| Cím | City of night |
| Közlemény típusa | Könyv |
| Kiadás éve | 1977 |
| Kiadó | Ballantine Books |
| Város | New York |
| Oldalak száma | 380 |
| Nyelv | angol |
| Szerző | Rechy, J |
| ISBN szám | |
| Absztrakt | John Rechy's book, City of Night, was published in 1962 just before the Supreme Court opened up the floodgate to the publishers of cheap porn in 1965. He will most likely be remembered as a gay male writer who was a brutal and lyrical recorder of the sexual underworld in pre-Stonewall times. It must be difficult for anyone who didn't live through those times to grasp how heavily the threat of censorship hung over America's authors and publishers. He describes this world with brusque frankness. There is an easy understanding of who and what his characters are; they are presented without sentimentality or self-pity. At the beginning he writes about being a shy child who read a lot and sat by the hall window and looked out to see the world. We hear about the death of his dog and about the suffocating attention of his overly affectionate mother Rechy uses the window theme and carries it throughout the book. He's letting us look into and onto the dark underworld of the City of Night . . . wherever that may occur. He's also into looking into mirrors as he looks at himself and at what his narrator has become. I liked the very believable flip dialogue of the drag queens and the hustlers . . . the text was almost like it was recorded. His narrator takes us on a journey through a world of forbidden love. Here, sex is a job, not an identity. This masculine hustler moves from city to city, searching for business and a sense of self-worth and love. While he actively avoids the lives and world of the self-admitted and well-adjusted gay men he encounters, he pursues the outcasts, the maladjusted and self-loathing instead. Rechy's representations of gay life are often bleak and the lives of this extraordinary collection of characters are filled with drugs and liquor. There are two types of chapters in this novel: there are accounts of the narrator's wanderings and character sketches of the people he meets as a hustler. Each sketch builds an understandable person for the reader. I've been on the fringes of this culture a few times and didn't like it at all, but believe me they seem very real. Each narrative chapter pulls the reader away and moves them onward. Rechy was brought up as a devout Catholic. His book is full of symbolism . . .especially of angels in the form of beautiful young men. Well, surprise, a lot of this world still exists. The people of the night haven't changed all that much since John Rechy wrote his eye-opening novel 40-some years ago. Anonymous sex, hustlers, dirty bookstore sex, cruising, rough trade, druggies, dealers, hustlers, bartenders, cops and robbers still abound. There are still sexy boys from the country who will soon be dead from HIV/AIDS . . . or something else like in the old days . . . an overdose, a knife fight, or a car crash. Not much has changed. This is a compelling early account of "the life" that I believe gays and non-gay people will enjoy; the book still has a fun, underground feel to it. It's still a very cool book, kind of like "On the Road." But decide for yourself. Pick up a copy! (...) |
| Gyűjtemény | Szépirodalom |
| LMBT vonatkozás | főtéma |
| Raktári jelzet | rec/cit |
| Archívumban elérhető | igen |