. later chapters as he finds himself adapting - surprisingly successfully - to his new world outside of his home, at boarding school, were equally resonant. I really saw a lot of myself in this kid. the longest and most important chapter recounts a Halloween party and the moments when the two boys are at their closest. this is one of the most incredibly written sequences I've ever read in any book. layers of meaning meets layers of imagery meets layers of deep characterization. *swoon*
the last few chapters portray the coming apart of their relationship, the boy's fall from grace with the school, his defiance, and then his disinterest in engaging with anything at his school, now that he recognizes this part of his life is over. and yet the last chapter as he leaves this school makes clear his life is far from over. given the time in which this book was written, I really appreciated the assumption that his life will go on, very much changed, but it will still go on, and the boy will continue living in this strange world.
he is no longer in the making, no longer a formless thing reacting to the world, an inchoate shape. he has been made, he has become fully formed: the "patterns of his life were achieved." this is the last sentence; it is a tragedy but also a reality. many of our adult selves were made in our childhood. my wish for this child is that he could move beyond those patterns. but it does not appear as if G.F. Green thought that could be possible.
the psychologist Kazimierz Dąbrowski wrote of "positive disintegration" which is a theory about personality development. it is a potential "third stage" that comes for some, after nature and nurture. a person who strives to understand themselves and the world around them can embrace a temporary form of personality disintegration, where they let go of what they know and what they think they know. if they are truly capable of redevelopment - mainly due to possessing a characteristic that Dąbrowski calls "overexcitability" - then they are open to new inputs, new ideas, new ways of thinking and being. and so a person can remake themselves, they can develop a conscience and an outlook that does not stay chained to nature or nurture. the boy of In the Making experiences this disintegration. it made for the most compelling moments in this book and is why this was a uniquely affecting experience for me.
unfortunately for the boy, his positive disintegration is not a temporary thing. which according to Dąbrowski, is what is key to the development of an open, curious, flexible personality. the disintegration must be temporary and it must be not lead to fixity. the boy's emotionally overexcitable persona indeed disintegrates during this period of openness, but he does not come back from it; all that is left behind is a yearning but essentially loveless pattern that will now be repeated. rather than a new understanding of how life need not be a fixed line. this was instructive and also deeply sad. as are all such fixed states.
the introduction is by Peter Parker. it is a brief but still excellent overview of the author's immaculate prose style, his troubled life, and the writing of this book. it does not explore his suicide in 1977, at the age of 66. it is clear to me, from what I know of his life, that George Frederick Green did not escape the patterns that controlled his own trajectory....more
some sort of gay vampire/wizard/clothier decides to help a hillbilly country singer hit the big time by making him a bunch of rhinestone cowboy suits,some sort of gay vampire/wizard/clothier decides to help a hillbilly country singer hit the big time by making him a bunch of rhinestone cowboy suits, feasting merrily on his blood and ass all the while.
poor Hank: catapulted into the fame of the Grand Ole Opry, and soon after, national celebrity, while also being manipulated into an obliterating alcoholism. not to mention being raped repeatedly while under sedation. best not to discuss the beyond gross things that happen to the two girls in love with him. this is an exceedingly cruel horror tale, mainly told from the perspective of the smug and sadistic villain. the narrative has shades of Pygmalion; the tone is comic; the style channels affectless Dennis Cooper. and so it makes perfect sense that Cooper himself provides the book's first laudatory quote on the blurb page. LOL well I also like people who are similar to me. I think this is some sort of indie cult classic? in Canada? in that subset of queer postmodern writers & readers who worship at the altar of Dennis Cooper? anyway, I despise sadism (at least in others) and so found this to be a very repulsive experience.
despite the 1 star and the fact that I loathed this book, must be said that there is a quantity of distinctive prose and an excess of originality on display....more
I mean, it is a perfectly good cover, nicely grotesque and creepy, but it is in no way representative of the stories wIGNORE THE COVER OF THIS BOOK! *
I mean, it is a perfectly good cover, nicely grotesque and creepy, but it is in no way representative of the stories within. No doubt certain mercenary publishers hoped to capitalize on Tanith Lee's reputation for gothic strangeness. Thus, the interesting but misguided cover.
This is my first experience reading relatively mainstream, I suppose "literary" fiction by one of my all-time favorite authors. Although "literary" is the wrong word. Let's be clear mark, these are romantic stories about love and sex, no need to be shy, you have nothing against romance, at least not theoretically.
Disturbed by Her Song is a collection of romantic queer fiction. Men on men, women on women, or just another Thursday for Tanith Lee. Her skills are in full effect. Except for the first story, there are basically no supernatural or fantasy elements. Surprise! Well for me at least. These are beautifully written gems, despite a certain smallness to some of them (and therefore 3 stars, due to the minor note nature of most of these stories). The prose enchants, per usual for the author.
For some reason, the author decided to use a not so great literary device of these stories being "told" to her by the two cover characters - siblings, both queer, who Tanith Lee "met" - and man I'm getting tired of using quotation marks, so enough mark. The literary conceit is unnecessary and rather distracting. Too meta, too twee. Honestly, also a little amateurish. Anyway.
Although all the stories were artful, there were three that really shined:
"Black-Eyed Susan" - the reserved new maid at a decrepit hotel finds some hot & sexy times in the arms of a fellow maid, but much more importantly, notices that there is an attractive spirit walking about - perhaps (view spoiler)[the spirit of someone who is still living's... past (hide spoiler)]? This was an absorbing tale and gave me that great feeling of wanting to follow the protagonist off on future strange, hot adventures.
"The X's Are Not Kisses" - I loved this story about the breakdown and potential regeneration of the romance between a young bookseller and her perhaps fey (or perhaps not) paramour, a musician. I actually shed some tears over the intense emotion on display, and here I thought my tear well was dry.
"Death and the Maiden" - oh boy, this was delightfully bizarre and sinister, despite having no overt horror elements. A forthright woman is swept off her feet by a handsome, even more forthright Lady of a Manor, except it is all a long-game plot to help that Lady's daughter not be such a doormat. But it's so much more - identities taking over each other, the way that some women internalize and then enact the misogyny of some men upon other women, topping from the bottom, maternal bonds vs. romantic bonds... so much to enjoy. Also quite hot.
* drunk review, sorry for the all caps! also, apologies for the overuse of quotation marks & "hot" oops did it again...more
Well I suppose it was a good thing that the friends Truman Capote chose to publicly betray and humiliate were mainly a bunch of high society matrons (Well I suppose it was a good thing that the friends Truman Capote chose to publicly betray and humiliate were mainly a bunch of high society matrons (including one on her deathbed from cancer) because otherwise I think someone might have gotten his ass kicked. Deservedly.
Name dropping. Name dropping. Name dropping. Name dropping. Name dropping! Reading this was like being forced to spend a weekend with some long-winded, pretentious air-quoter who glories in dropping the names of all of his famous friends and acquaintances - most of whom I've never heard of - while also doing his gossipy, petty best to trash each of them completely, on the most repulsively personal of levels. I've had to deal with such weekends, it's not fun. Just like this book: not fun. I wanted sparkling, somewhat malicious wit, not an open-mouthed deep dive into the sewers led by a person who loves talking shit.
This was a particularly sad and frustrating experience because prior to this book, Capote had talent to burn. Some of his stories are amazing. I read his classic In Cold Blood way back in college and it still stays with me, his ability to get inside a head, that calm mastery of his effects, the indelible prose. The intensity, the tension, the restraint.
But burn that talent he did, and how. Capote certainly didn't do things by halves. There is the ghost of a vaguely intriguing idea in this incomplete set of linked novellas, but it is totally lost in the toxic crap. The last one "La Côte Basque" is possibly the single most tediously bitchy story I've ever had the displeasure of reading. It is also the story that ruined Capote: his friends all understandably turned their backs on him after being vilified in print, and he sunk into a pit of alcohol, drugs, and a particularly Capote-esque stew of megalomania and depression. Karmic payback's a bitch, much like Capote. I shed a theoretical tear for the talent lost but certainly not for the man himself....more
A pleasant country manor murder mystery married to gay pornography, slick and easy going down. This was written by a talented author under a pseudonymA pleasant country manor murder mystery married to gay pornography, slick and easy going down. This was written by a talented author under a pseudonym, and the clever, funny dialogue openly displays a prodigious talent. The murder mystery itself is certainly the bottom in this relationship, as the amount of explicit sex scenes tops the page count when compared to anything having to do with murder or mysteries. Dick dick, mouth mouth, ass ass, fluids raining everywhere like a downpour of thick salty milk, plus there's a body in the cupboard, oh and an innocent man in jail.
It's amusing reading porn written by literary authors because my focus is usually less *cough* self-involved and more interested in what the erotic scenes are saying about the author's sexual predilections. And so I learned that Rupert Smith likes hairy men, he likes balding men, he likes masculine men, and he also likes what is known as versatility. Certainly can't knock a man for his tastes.
Although the book was a cheerful excursion, 1 star removed, with irritation, for some surprising transphobia and the unfortunately less surprising decision to make the most villainous queer also be the most effeminate. For some reason, this sort of weird internalized homophobia (rooted in misogyny) is found frequently in older gay men, like say men Rupert Smith's age, and often displayed by gay men who are not exactly butch icons, like say the dandy named Rupert Smith. Cheerio, Rupert darling!...more
these characters are dangerously overripe fruit fit to burst, to spray fluids and seed everywhere, juices sickly sweet and pungently sour a
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these characters are dangerously overripe fruit fit to burst, to spray fluids and seed everywhere, juices sickly sweet and pungently sour and acridly bitter, their flesh glossy, their innards rotting. they love their melodrama and they! love! their! exclamation! points!! they arrive on this island paradise ready to break down and ready to break each other down. they are witches and warlocks, actresses and groupies, innocent twins and a predatory 14 year old, priests and virgins and whores of both genders. they burst all over each other while playing various inexplicable games and enacting various inane rituals, all created solely to reveal their hollow cores and lack of soul, and to provide what skeleton there is of a plot. the characters and the story itself teeter constantly between seething malevolence and outraged shock.
this is a rarified world of sophisticates who are basically garbage people. it also appears to be a view of Straight World through a very dated gay lens. the women are mainly over the top, theatrically emotional divas - drag queens turned into women but who have no relation to any women that I've ever met. perhaps I should spend more time with sophisticated garbage people? there is a trans woman as well, treated respectfully by the other guests but quite cruelly by the far from woke author. the men are all studs, their bodies drooled over, fit and hung and hairy (even the priest and even the boy - whose oversize equipment and fuzzy legs are repeatedly described), all ready to fuck with your head while feigning interest in fucking your body. toxic predators, with a smattering of prey. the book itself is quite toxic in its hilariously overheated take on human nature, power, secrets, and sexuality. well, straight people have written gay characters as vicious predators for who knows how long, so I suppose turnabout is fair play. but that doesn't make the book any less noxious, and obnoxiously written. I imagine the lesson to be learned here, the underlying theme, is a fairly reductive one: trust no one, not even yourself; you are probably better off dead.
the book is pretentious, silly, and trashy, yet enjoyable in the way that a bad movie is enjoyable. a bad movie of the excessively mannered, melodramatic, arty sort. it takes itself all too seriously which makes it a pleasing experience to laugh at it. you have to understand that it is telling you nothing useful about the human condition and that its attempt at ambiguous storytelling is a joke; there is nothing in The Vampires that is actually worth understanding. but it is also a lot of fun at times, a rickety rollercoaster tour of garbage lives, a water ride where everyone is drenched and everyone's clothes have to come off. the book has a garbage perspective on relationships, gender, life itself. but! it! is! still! a lot! of pretentious! trashy! silly! stupid! mean! fun!
a sweet but rather bland trifle. basically a gay version of your typical gothic romance template: innocent tutor goes to beautiful but ominous estate a sweet but rather bland trifle. basically a gay version of your typical gothic romance template: innocent tutor goes to beautiful but ominous estate to take care of troubled, precocious child; tutor fears and yet falls in love with the stern lord of the manner. Pierce's prose is not bad but not particularly impressive. I did like the emphasis on striking colors and lovely designs, as noticed by the protagonist - that felt quite gay, in a low-key way - and kudos to the author for successfully resisting any urge to turn this into a hardcore porn romp. the story is true to the template in almost all ways, save the gender shifts, of course. unfortunately, it is all too true to the template at its most basic, and I'm not usually a fan of basic. the story was mildly enjoyable (this is a strong 2 stars) but I grew very, very, VERY frustrated at all of the boring dithering by our innocent hero as he tries to make up his mind if The Master of Seacliff is indeed a murderer three or four times over. sweetie, get a grip! of course he's not a multiple murderer - he's the love of your life and he's surrounded by overtly untrustworthy types who you really should not be trusting. trust the dude who respects both your sensitive side and your boundaries; don't trust that fey fashion plate running around bitching about him while invading your personal space! duh. I don't like being bored by a protagonist and this clueless twit really bored me. in the end, I sorta felt The Hunk of Seacliff could do a lot better. as the saying goes, there's plenty of tutors in the sea. no need to settle for this cold fish.
Imagine Holden Caulfield. All of the angst, all of the questioning of society's bullshit, all of the contempt, insecurity, honesty, and occasional kinImagine Holden Caulfield. All of the angst, all of the questioning of society's bullshit, all of the contempt, insecurity, honesty, and occasional kindness. Now imagine that he came from a far worse home, one where his PTSD-driven father torments and beats him while his mother turns away. Imagine Holden getting bigger, stronger, turning the tables on the father to torment and beat him in turn; imagine Holden turning into a monster. He kills a man "in a fog of despair" (thanks, book synopsis). This Holden sees red when he encounters fakeness and hypocrisy; he flies into a murderous rage, laying waste to innocent and guilty alike. He goes to jail. This Holden yearns to not just escape the hypocrisy of society, he yearns to escape the literal bars enclosing him; he tries and tries again. This Holden becomes a predator, a manipulator, a person to be feared, a survivor. This Holden clings to another man, to remind him that decency still exists, that warmth between two humans can survive it all, that escape is possible. Poor Holden Caulfield Kirk Whelan! He is destined for disappointment.
Frank Hilaire apparently wrote this while he was serving time. If my digging online can be trusted, he's out now and has perhaps been out for a while. He lives south of the border. He's still writing. God bless the guy.
The book is intense, to say the least. Hilaire writes in an emotionally escalated style and Kirk Whelan is capable of surprisingly poetic trains of thought. At times there is a certain self-indulgence to the writing, a pretension to the prose, a hackneyed quality to Kirk's questioning of moral standards. But that's often the case when the young are aged before their time and begin lashing back at the ways of the world. Portentousness is a part of the package. And so Kirk is a nihilist, a smart and uncompromising one. The reader roots for him while nervously awaiting his next bleak smile, condescending put-down, or worst of all, his red haze when he just wants to smash, pulp, and kill. Fellow prisoners must be careful what they say around him; he has the brawn, brains, and vindictiveness to hurt them in all sorts of ways. But no matter: the reader roots for Kirk still. Watching Kirk's friendship develop with the pretty, kindly, very queer Leslie is incredibly endearing. Kirk's words are insensitive; the reader, much like Leslie, must put up with a hell of a lot of "stupid fag" and "little fruit" type comments. That's the way Kirk talks when mad, sad, glad, or just relaxing with his best friend. And later, his lover. Kirk himself is not queer. But prison will make of you what it will. The reader sees this relationship develop and roots for them, for tenderness and a place free of bars, for an escape to something better. The reader is destined for disappointment....more
The late 80s through mid-90s was a fertile time for experimental queer writers. (It was an exciting time for me as well, as a queer Creative Writing sThe late 80s through mid-90s was a fertile time for experimental queer writers. (It was an exciting time for me as well, as a queer Creative Writing student during that period.) From fiery Kathy Acker to quirky Kevin Killian to angry David Wojnarowicz to loving Joan Nestle to ice cold Dennis Cooper, the sheer range of mood and purpose of this group of fresh voices made reading them an exhilerating crap shoot. Would I be enlightened, as I was with Acker, moved and angered, as with Wojnarowicz? Or would I be disgusted, as I was with Cooper? And how would I use what I read in my own writing? The unifying factor across these diverse voices was the idea that our own stories, our personal narratives, could be centralized in works of so-called fiction. Genre boundaries were blurred, as were the boundaries between fiction and fact, love and sex, overt activism and internal exploration. I loved reading (and writing) these sorts of stories - the kinds of stories where the storyteller's own personal story is just as important as the story they are telling.
Unfortunately, Margery Kempe is a huge failure in my book, despite it doing exactly what I described above. I wonder why I even wrote all of that as an intro. I suppose to justify to myself why I still admire these sorts of books, these kinds of experiments with structure, theme, perception, reality.
Anyway, Glück constructs two stories that are supposed to comment on one another: Margery Kempe's love for Jesus and the author's own love for some babe. I started off annoyed and then moved into dismayed and ended with an irritated sort of bored. One can't criticize the writing itself, which is often beautiful and challenging and beautifully challenging - despite an intense focus on extremely explicit, un-romanticized sex. Or perhaps because of it? We all have our muses, and for many writers of that era, sex itself was a muse - especially since queer sex often automatically gave its practitioners a sort of outlaw status.
But here's the thing: this is a book about a woman who loved God, written by an atheist (probably). It's utterly bizarre that the author decided that his obsession with some cute young thing would even equate with Margery Kempe's love of Jesus. Reducing Kempe's intensely spiritual connection to God to the ravings of some demented woman who is hungry for Jesus' dick is not just, well, reductive, it is genuinely diminishing. Diminishing in that particularly easy and ugly way that men diminish women all the time. In the modern parlance, Glück tries to mansplain Margery's complicated feelings as pure lust - albeit lust of a higher form, I guess. Lust to the/a higher power? LOL? But Margery Kempe - author of the first recorded autobiography and obviously a real person - was defined by her faith and her spirituality. She was not defined by her lusts! Love of the physical body is not the same as a spiritual connection, and sorry to anyone who still suffers under that delusion. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm saying that one is an apple and the other is an orange and that the author is a nitwit for pretending that they are the same fruit. Sorry, author.
I'd like to say that at least the "personal narrative" portions of the book were interesting, but I can't. They are real at least, or were once real for the author. Sadly, the obsessive longings of an older gent for a younger lad are completely uninteresting to me. The genders could have been switched out and I would have been equally bored....more
as a devout bisexual, I was excited to learn what Colin MacInnes and the year 1973 had to say about unicorns like me. although quite turned off by theas a devout bisexual, I was excited to learn what Colin MacInnes and the year 1973 had to say about unicorns like me. although quite turned off by the title - I would have preferred "Equally Irritated by Both" - the fact that the author is not only one of my favorites, but more importantly is also bi, helped turn my sneer into a leer. here's what I learned! or rather, here's what I learned about what Colin feels about bisexuals, and a lot of other things.
(1) This is 1973, so no mention of non-binary gender or third gender or any of that. Of course, third genders have been around since before Colin's country was even a country, but I'm not going to hold that against the book. And all that said, one of the things I did learn is that Colin MacInnes is a huge gender essentialist. Which I don't love? Eh, shrug. 1973!
(2) Colin feels that bisexual men tend to form deep, lasting relationships with a small number of women while having fun, free, sexually-based, but rather shallow relationships with a much larger number of men, usually on the side.
(3) Colin does not believe that homosexual relationships last; once they enter their "autumn" phase, "they partake invariably of a deal, a human arrangement 'for the best', and not of a relationship developing sexually in gravity and depth."
(4) Relationships and sex between men & women always include emotional drama; this rarely occurs in same-gender affairs. LOL, oh Colin I got some news for you.
(5) Homosexual men fall into 3 categories: "male homosexual men" (i.e. tops), "female homosexual men" (bottoms), and "bisexual homosexual men" (versatile).
[a] He thinks that male homosexual men "have often unattractive natures... They are inclined to be vicious, egotistical and self-satisfied; their particular form of 'maleness' consisting, precisely, in depriving another male of his." Not a very generous estimation! [b] Colin thinks that female homosexual men are often "a dreadful nuisance (chatter, chatter, chatter, and compulsory games)" but are also "jolly fellows on the whole, often witty in a sharp way, usually brave, because they have to be. Contrary to legend, they rarely dislike women." I found this to be a surprisingly nice and generous assessment. [c] And he thinks that bisexual homosexual men just move back & forth between the two personality types, depending on the company and whether or not they want to be fucked. Well ok then!
(6) Colin really likes to divide people up into categories.
(7) Bisexual men usually act like masculine tops but are apparently not evil. Whew!
(8) Colin doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about women.
(9) When he does think about straight women, he finds them to be mainly delightful. When he thinks about homosexual women, he finds them to be dour and depressing. He thinks they are dour and depressed because they can't have kids. Um, yikes.
(10) Colin may have some problems when it comes to women.
(11) Colin laughs at the idea that homosexual adults try to recruit teens into their ranks. When sexual relationships happen, these are love affairs not recruitment. He makes sure to divide that from pederasty, which I appreciated? Anyway, he is against pederasty and pro-sex education. I wonder if his tolerance for teen/adult love affairs is due to age of consent being 16 in UK. I think?
(12) Colin thinks that "handsome, well-adjusted" straight men don't mind having a homosexual around them, because most heterosexual men enjoy the flattery that will inevitably occur. I mean, he's not wrong? Colin also feels that if a flirty homosexual gets too obnoxious about it, a straight man can just give him a literal smackdown, and that will be that. I guess also not wrong, but can't say I loved that comment.
(13) If a woman is in a relationship with a bisexual man, it is best that she knows about it and either fully allows him to explore his "duality" by having side-guys, or at least looks the other way. Because...
(14) No male, bisexual or homosexual or heterosexual, is truly capable of monogamy.
(15) According to Colin, male prostitutes fall into two categories: "males looking for female homosexual men" and "female homosexual males looking for male homosexual men or bisexuals". Ok now I'm a little confused just typing that out. Of the first type, there are three subcategories:
[a] True Tops, and we know how Colin feels about them: vicious, sadistic, "rough trade" [b] Bisexuals who make it with female homosexual males and who fool themselves into thinking they are actually straight [c] Bogus Bisexuals who lead female homosexual males on and usually just end up sitting on the couch, hanging out at length drinking beer, probably shirtless, telling their traumatic life stories at such length that the poor homosexual finally hands some cash over to get rid of them. A sadly peen-less night for such homosexuals.
(16) People in the military are no more likely to be gay or bi than any other profession.
(17) In the Elizabethan times, people were both a lot more MALE and FEMALE, and also a lot more bisexual without worrying about it. The High Puritan age that followed destroyed this sexy joie de vivre that people once thought was normal.
(18) In England at least, the Upper Classes will do anything, they're depraved. The Lower-Middle Classes are all about sterile respectability. The True Middle Class are accepting of bisexuals and homosexuals but actually mistrust them, and are where the dreaded Anti-Homosexual Homosexual springs from.
The Working Class, when tolerant of bisexuals and homosexuals, are much more genuine: "it is not an intellectual, abstract toleration, prompted by a liberal sense of duty, but an actual one, on the shop floor, in the barrack room, in the boozer." Clearly, Colin has a fave class.
(19) Per Colin's extensive experience getting his dick sucked around the globe, he can also attest to the following:
- Greek & Arab cultures are heterosexual cultures above all, despite the fantasies of many homosexuals. - Unlike what many of his countrymen think, there is no specific African culture because this is a continent filled with many different countries and tribes that are very different from one another (I appreciated this). It is apparently very easy for a bisexual gent to find sex in Africa. - Carribean culture is bisexual, and Caribbeans blame white influence for the habit. - The less said about puritanical American culture, the better. Colin thinks that American gay bars are like voluntary slave markets. LOLOLOL - Communist countries are resolutely puritanical, even the supposedly revolutionary ones. - Japan is a bisexual country. - Europe is a mixed bag: Spaniards are uptight, Italians are free & easy bi-types, French homosexuals are segregated and French bisexuals keep quiet about it, Germany is a bisexual nation. - UK: the Irish are the most passionate and the least sensual people in Europe. The Scots are the most sloppily sensual but are "lacking in passion, for which they substitute sentimentality and wanton violence. When caught in the mood... they can be delightful lovers." Sounds like Colin had some good times in Scotland!
(20) Balzac is "the only novelist of major stature that the Western world has ever produced."...more
call me by my name, call you by your name; call you by my name, call me by your name. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Acicall me by my name, call you by your name; call you by my name, call me by your name. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Aciman's style is both dreamy and microscopic: lovely long sentences describing a place, a series of feelings, one feeling described like an event, and then the feeling changes; the minutiae of feelings, their twisting and turning, comings and goings, each little feeling or change of feeling described, writ large, then made small again. man you've been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long. Aciman describes emotions like they are felt when you are young: intensely, so intensely, always on the verge of tears or rage or something unknown, something incredible or terrible just about to happen, but keep it bottled up, keep the face still and the voice artfully sardonic and the actions casual like you just don't care, cover it all up. see how they run... I'm crying, I'm crying, I'm crying. Aciman writes about identity like it's a cord, a rope, twisting and turning, tangling itself up so that it looks like something so different than the straightforward thing it once was: that cord or rope or identity is one thing and then it is another, it changes as it tangles and then untangles, its purpose changes and yet the essence of it will remain, itself, despite the purposes it is put to, the goals and needs that shape it. boy, you've been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down....more
angry dark corrosive self-lacerating; stark sad lonely contemplative; the road the theater the restrooms the back alleys; driven diseased desperate deangry dark corrosive self-lacerating; stark sad lonely contemplative; the road the theater the restrooms the back alleys; driven diseased desperate despairing... these four stories, these four personal narratives put on display a hungry heart and an even hungrier dick - fully illustrated by very graphic, very haunting black and white drawings with blurred and shadowy line work - a heart and a dick and an emptiness and a need, four things that drove him out to the streets and inwards to himself, lashing himself and lashing out; his early life as a pre-teen and then teenage prostitute scarring him irrevocably but also providing fuel for his creative rage, a rage and a lust that is somehow so childlike - fully embraced by the children's book that holds these stories - and yet something so old because terrible experiences can age a man, can make his outlook blurred and his world a shadowy place, can make him embrace death... and yet he lived, to embrace the ugly as beautiful, as real, he lived to write and rage and to comfort and mourn and most of all, he lived to tell... and then he died, before his time. rest in peace, David Wojnarowicz, you broken man who survived your breaking and showed your wounds for all the world to see, rest in peace you beautiful soul, one of my first inspirations; you taught me so much.
