I really think that this book needs an introduction explaining who the authors are, as I doubt everybody is familiar with them. It would also have beeI really think that this book needs an introduction explaining who the authors are, as I doubt everybody is familiar with them. It would also have been good to explain how this ‘dialogue’ came about, whether it was interview-based, or if the answers were extended at all through additional writing, and also maybe why Harvard University Press came to be the publisher.
However, such omissions do not detract from the fact that this little book is one of the most clear-headed and eye-opening discussions of Islam and religious (in)tolerance and fundamentalism in particular that I have ever read.
I sincerely hope it is distributed more widely so that it can become part of a much larger and better informed public discourse on these critical issues – which affect every single one of us, whether we acknowledge it or not.
Particularly interesting for me was the distinction between Islamism as an ideology that certain radical groups are seeking to impose on the entire world (i.e. the new Caliphate), and Islam the religion, many members of which function quite happily, if conservatively, in different societies around the world.
Maajid Nawaz argues that the problem is twofold: on the one hand there is radical Islamism, and then there is the issue of gender and human rights within Islam the religion itself. The former is often highlighted to the detriment of the latter, which means that women, gay Muslims and other minorities are essentially left voiceless in the current debate.
Both Harris and Nawaz argue that an acceptance of pluralism and democracy will flow naturally from the concept that (all) religious texts are ultimately open to interpretation, and that no single person (such as the self-proclaimed IS Caliph) has a prerogative on the ‘truth’.
However, this is an evolutionary step that Islam is decades behind on, the authors warn, with the distinct possibility that the current ‘jihadist insurgency’ could put the world’s geopolitical map back by decades and result in far more protracted bloodshed, skirmishes and civil confrontations than we have seen to date.
Given the negative impact and fallout on Islam the religion, and the world as a whole, it is up to all concerned citizens, of whatever faith or country, to counter the pernicious influence of Islamism and its fatal attraction to our youth.
Killing Osama Bin Laden was very much a knee-jerk reaction, and ultimately resulted in the ascendancy of IS, which makes Al Qaeda look quite moderate in comparison. The question looming over this text is ultimately ‘what next?’, if we don’t realise this is also very much a battle that needs to be staged effectively in the hearts and minds of Muslism everywhere....more
If you blink, you will probably miss the reference to a character’s gayness in this latest Star Wars novel, which apparently got a lot of readers hot If you blink, you will probably miss the reference to a character’s gayness in this latest Star Wars novel, which apparently got a lot of readers hot under the collar in the US (and not in a good way, either).
It is truly bizarre that a genre that (generally) champions polymorphous diversity and pan-speciesism can attract such blinkered views, but as Horatio noted, there are far stranger things than we can ever imagine. So, too, the darker runnels of the human heart.
As for its success as an officially sanctioned continuation of the Star Wars saga post-Return of the Jedi, I found this book to be a failure. The plot focuses around thwarting a clandestine Imperial meeting, of all things, and there really isn’t enough narrative drive to sustain the length.
Instead we get lots of bitty interludes focusing on different stories and characters in the wake of the Rebellion’s success, which are often far more intriguing than the main storyline. Chuck Wendig does his best here, but the book is a bit of a dud....more
Kick-ass horror-fantasy that reminds me of early Clive Barker, particularly in the operatic violence and noir mythology. The notion of a bunch of younKick-ass horror-fantasy that reminds me of early Clive Barker, particularly in the operatic violence and noir mythology. The notion of a bunch of youngsters battling their own weaknesses and desires as opposed to any external diabolical threat is also reminiscent of Lev Grossman.
A lot of readers have pointed to Neil Gaiman as an influence: Gaiman is much too precious a writer for the gleeful mayhem that Hawkins unleashes on the suspecting reader.
There is one particular scene involving a hollow, bull-shaped barbecue grill enough to make any seasoned horror fan blanch. There is also lots of unexpected humour, such as a decapitated US president’s head that carries on muttering wistfully, nestled in the crook of his killer’s arm.
Despite the inevitable comparisons, debut author Scott Hawkins imbues his baroque tale with sass and slyness. A particular strength here is the characterisation, from the pink-tutu-and-blood bespattered Steven to the laconic Afghanistan vet Erwin.
Hugely enjoyable and compulsively readable, Hawkins builds to what appears to be a natural conclusion in the narrative ... and then he really starts to get weird. The ultimate ending is a bit of a letdown, as it inevitably sets up the next book(s)....more
I had a real problem with this ostensible satire, which treads a very fine line between humour and right-wing propaganda. Indeed, it is entirely feasiI had a real problem with this ostensible satire, which treads a very fine line between humour and right-wing propaganda. Indeed, it is entirely feasible for this book to be adopted as a manual by some nut-job fundamentalist party … that, I suppose, is one of the main points Timur Vermes is making here, namely the inability of such individuals and organisations to distinguish fact from fiction.
I was reminded of a much more successful satire of contemporary politics and culture, Consumed by David Cronenberg, which mercilessly skewers North Korea and its cartoonish leader. Despite Hitler appearing up front and centre, we really do not get any cogent sense of the man’s madness or methods.
Besides, the inevitable comments on the Jewish ‘solution’ as an answer to modern immigration problems in Europe is extremely distasteful. I suppose this can also be read as being disrespectful to the Jewish faith and culture as a whole, which is a huge risk one runs when attempting to satirise what ultimately is not really a joking matter to begin with.
Maybe I am being overly sensitive, but I am thinking of a South African version of this book, where Apartheid architect H.F. Verwoerd mysteriously wakes up in Hillbrow, Johannesburg and then starts to mobilise a civil disobedience campaign entitled #ANCMustFall. The powers that be will not be amused.
Interestingly, I believe that Look Who's Back has been turned into a highly successful German-language movie. The book’s main conceit is very cinematic, and the director has talked about taking the actor playing Hitler to a range of locations and filming people’s reactions.
What the success of both movie and book seem to be saying about the German national psyche is, ultimately, open to debate. Vermes’ final conclusion here might seem quite preposterous in its intent, but I found it very chilling in its plausibility....more
I had no intention to read yet another book about the lifelong trauma associated with child abuse so soon after finishing A Little Life by Hanya YanagI had no intention to read yet another book about the lifelong trauma associated with child abuse so soon after finishing A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. However, I had no idea the two were so similar.
Interestingly, while both books come to the same conclusions about the intimacy issues and sexual dysfunction that often results from such trauma, both are fundamentally very different in their approach.
In the Yglesias, three childhood friends (two boys and a girl) are exposed to a sexual predator in their teens. Jeff becomes America’s most famous film director, Brian an author and Julie a mousy housewife married to a crude overweight lawyer.
The true horror of the story is that the adults involved in the tale not only entered into a conspiracy of silence when they found out what was happening, but that the one mother in particular, Jeff’s Aunt Harriet, uses the information to blackmail Cousin Klein into bankrolling her son’s education.
Unbelievably, she also then conspires to deploy Jeff’s best friend, Brian, as a kind of child bait to deflect the worst of Klein’s intimacies. The story becomes quite morally complex when we learn that Cousin Klein’s adopted child, Sam Rydell, in turn becomes a child abuser himself (and is in charge of a school to boot).
To what extent did Sam have a choice in what he ultimately becomes? Here, as with the Yanagihara, the ultimate question is Spinoza’s one of: how does one live a good life? And what constitutes a good life? Samuel R. Delany confronts this head on in the indelible Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, where he concludes: it is simply to be loved, to be loved in turn, and to do no harm to anyone else.
When rumours of child abuse at the school under Sam’s tutelage eventually surface, the authorities ultimately decide not to prosecute due to the statute of limitations and the fact that the elderly Cousin Klein is by now in frail care with Alzheimer’s.
The three childhood friends decide to go public with their stories … but not before a final, and rather ill-advised, confrontation with their childhood tormentors. Surprisingly, given the bleakness and horror of this story, Yglesias manages a muted ending shimmering with both heartbreak and hope, a quite delicate balance.
Despite its subject matter, this reads like a slick thriller, which is no surprise given that Yglesias is himself a highly successful screenwriter. (The character of Jeff allows him to comment fulsomely on the moral and existential turpitude contemporary of modern Hollywood).
Yglesias does not veer away from graphic descriptions of child sexual abuse: there is one particular scene where Cousin Klein makes Julie sit on his lap in the sittingroom, in the presence of the family, and proceeds to surreptitiously finger her, that makes for very difficult reading.
Interestingly, Yglesias does not adopt an attitude of righteous anger. There is anger, but it is a calculated and highly directed anger that points to how prevalent child abuse is in contemporary society, and that it is not limited to church ministers or classifiable paedophiles, but is often covered up and condoned by the very social structures and institutions meant to protect our children and to preserve their innocence.
How many damaged children are out there whom nobody knows about, and who have had to carry their burdens of guilt and shame well into adulthood? It is a sobering thought, and not a kind of question with any easy answer.
P.S. While reading this I was hugely irritated by the inordinate number of typos, from missing words to jumbled up phrases and even extra words, to Brian spelt incorrectly as ‘Brain’ at the end.
What has happened to all of the copy editors!? Are publishers lazily relying on Amazon Kindle readers to email through any errors they pick up as a kind of public-service sub-editing!?...more
This is a decidedly odd book that its publisher obviously tried to pigeon-hole as “a devastating satire and a profound meditation on faith, isolation This is a decidedly odd book that its publisher obviously tried to pigeon-hole as “a devastating satire and a profound meditation on faith, isolation and love.”
I suppose it can be called ‘satirical’ in that it is about how a Muslim political party, on a platform of traditional family values (which, of course, is patriarchal), is ultimately able to become the government of the day after aligning itself with the French leftist movement.
However, the book ends with such a glowing apologia for Isamic conversion as the main protagonist finally submits in order to be able to continue his academic career.
Or does he? Personally I think the ending is a bit of a cop-out, as Michel Houellebecq should have maintained the strength of his convictions right up to the end.
And the book is related in such a matter-of-fact tone that it hardly seems satirical. Indeed, France’s progression from ‘old world’ Europe to gratefully embracing the even older traditions of the Muslim world (more pointedly, Saudi Arabia) is described here as a natural or evolutionary development. Mmm. Perhaps that is where the satirical element comes into it.
The main protagonist, an academic who specialises in the French author Huysmans, is thoroughly unlikeable, and spends vast swathes of the book wondering about his ineffectual sex life and whom of his ageing peers to bed next.
As such, one of the main attractions of his ‘putative’ submission is polygamy, which even sees the choice of which wives to accumulate being removed from him, in the interests of genetic diversity and ideological purity.
While one cannot conflate the views of the main character with that of the author, there is a whiff of misogyny here that is quite unpalatable, not to mention a sort of reactionary anti-intellectualism that constantly wrong-foots the reader.
If Houellebecq is offering a warning against fundamentalism, he does so rather half-heartedly, as the France he describes, after having reverted to the nuclear family and small business as the core of society and the economy, is so ordered, calm and believable that it seems quite palatable.
Perhaps that is one of the greatest dangers of such rhetoric, as witness the hordes of impressionable youngsters the world over who flock to the military training camps of IS and Al Quaeda. So the attraction that Houellebecq highlights in such ‘submission’ is not all that far-fetched, at the end of the day.
Apparently this book was published on the day of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, and I was reading it last night when I heard about the latest terrorist attacks on the City of Light. In such situations, and particularly with such a book, one begins to realise how alluring and deadly fundamentalist rhetoric can be....more
At the end of this immensely entertaining and eye-opening book, editor Drewey Wayne Gunn comments: “There remains so much to be reclaimed for readers At the end of this immensely entertaining and eye-opening book, editor Drewey Wayne Gunn comments: “There remains so much to be reclaimed for readers ... Our literary heritage is so much richer than we have been led to believe.”
I think the telling word in the above sentence is ‘our’: this book may well be entitled The Golden Age of Gay Fiction, but it play a much broader, and perhaps even more important, role in adding to the history and evolution of Western literature as we know it.
Gunn comments in his Introduction that the “truly great literary breakout” expressing a coherent gay identity occurred in the 1960s, well before the Stonewall Riots. He refers to such, er, seminal texts as Song of the Loon by Richard Armory, published in 1966, which Angelo d’Arcangelo describes as depicting “a colony of heavily-hung beauties sucking and fucking their little hearts out for God and country.”
But, as Gunn points out (with great enthusiasm), you can go even further back: The Heart in Exile (1953) by Rodney Garland and Twilight Men by Andre Tellier (reprinted in 1948, after its initial publication in 1931. Of course, the ‘great gay novel’ that everyone knows about, The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal, was also published in 1948.
There is far more to this story than Vidal though, with Gunn arguing that “it was the pulp fiction of the 1960s and 1970s that above all provided men of my generation a new sense of liberation … It is among the pulps that such distinctive genres as gay horror, the gay gothic, to a large extent the gay mystery and the gay spy story, the gay cop story, and the gay western developed,” as well as the gay romantic pastoral. (Each of these sub-genres gets its own in-depth essay). Thus by the time that E.M. Forster’s Maurice was finally published in 1971, “it took its place in an already thriving genre.”
Gunn argues the Golden Age of Gay Fiction was 1948 to 1978, which is the main focus of this book. 1948, of course, was important because of The City and the Pillar as well as Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote. It was also the year of the Kinsey Report, after which “the United States would never be quite the same.”
1978 is described as “a convenient terminus ad quem to mark the end of the Golden Age. Four major works by Violet Quill members saw publication: Nocturnes for the King of Naples by Edmund White, The Deformity Lover and Other Poems by Felice Picano, Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran and After Midnight by Michael Grumley.
Then there was Faggots by Larry Kramer, Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, Taking Care of Mrs Carroll by Paul Monette, The Beauty Queen by Patricia Nell Warren, Splendora by Edward Swift and The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of by Joseph Hansen.
There are 19 essays in this book, from authors to academics, delving into every nook and cranny of this incredible literary period, from socio-cultural issues to legal and political aspects: “In September 1957 the government published a commissioned Report of the Committee on Sexual Offenses and Prostitution (the ‘Wolfenden Report’), recommending that ‘homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private be no longer a criminal offense’ ... But it would be ten more years before the Wolfenden recommendations were enacted.”
Of particular interest also is Gunn’s illuminating account of gay publishing in the US, which saw Greenleaf established in San Diego in 1965, quickly becoming the major gay paperback publisher in the country. What makes this book such a delight to peruse is that Gunn includes tons of original book covers; one can only wonder at the legwork and research involved in ferreting out some of the rarer ones. But that is the thing about this wonderful treasure of a book: it is a labour of love, and a love letter to all purveyors of the written word, from readers to writers, illustrators and publishers....more
Wow. I loved this highly evocative and condensed account of a doomed lover’s triangle, where two brothers and a mentally disturbed female arts studentWow. I loved this highly evocative and condensed account of a doomed lover’s triangle, where two brothers and a mentally disturbed female arts student clash in gradually more violent spirals of love and hate. She eventually marries the one brother, but then feels attracted towards the other. Uh oh.
The writing is intense, as well as remarkably visual and sensual, with every word chosen for maximum impact. In a deliciously wry Afterword, Angela Carter even projects some of these damaged characters’ lives into middle age, with some very funny and unexpected results.
Yes, such a slim volume seems to make up for an entire library’s worth of resolutely grim and sad reading, but there is something haunting and implacable about Carter’s account of love’s vagaries.
The danger inherent in writing about despicable people such as this, not to mention the Freudian nightmare of their relationships, is that the reader can quickly become alienated from the characters. The brilliance of Carter, though, is that she allows us glimpses of indelible beauty and truth, hand in hand with all the horror and despair.
This book annoyed me right from the beginning, and my irritation gradually grew to the point where I really wanted to stop reading it. There is a fataThis book annoyed me right from the beginning, and my irritation gradually grew to the point where I really wanted to stop reading it. There is a fatal lull in the pacing about halfway through, when the plot and character motivation take a rather radical turn, throwing everything the reader knows up to that point into contention.
I suppose it is all ‘meta’ and postmodern for Gillian Flynn to wrong-foot the reader so spectacularly. I am all for writerly disruption of a text, particularly in the service of getting lazy readers to add some blood and gristle to their fibre diet.
But there comes a point where such disruption can feel like grandstanding. Paradoxically, it is the characters who suffer most when this happens, as the reader so anxiously awaits the next ‘big twist’ that lip service is paid to psychological realism.
Flynn tries to have it both ways, stringing the reader along, reversing major plot points and scattering so many red herrings that one actually feels intense sympathy for the author in untangling the chain of causality … when what you should be worrying about is the plight of the poor characters.
Complicating Gone Girl is the fact that there is not a single likeable character in the entire book. And that includes the cat.
To my mind, Flynn hovers close to caricature in her depiction of the good cop/bad cop team investigating the disappearance, when this should be the moral lynchpin of the book, guiding the reader through its dark heart.
There is a whole other book here, especially at the beginning, when Flynn comments on the impact of the global financial crisis on towns like Carthage. The mall, its main source of employment, abruptly closes down and disintegrates into a den of vice and iniquity.
And then there is that ending. It could have worked better if Flynn had put on her emotional hat instead of her writerly one. I understand the logic of the given ending, but I did not feel it.
The book desperately cries out for a coda of some kind, something like the closing scene of A History of Violence by David Cronenberg, where we fade-out on the family sitting around the dining-room table, seemingly united but further apart than ever before.
It seems ironic to highlight a movie in reference to a book’s ending, but Flynn’s text is also very cinematic. I have not yet seen the David Fincher adaptation, but am curious to do so, particularly as Flynn reportedly fleshed out her ending specifically for the movie, while keeping its details intact.
So what is the moral of the story here: that marriage can survive anything, including murder? Or that marriage as an institution can cover up the darkest of deeds and the basest of instincts?
It is hard not to think of this as ‘marriage porn’, which allows ordinary people in vanilla relationships to squirm in delicious horror at what other people get up to. Nothing wrong with a bout of healthy squirming, of course.
I promptly made up for this notable lapse, first reading the, er, seminal Faggots before plunging into this duo of linked plays, followed by watching HBO’s movie version of the former, directed by Ryan Murphy and with Mark Ruffalo in the Kramer role. My conclusion: Kramer is much sexier than the rather frumpy Ruffalo. (How Kramer would throw a brick at me for such a vapid comment).
I also watched the HBO doccie entitled Larry Kramer: In Love and Anger, which paints the author as a long-suffering and even longer-standing AIDS activist who not only established ACT UP, but was instrumental in initiating a notorious civil disobedience campaign.
Unrepentant, Kramer still often rails against the (male) gay community for being led by its cocks. Which was larger the subject of Faggots, where Kramer held up a highly disapproving magnifying glass to the drugs-and-fucking lifestyle exemplified by New York and Fire Island.
I was amazed at how The Normal Heart has not aged by a single wrinkle, and neither has Kramer’s often anguished words lost any of their power. Or their anger. Interestingly, the HBO movie focuses much more on the ‘love thwarted’ aspect, probably to reduce that ‘in your face’ quality so prevalent with Kramer’s writing, not to mention his personality as a whole.
Kramer recounts in the HBO doccie how The Normal Heart literally poured out of him in a single draft, as he felt he was writing history rather than fiction. There is a wonderfully written and insightful introduction by Tony Kushner, who praises the literalness of Kramer’s writing and how it punches you through the heart, with little adornment or symbolism. (Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is, of course, the exact opposite of this).
It must have been absolutely incendiary to have seen this performed live on stage for the first time, with people literally dying outside the theatre’s walls in New York, and many of the actors on stage having lost friends and lovers as well.
The Destiny of Me is a lot murkier and fragmentary, but makes an interesting comparison to The Normal Heart (especially in that the main characters from the former, Ned Weeks, is now faced with his mortality, in the form of a ghostly visitation from his much younger self). And his parents. The daddy issues here alone are enough to make anyone cringe, which means this is a much less palatable play than The Normal Heart.
Taken together, I think Kushner is right in holding these up as contemporary masterpieces of both political activism and commercial theatre. It is a difficult line to toe at the best of times, but Kramer is nothing if not the consummate showman....more
I was a bit nervous about reading this, as a 100-odd page book on the history of gay activism seems overly reductive, especially considering the complI was a bit nervous about reading this, as a 100-odd page book on the history of gay activism seems overly reductive, especially considering the complexities involved. However, Ann Bausum tackles her subject with commendable clarity and economy, to produce a highly informative, and remarkably neutral, pocket history.
The genesis of the book was when a woman at a signing asked her to write about gay rights. Bausum then recounts learning about the suicide of 18-year-old American student Tyler Clementi, who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on 22 September 2010 after his roommate outed him on Twitter.
“This book is written in memory of Tyler and in honour of all young people whose lives are challenged by homophobia,” Bausum comments. Of course, that such a tragedy can still occur in our supposedly enlightened age speaks volumes about the social and peer pressures still facing gay youth across the world.
It also points to the complex balancing act necessary to negotiate one’s private and public identities – a journey that many gay people struggle with alone, even today. Thus one can only fervently wish that Bausum’s book is made available as widely as possible, for the ultimate message here is not only one of hope, but perhaps most importantly, one of dignity and compassion in the face of adversity.
Bausum locates her account of gay rights against the larger socio-political backdrop of the 1960s, particularly the so-called Summer of Love. Her inference is subtle but pointed: it is not only gay people who were overly promiscuous and rebellious during this period.
I learnt many things that I did not know about Stonewall prior to reading this book, such as how the mafia and police controlled the gay scene, and that at one stage it was illegal for same-sex people to even dance together. Also, “masquerading in the attire of the opposite sex was a criminal offense, except on Halloween.” This adds immense poignancy to such seemingly simple lines about the opening of the Stonewall Inn in 1976, where “men danced with men, often for the first time in their lives.”
We also learn about early activists such as Craig Rodwell, founder of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, the first of its kind in the US dedicated solely to gay literature. (Rodwell, of course, was also involved with Harvey Milk at one stage, whose rejection of him precipitated a suicide attempt.)
Bausum even delves into the murkier areas of cruising and the so-called truck scene in lower Manhattan at the time, but does so in an entirely factual manner that is not morally prescriptive. Of course, one can view the gay scene through rose-tinted glasses as a cornucopia of flesh, drugs and alcohol, but Bausum deftly sketches a considered account of both the dangers and attractions facing gay people in this time.
We also learn about the Mattachine Society, founded by gay men, and the Daughters of Bilitis, founded by lesbians. Indeed, gay women are often at the forefront here, with Bausum commenting trenchantly on gender discrimination within the gay community itself: “Gay men could be just as chauvinistic, just as blind to the confining stereotypes of the era as their heterosexual contemporaries.”
Bausum is careful to note that “the progress of gay rights, as with other social justice movements, was not linear.” However, what is often required is a single spark or some kind of event that galvanises like-minded people in a united show of force. This event was the riot that began in the wee hours of 28 June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn.
Roland Emmerich’s latest movie Stonewall has been accused of white-washing gay history by having the first brick hurled by a mom-and-apple-pie All American white male, when many contend it was a bunch of drag queens in the front line. Bausum comments presciently:
Differences of fact and opinion swirl around that night’s scene in general and certain details in particularity ... Such controversies are not uncommon in history, and it makes sense that they occur ... no one can take in every detail, especially when an event involves so many sub-components of simultaneous activity. Such was the case at the Stonewall on that hot night in 1969.
Bausum has a fine eye for telling detail. At one stage she recounts how “an unlikely team of effeminate and muscular gays had managed to uproot a nearby parking meter and convert it into a battering ram,” as the hapless and outnumbered police force had barricaded themselves inside the building.
(This was a crucial decision taken by Inspector Seymour Pine of the NYPD, who was also instrumental in calming his fellow officers enough so that they did not open fire indiscriminately on the protestors. Remarkably, there was no loss of life during the Stonewall riots, which was largely due to Pine keeping his cool while he literally had his back to the wall. I also did not know that the Stonewall riots actually occurred over several nights, with New York’s Tactical Patrol Force being called upon when unrest flared up for the second night).
Perhaps the most important decision taken by the gay community after the Stonewall riots was Rodwell’s ‘Get the Mafia and the Cops out of Gay Bars’ campaign, due to the bribery and blackmailing that this entailed. Another was the idea for an annual commemorative march, which of course became Gay Pride. By 1984, the fifteenth anniversary of the riots, there were marches in 25 major cities across the US. The openly gay Harvey Milk gained elected office in San Francisco in 1977. Of equal importance was the pronouncement by the medical community that homosexuality was no longer considered a mental illness.
Bausum writes that “being gay became something to celebrate, to share, to enjoy,” which is a polite way of referring to the drugs-and-fucking gay lifestyle excoriated by Larry Kramer in his 1978 book Faggots. Unlike loud-mouth Kramer though, Bausum is careful to place this in context: “During an era of widespread promiscuity regardless of sexual orientation, many members of the gay community joined the national experiment.”
“And then came AIDS”, is the opening line of Chapter 9, entitled ‘Gay Plague’. While the first inklings of the disease appeared in 1981, it took then president Ronald Reagan until 1987, near the end of his second term in office, to mention AIDS in a public address.
Even here Bausum is careful to articulate a particular context: “Further complications arose among gay men themselves. Many gays were still exploring newfound opportunities for self-expression and they chafed against calls from within (and beyond) for them to abandon newly acquired freedoms.”
We learn about the remarkable AIDS Quilt project, Kramer’s founding of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), discovery of the first drug cocktail to stem the tide, legal milestones such as Bowers vs. Hardwick and the fallout from Clinton’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ campaign.
In short, it is quite remarkable how much information Bausum packs into this well-structured little book. She notes at the end: “I wrote this book in the company of ghosts,” a reference to Tyler Clementi and everyone else who has died since that first night at the Stonewall Inn.
The spirit that emerged outside a Mafia-run bar in 1969 became the pulse of the gay community and inspired not just an annual parade but ways to express gay pride in individual lives. Stonewall happens every day....more
My first Star Trek novel. Miller does a credible job of translating this particular cinematic/telly franchise. Granted it is more socio-politically nuMy first Star Trek novel. Miller does a credible job of translating this particular cinematic/telly franchise. Granted it is more socio-politically nuanced than Star Wars, which is probably why it is a much better novel than his own A New Dawn.
The characters are all credible and fairly well-rounded; I was quite surprised at the amount of humour as well and the sub-textual critique of the bureaucracy (and hence inflexibility) of Starfleet.
What I found particularly intriguing is how Miller uses the basis of a particular telly episode as the starting point for the book. Given how intelligent and deft this extrapolation is, one can only wonder at how much potential remains in this SF franchise, both literary and small/big screen.
ST:TNG aficionados will enjoy all the ST references; while I certainly did not get all, it did not detract from a thrilling and fast-paced read. I was glad I read this, as I am now keen to dip a bit deeper into the ST literary universe....more
This book starts out so promisingly: the Empire of Masks (the Masquerade) opens up trade relations with Taranoke, which not only begins an insidious aThis book starts out so promisingly: the Empire of Masks (the Masquerade) opens up trade relations with Taranoke, which not only begins an insidious assimilation process, but ultimately leads to the wholesale eradication of social practices frowned upon by the Empire, such as having “several mothers and fathers in a single family”.
Main protagonist Baru Cormorant joins an Empire-funded school, which sees her begin a slow process of ascension to a position of power ... to do what, exactly?
Instead of answering this question directly, Seth Dickinson opts for a byzantine tale of intrigue and skulduggery, buried under excessively ornate verbiage that blunts the emotional edge of the love story that lurks in the wings, but which never really takes flight.
I never felt comfortable with Baru and her plight; she is far too calculating and cold to endear herself to this reader, which makes the big sacrifice at the end an act of ostentatious cruelty rather than a consequence of her overreaching ambition.
If you like Game of Thrones and George R.R. Martin’s penchant to exhaustively delineate various family trees and how they intertwine, both on the battlefield and in the bedroom, then you will probably lap this up....more
Interesting sequel to Ancient Shores that reminded me strongly of the socially responsible, environmentally friendly SF of Clifford D. Simak.
EssentialInteresting sequel to Ancient Shores that reminded me strongly of the socially responsible, environmentally friendly SF of Clifford D. Simak.
Essentially the story revolves around the societal and political consequences of the discovery of a working ‘stargate’ on a Sioux reservation in North Dakota in the US.
I really did not buy into the idea that the Sioux themselves can lay claim to the ‘stargate’ and whatever it represents simply because it is located on ancestral land. Surely the US President can invoke some ‘in the interests of humanity’ claim?
McDevitt’s penchant for open-endedness is frustratingly on display here, with only a glimmer of any kind of answer to the mysteries he evokes and the questions he poses. Perhaps he intends a third instalment, which could explain the ambiguous ending.
This kind of ‘what if’ first contact / abandoned alien technology story has been done before, of course, and I have to say much better by a writer like Robert Charles Wilson. Still, this is likely to appeal to casual genre readers who like to dip their toes into Hard SF ... but without getting splashed by quantum foam....more
Larry Kramer’s eponymous 1978 novel is one whose reputation precedes it. Apparently condemned upon its publication due to its singular (and single-minLarry Kramer’s eponymous 1978 novel is one whose reputation precedes it. Apparently condemned upon its publication due to its singular (and single-minded) focus on drugs-and-fucking in the New York gay scene in the 1970s, the truth is always both more. And less.
Reading the book today, especially given the international brouhaha over gay marriage, and the manifestation of strange forms of agit-prop like the Kim Davis case in the US, what I found most surprising about Faggots is how unpolitical it seems.
A good example of this is the infamous Everhard fire, with Kramer noting that “seven brothers perished”. But this becomes more of a footnote than a warning to the general refrain that “We have to disco and drug and fuck if we want to live fantastic!”
Also, and this is probably one of the side-effects of the novel that Kramer could not possibly have foreseen: Faggots today reads like an elegy to a lost age, rather than a dire warning of a pending gay apocalypse in the form of the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s.
Many gay people today come from cultures, families and countries where being gay is an exceedingly complex negotiation between societal and religious expectations and personal convictions. Many gay people have never, ever experienced the kind of totally open and life-affirming community that Kramer describes in Faggots, and which one could argue was both its artistic and personal peak.
Those detractors who argue that the book focuses on drugs-and-fucking to the total exclusion of any sense of these characters’ ordinary lives ignore Kramer’s savviness as a writer. There is an astonishing set piece early on, where Garfield’s doorman clocks in a record 80 ‘single gentlemen’ before 21:30 to his apartment. The vast range of occupations and class status gives a tantalising glimpse into the depth that the gay community had achieved in what is an incredibly short period. Kramer lists these with a kind of journalistic fervour:
...five attorneys, three art directors, seven models, ten would-be models, twelve said-they-were models, one journalist, three hairdressers (one specialising in colour), two antique dealers, one typewriter repairman, one manager of a Holiday Inn, one garbage collector, two construction workers, one toll collector from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, three policemen, two firemen (one out of state), seven hustlers (three full-time), one elevator operator (Garfield’s landlord’s son), one bass player, five doctors, twelve students, one ethnic dancer, two restauranteurs (one fancy, one shit food), one judge (rather old, but Garfield had to remember business), one newscaster, one weather man, one football player, one folk singer, four truck drivers, twenty-nine on unemployment, eleven unidentified, and the new assistant Orthodox rabbi for a congregation in Seattle.
(The latter is part of a very funny Jewish riff running throughout the book about the fagolim and their weird proclivities, such as ‘tinkling’ on each other).
I suppose another wholly unintentional aspect of Kramer’s book is how much ammunition it gives to anti-gay detractors and protestors to decry the ‘gay lifestyle’ as utterly immoral and devoid of any meaningful social relevance or human contact.
A good example of Kramer’s refreshingly direct, and therefore scandalously provocative, approach to this issue is the following comment: “Sex and love are different and any faggot given half a choice will take the former. And probably fucked with Adolf Hitler if he’d been cute!” The implication here is that sex is the be-all and end-all of gay life, and that gay men are completely indiscriminate in service of their cocks. Kramer points out that:
...whatever prodigies the male genitals can perform, the human mind is incapable of emotional focus when it’s asked to experience so much emotional intensity with so many different objects. And when orgasmic sex ceases to constitute emotional intensity for its participants, then what remains in the realm of sensory possibility for the deadened veteran – human torture, murder, the consumption of children?
Drugs-and-fucking are still very much a mainstay of the gay lifestyle even today, post-AIDS, especially in countries where the simple act of being gay can be punished by death (simply think of vast swathes of Africa and the entire Middle East, while general intolerance and bigotry continues to simmer in countries like Russia).
This is much more an act of defiance, I think, whereas Kramer’s point is that the energy and vitality expended on drugs-and-fucking would result in a Trojan horse type of situation within the gay community itself.
Well, of course that particular dark horse was AIDS, and not even Kramer could have foreseen the subsequent decimation of the gay community that he loved, as much as its excesses and shortcomings exasperated and upset him.
Of course, detractors have drawn an arrow-straight line between the excesses that Kramer depicts and the pandemic that followed. There is no doubt that the rampant promiscuity and drug use added to the death toll (and continues to do so).
However, there is equally no doubt that the energy and vitality that found expression in such promiscuity and drug use also resulted in one of the brightest artistic and cultural renaissances we have ever experienced, and one whose light we still look to today, in tantalising wonder at both its fierceness and its warmth. And Kramer himself is a product of this renaissance.
Another very real point to be made is that the book can be read as a general reflection of Kramer’s own prudishness, despite its explicitness. There is as much laughter as there is vulgarity, but it is a gallows humour that gives the novel a frenetic energy and pace.
The fact it is also written without any chapter breaks, with short sections and short sentences almost akin to dialogue in a play, inevitably means that the characters themselves get the short end of the stick (so to speak). The names and types do tend to blur after a while, but I think this is a deliberate narrative strategy on the part of Kramer, given his subject matter.
People unfamiliar with gay history (which sadly includes many gay people themselves) tend to see Faggots in isolation, but one has to bear in mind that the equally extraordinary Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran was published in the same year, another indication of the gay renaissance that Kramer seems so curiously dismissive of.
Is Faggots as negative and bile-ridden as it has been made out to be? I certainly do not think so. While Kramer has a keen eye for the absurd, he also has a deep and abiding love for his characters, and the community they define and inhabit. The fact that the book ends so prosaically, with one of the protagonists turning 40, is an abiding affirmation of this enduring love....more
This is an imaginative and deftly executed update of the infamous Lizzie Borden murders, with a simmering lesbian romance and Lovecraftian monstrositiThis is an imaginative and deftly executed update of the infamous Lizzie Borden murders, with a simmering lesbian romance and Lovecraftian monstrosities thrown in for good measure. Not to mention an intriguing good doctor/bad cop combination.
The biggest problem though is that the novel takes ages to get going, hampered further by an epistolary nature that curiously fragments and deflects the action when it does happen.
And by this stage the reader realises that Priest does not have that much new to add to the Lovecraft mythos, apart from some self-referential nods and a few innovations such as glass teeth.
Also, the book does not so much end as set up the second volume – an annoying, but sadly increasingly common, practice as publishers try for that next big franchise.
This is by no means a bad novel, but it would have worked much better at half its length. Readers unfamiliar with Lovecraft or the New Weird in general might get some kind of frisson from it, but for seasoned readers it is a bit of a damp squid. I mean squib....more
I expected this take on the inner workings of the publishing industry, written by someone who has been on both sides of the fence, as a publisher and I expected this take on the inner workings of the publishing industry, written by someone who has been on both sides of the fence, as a publisher and a poet, to be snarky and all-knowing. What I did not expect is how charming and delightful a novel it is. Muse is a love letter to the halcyon days of an industry where publishers were larger-than-life, and often more notorious than the authors they represented.
I always read reviews prior to embarking on a new book, mainly to get a feel of what people in general think (as opposed to prejudging an author or forming advance opinions.) In this case, a lot of reviewers bemoaned the fact that their enjoyment of Muse was affectively hobbled by Jonathan Galassi’s insider knowledge.
Yes, there is a whole level of allusion here that definitely escaped me. A cursory glance at Galassi’s biography reveals that he heads up Farrar, Straus and Giroux, which he joined in 1985 after being fired from Random House, for reasons I cannot discern.
If this had been another kind of book, Galassi would have loaded it to the teeth with broadside salvos aimed at the mercenary industry that had rejected him at one stage. Instead, the book opens with the following declaration: “This is a love story. It’s about the good old days, when men were men and women were women and books were books.”
Of course, this means real books, not e-books, which come in for some of the funniest ribbing towards the end, when Paul has a brief relationship with Rufus from Medusa, a clear reference to Amazon: “Content was king at Medusa, they claimed, but Rufus’s expertise ran more to genre novelists and management gurus than literary writers.”
While Galassi highlights the intrinsic appeal of this shiny new world, he also laments its inadequacies:
Paul was enchanted by the lingo of Rufus’s world: big data, scalability, pivoting, crowdsourcing, virtual convergence, geo-location, but before too long he came to understand that everything his guy was talking about – platforms and delivery systems and mini-books and nanotech and page rates and and and – had very little to do with what mattered to Paul, which was the words themselves and the men and women who’d written.
And, one might add, the men and women who champion them. This is not to suggest that Galassi paints a rosy-hued portrait of publishing: “The Impetus offices, in a venerable Meatpacking District building not far from Sterling’s apartment, were at least as scruffy as P&S’s, with upholstery that looked lice-infested and filthy walls that had not been washed, let along painted, in forty years.”
Providing a link between the two rival publishers of Impetus and P&S is the character of Paul, who idolises the work of a particular poet published by his boss’s nemesis. The plot kicks into high gear when he has a meeting with his literary idol, a meeting that not only changes a life-time’s worth of fanciful conjecture about her, but which also sees him bestowed with an explosive secret, like a ticking time bomb, set to destroy his world and its dinosaurs.
There are fantastic set pieces, such as a warts-and-all depiction of the Frankfurt Book Fair, while Galassi’s descriptions of Venice are achingly beautiful. I also loved the way he addresses such issues as attracting the ‘right’ readers and dealing with the ‘cult of personality’.
As much as Muse is a lament for this bygone era, it is equally a celebration of writers, publishers and readers, indeed the entire madcap magic circle that begins and ends every time a single book is opened and closed....more
The doughnut was definitely looking at him. Hello, sailor, it seemed to be saying.
Tom Holt’s latest foray into YouSpace is a bit of a detour into fantThe doughnut was definitely looking at him. Hello, sailor, it seemed to be saying.
Tom Holt’s latest foray into YouSpace is a bit of a detour into fantasy, probably at the insistence of K.J. Parker. Terry Pratchett inevitably springs to mind, who kind of perfected this trenchant inversion of modern institutions and mores. Or was it Charles Dickens?
Nevertheless, this is a happy comparison. Smug is one of the funniest books I have read in a long time. But it is not slipping-on-a-decapitated-elf’s-head kind of humour. Yes, there is an element of gallows chuckles throughout, particularly some sublimely hilarious takes on YouTube and Wickedpedia.
But behind the repartee and parrying is a very clever critique of modern economics. Not to mention High Fantasy, religion in general. And, of course, the Power of the Doughnut....more