LGBT Literature

[Sybarite]

What is LGBT literature?

'LGBT' is such an extraordinarily wide spectrum to start with.

Gore Vidal, Manuel Puig, Jeanette Winterson, Virginia Woolf, Armistead Maupin, Colm T?ib?n – not necessarily everything that they have written, but it pervades what they write on a certain level.

Lesbianism is mentioned even in a novel such as Mrs Dalloway, although nobody would call it a lesbian book as such. Ignoring the obvious Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit from Winterson, there are hints of sexualities beyond straight in Sexing the Cherry, for instance.

Maupin and T?ib?n both include gay characters as a matter of course in their work, although their books are far from being exclusively about gay characters and experiences.

Vidal plays games with sexuality and gender – see Myra Breckinridge – while Live from Golgotha features several gay and bisexual characters, grafting Classical sexuality onto the Biblical world.

Then there's Thomas Mann and Joe Orton and EM Forster and Alice Walker and Sarah Waters ...

The breadth is wonderful – a real rainbow.

If a writer writes from experience, then sexuality will be present in their work. But how much can it change attitudes? If Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin could have a serious effect on how African Americans and the issue of slavery were seen, then it seems reasonable to suppose that the increasing profile of LGBT writers in the mainstream can only help to extend understanding of LGBT people and help LGBT people themselves realise that they're not alone.

So perhaps this also illustrates one possible answer to a question posited by a thread elsewhere: 'is fiction important?' Yes, it is.

 

[spooooool]

And Radclyfffe Hall, i think supported by the miners union when her book went to trial - if you see what i mean, it's been ages since i read it and as i remember it it's not terribly well written, but important yes. Genet, Gide, was Denton Welch gay? I used to know someone whose brother was an editor at Gay Mens Press, which dates me a bit, but still

 

[Stewart]

Maupin and T?ib?n both include gay characters as a matter of course in their work, although their books are far from being exclusively about gay characters and experiences.

I think you can lump Michael Chabon into that category.

The breadth is wonderful ? a real rainbow.

I think I can name more LGBT writers than I can works that deal with the topic - off the top of my head: Witold Gombrowicz, Jane and Paul Bowles, Juan Goytisolo, Michael Cunningham, and Vikram Seth - and since I haven't read those names I have no idea if it evens plays a part in their work. About ten years ago the horror/fantasy writer, Clive Barker, wrote Sacrament, which felt like his most personal novel in that it dealt with a gay protagonist and, scrape away the fantasy elements, it dealt with friends dying young, the end of the family line. Having read much of his work, it's probably the best, although most fans are more likely to go for the the-weirder/gory- the-better opinion.

Anyway, just for you I've added to the forum an old review of Gilbert Adair's Buenas Noches Buenos Aires, which was a novel written to put his homosexuality at the forefront of his fiction, since it usually lurks in between the lines.

 

[Sybarite]

I deliberately just picked a few to start the thread off, but it's perhaps a surprising number, when you consider how, until relatively recently in many countries, homosexuality could land you in prison – and of course it remains a very dangerous thing to be even now in some places (never mind homophobic crimes in others).

Wikipedia has a fairly extensive list of writers, although this isn't complete: I mentioned Mann, for instance, while they don't. They haven't got Thom Gunn listed there either.

And thanks for the review, Stewart.

 

[Sybarite]

... Wikipedia has a fairly extensive list of writers, although this isn't complete: I mentioned Mann, for instance, while they don't. They haven't got Thom Gunn listed there either...

They have now. It was probably about time I registered on Wiki.

 

[Bjorn]

Ignoring the obvious Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit from Winterson, there are hints of sexualities beyond straight in Sexing the Cherry, for instance.

I've yet to read a Winterson book that doesn't have LGBT themes - either explicitly or in the background. I get the impression she does it both for private reasons - "write what you know" - and as a literary technique; as if she deliberately wanted to NOT write about the same old gender roles, or at least not JUST about them but explore how people relate to each other outside the traditional male/female black/white this/that dynamics. Similarities rather than differences; putting the "homo" in "homosexual", if that's not too strange a phrase.

The wikipedia list doesn't include Tove Jansson. This is a fault.

But I'm curious; what constitutes LGBT literature? The sexual orientation of the writers, whether their fiction deals explicitly with the subject or not? Or fiction dealing with the subject, regardless of the writer's orientation? Fiction dealing with the problems faced (Sarah Waters' The Night Watch, Al-Aswany's The Yacoubian Building or by all means The Portrait of Dorian Gray spring to mind) or fiction that just treats it as no big deal (Johanna Sinisalo's Only After Sundown/Troll: A Love Story, for instance)?

ETA: And I suppose someone needs to at least mention the name Poppy Z Brite.

 

[Sybarite]

... But I'm curious; what constitutes LGBT literature? The sexual orientation of the writers, whether their fiction deals explicitly with the subject or not? Or fiction dealing with the subject, regardless of the writer's orientation? Fiction dealing with the problems faced (Sarah Waters' The Night Watch, Al-Aswany's The Yacoubian Building or by all means The Portrait of Dorian Gray spring to mind) or fiction that just treats it as no big deal (Johanna Sinisalo's Only After Sundown/Troll: A Love Story, for instance)?

I think that it has to be there in the writing ? but whether that's as a major or dominant aspect, or as background, I don't think it really matters. Perhaps more importantly is that representations of LGBT life and experience are presented essentially positively and certainly truthfully.

... ETA: And I suppose someone needs to at least mention the name Poppy Z Brite.

And indeed why not?

 

[Ramblingsid]

Has anyone mentioned Alan Hollinghurst yet? I am never sure whether I like his novels or not for some reason.

The most remarkable book by a gay author I have read though was not a novel at all - but Derek Jarman's Last Diaries (not sure that was what they were called but you get the idea) which covered the period up to his death. It's possibly the most moving book I have ever read.

 

[miercuri]

I think Sarah Waters should be added to the list, I haven't read anything by her yet, but quite a lot about her and I was quite intrigued. Lesbianism with a Victorian twist.

edit: now I noticed Sybarite mentioned her in the first post.

 

[lionel]

To me, the prominent omissions from Wikipedia?s list are the ?Pre-Stonewall? novelists Rhys Davies and John Hampson. Hampson was a friend of W. H. Auden, who had married Thomas Mann?s daughter Erika for political reasons, and Hampson had in a similar homosexual/political spirit to Auden?s (?What are buggers for??) married Erica?s friend Therese Giese. Hilariously, the details of this are in Walter Allen?s As I Walked Down New Grub Street.

Like Hampson, Davies at the time (and this was obviously between the imprisonment of Wilde and the (partial) legalisation in the late 1960s) used certain codes for homosexuality, such as pale, weedy males not interested in sports or other ?masculine? pursuits. Apparently (according to the critic Andy Croft, that is), all of Hampson?s novels (including his most famous Saturday Night at the Greyhound) are covertly about homosexuality, although as I?ve not read all of Davies?s novels I can?t say the same for him, but I suspect that this is the case. I made a minor study of Davies?s The Withered Root (1927) and Rings on her Fingers (1930), and the paragraph below is an extract from it about the latter. My study concerns the outsider in literature filtered through a Sartrean existentialist point of view, and I would willingly forward the full section to anyone interested:

?In the novel, Edgar inherits a flourishing draper?s business from his father. To many people, though, he is more a figure of ridicule than respect in the small town: he has ?a certain delicacy, verging on the feminine?, dresses ? like Davies himself ? in spats and carries a malacca stick, and introduces powder puff and scents into the store, where he is seldom in the flannel department; it is even jokingly suggested, when he is taking part in an amateur production of Romeo and Juliet, that the nurse would be a suitable role for him. Modelled in part on Emma Bovary, Edith adopts a dominant position from the beginning of their relationship by making Edgar wait a relatively long time before accepting his marriage proposal; technically, the marriage in the beginning is a disaster for her, and she feels frustrated and yearns for adventure, preferably far from Wales. Edith?s central problem is that her marriage has freed her economically but not existentially, although her Lawrentian friend Raglan is wrong when he tells her before the wedding that she is deceiving herself.?

Below is a link to Auden?s famous homosexual poem ?The Platonic Blow?, although I suppose I should warn anyone offended by graphic sexual descriptions that this is not for them (although surely there?s a counter-argument that no one seriously interested in literature will be offended ? that, after all, is partly what literature exists for: to push boundaries).
http://www.lapetiteclaudine.com/archives/Auden_The_PLatonic_blow.txt

 

[Stewart]

I think that it has to be there in the writing ? but whether that's as a major or dominant aspect, or as background, I don't think it really matters. Perhaps more importantly is that representations of LGBT life and experience are presented essentially positively and certainly truthfully.

Have you read Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin? It's worth reading.

 

[titania7]

: Below is a link to Auden’s famous homosexual poem ’The Platonic Blow’, although I suppose I should warn anyone offended by graphic sexual descriptions that this is not for them (although surely there’s a counter-argument that no one seriously interested in literature will be offended – that, after all, is partly what literature exists for: to push boundaries).

Lionel,
I am offended by things in what I read all the time....and yet, I am certainly seriously interested in literature. I would say, although boundary-pushing is definitely a part of what literature is all about, it's probably more about creative self-expression
than anything.

But in regard to my being offended by what I read....

I've come to realize (and this helps a great deal) that:

a) I can always stop reading the book
b) the book wasn't written for me
c) it's my reaction to the material rather than the material itself that is causing me to feel "offended."

This last point is a concerted effort on my part to bring a psychological aspect into the mix. There are some psychologists and psychiatrists who will actually tell a rape victim, for example, that their reaction to the crime is just as significant as the crime itself. A highly debatable conjecture, I suppose; yet, at the same time, our reactions to everything we read and all that we experience can truly have a HUGE and often disastrous affect on our lives.

I enjoyed the excerpt from your study on Rings on Her Fingers (1930). I believe this was the Davies book on which your essay is based? Anyway, thanks for sharing it with all of us. I would like to read the rest (can e-mail or private msg me if you like--or if I don't hear from you within a couple of days, I'll msg to remind you).


Cordially,
Titania

 

[lionel]

although boundary-pushing is definitely a part of what literature
is all about,

D. H. Lawrence was of course one of these boundary pushers, and in Rhys Davies's strange autobiography Print of a Hare's Foot (in which he includes not only his own biography), he says that Lawrence told him that he'd made it possible for such people as Davies to speak far more freely about sexual matters. I doubt that Lawrence actually said this to Davies ? Davies is noted for twisting the truth in his autobiographical accounts, and this smacks of a retrospective observation ? but it's nevertheless true.

Davies is now perhaps best known in Lawrence studies as the person who smuggled Lawrence's Pansies, a book of erotic poems, from Lawrence's home in the south of France through the customs to England. As far as I know though, these were poems dealing with heterosexual sex, the representation of which Lawrence was noted for, particularly of course in Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Lawrence's Aaron's Rod and The Rainbow also contain homoerotic scenes; Lawrence's wife Frieda strongly suspected that her husband had had a relationship with a Cornish farmer; although Rhys never said in public that that he was gay, Lawrence knew very well that Davies was playing some very odd games with gender in The Withered Root; and Lawrence always seemed to surround himself by gay men. Nevertheless, Lawrence's attitude to homosexuality was ambivalent.

 

[titania7]

Lionel,
Lawrence's attitude to homosexuality may have been "ambivalent"; however, according to the bio written on him by Jeffrey Meyers, Lawrence definitely did have a homosexual relationship with the Cornish farmer, William Henry Hocking. In the Story of the Eye
thread, I link to a revealing essay Doris Lessing wrote on Lady Chatterley's Lover. Those who haven't read it might find it of some interest.

Lawrence definitely did push boundaries through his literature. The Rainbow
features a chapter that includes a lesbian relationship between Ursula Brangwen
and a woman schoolteacher, and Women in Love has some homosexual insinuations between the two men, Gerald Crich and Rupert Birkin. In the film version of this book,
directed by the ever-controversial Ken Russell, there is a nude wrestling scene that these two male characters take part in that certainly seems homoerotic (I did not find it
erotic--but I suppose gay men might).

Lady Chatterley's Lover is a very steamy read. It might have been
more arousing if the character of Mellors, the gamekeeper, hadn't been so difficult to admire. I wrote in an earlier post on this
book that Lawrence felt "all 17-year-old girls" should be
given a copy. From his essay, A Propos of Lady Chatterley's
Lover, I will let Lawrence elucidate his point:

"...When we read of the case of Colonel Barker, we see what
is the matter. Colonel Barker was a woman who masqueraded
as a man. The 'Colonel' married a wife, and lived five years
with her in 'conjugal happiness.' And the poor wife thought all
the time she was married normally and happily to a real
husband......The situation is monstrous. Yet there are
thousands of women today who might be so deceived,
and go on being deceived. Why? Because they know
nothing, they can't think sexually at all; they are
morons in this respect. It is better to give all girls
this book, at the age of of seventeen."

Now everything is clear. Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley's
Lover for the purposes of sexual education .

I do think this book has been vilified too much. Even by today's
standards, it's a wee bit raunchy. At the same time, it is
beautifully and poetically written (if not, admittedly, one
of Lawrence's greatest achievements).

One reason Frieda decided that Lawrence was gay was
because of his penchant for anal sex. She even told their
circle of friends and acquaintances about Lawrence's
sexual inadequacies. Apparently, anal sex was the only
sex that Lawrence found truly fulfilling. He had a bit
of a love/hate relationship with women. He abhorred
the predatory type of female--and felt that a woman's
clitoris was a "weapon" she used against men.
One can only blame his feelings on general
ignorance.

I've never read Pansies, but there is a passage in
the Jeffrey's Meyers bio where he quotes Lawrence
as saying that two of his copies of Pansies were
confiscated by Scotland Yard--all because of
the "fuss" over Lady Chatterley's Lover.

I'm going to start a Lawrence thread sometime during
the next few months. I really feel it's necessary.
He's an important writer whose works have sparked
a lot of debate.

~Titania

"Some things can't be ravished. You can't ravish
a can of sardines. And so many women are
like that; and men."
~D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

 

[adaorardor]

I think you can lump Michael Chabon into that category.


I think I can name more LGBT writers than I can works that deal with the topic - off the top of my head: Witold Gombrowicz, Jane and Paul Bowles, Juan Goytisolo, Michael Cunningham, and Vikram Seth - and since I haven't read those names I have no idea if it evens plays a part in their work. About ten years ago the horror/fantasy writer, Clive Barker, wrote Sacrament, which felt like his most personal novel in that it dealt with a gay protagonist and, scrape away the fantasy elements, it dealt with friends dying young, the end of the family line. Having read much of his work, it's probably the best, although most fans are more likely to go for the the-weirder/gory- the-better opinion.

Anyway, just for you I've added to the forum an old review of Gilbert Adair's Buenas Noches Buenos Aires, which was a novel written to put his homosexuality at the forefront of his fiction, since it usually lurks in between the lines.

Gombrowicz was gay?? Documentation on this?

 

[adaorardor]

Has anyone mentioned Alan Hollinghurst yet? I am never sure whether I like his novels or not for some reason.

The most remarkable book by a gay author I have read though was not a novel at all - but Derek Jarman's Last Diaries (not sure that was what they were called but you get the idea) which covered the period up to his death. It's possibly the most moving book I have ever read.

I looove Hollinghurst. Question about the end of his The Folding Star, though:

Is it clear what happened to Luc? Do we know for sure that he committed suicide (by drowning himself, moreover- what's with the last sentence)? Are we sure that the protagonist's dangerous friend (forget his name at this instant) didn't kill him, as it's hinted he killed "Rose"? Or are we supposed to be left wondering?

 

[Sybarite]

Gombrowicz was gay?? Documentation on this?

In his serialised Diary (1953-68) Gombrowicz alluded to his homosexual experiences...

Full article.

And if you want some 'fun', there's this extraordinary piece of bigoted crap, which mentions the issue.

 

[Stewart]

Gombrowicz was gay?? Documentation on this?

Here's one example from a Q&A with the Polish culture minister regarding Gombrowicz's place in the school syllabus: [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Polish culture minister defends Gombrowicz:

[/FONT]

 

[Eric]

Sybarite, what does the "T" stand for? I worked out "lesbian, gay and bisexual". But I couldn't see the "T". Maybe "transsexual", like Jan (former James) Morris.

Anyway, there are far more in authors in the LGBT category than are generally noticed. Not just the "come-out" people who took pride in their sexuality, but also careful people like E.M. Forster, who remained in the closet, and wrote "Maurice" on the quiet.

But you have to be careful with tarring them all with the same brush, lumping all the non-heteros together. Now that homosexuality is acceptable in most civilised Western circles, some authors even cash in on the aura. Literary quality is something beyond whom you want to have sex with. And as I often say, shelving gay literature separately in bookshops, means that the bookshops are continuing the apartheid, as it is not likely that any but the most open-minded heterosexuals are likely to be attracted by shelves full of one kind of sexuality. I'd like to see them all mixed in together on bookshop shelves.

Actually, when I recently wrote about Witold Gombrowicz and the other two Polish authors, I was going to write "bisexual", as he used to pick up young boys in the harbour of Buenos Aires. But I suppressed this, as I thought people would think that Eric was grandstanding again. Actually, the second author in what I term the triumvirate, Witkacy, is also rumoured to have had relations with the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, with whom he visited the Trobriand Islands on a research trip. (I think Schulz, with his masochism was in the hetero camp, though.)

I have noticed that there is sometimes a link between homosexuality and children's writing. For instance, the books by Tove Jansson who lived for many years with her (female) painter friend Tuulikki Pietil?, as suggested by Bj?rn. Some homosexual writers retain a childlike quality.

Yes, I have to mention Estonians. One of the most accomplished refugee authors, Karl Ristikivi, was a closet gay. I was told this by two Estonians, on quite separate occasions. I had already translated most of his novel "Night of Souls", but being a bit of a dummy, I didn't spot the fact that many of the epigrams at the heads of chapters were by gays: Housman, Morgenstern, Whitman, the Finnish poet Uuno Kailas, plus people of equivocal sexuality, such as Poe, T.S. Eliot, Lewis Carroll, Dorothy L. Sayers, and others. And the Estonian author T?nu ?nnepalu / Emil Tode (pseudonym) is openly gay.

And I have heard that D.H. Lawrence's and Daphne du Maurier's sexuality were ambivalent. There are LGBT writers from all over the world, over many decades: Gide and his little Arab boys, Mann and his famous Tadzio, and also with Tonio Kr?ger's friend (whose characteristics are transferred, in part, to Clavdia Chauchat in "The Magic Mountain"), Katherine Mansfield's bisexuality, Angus Wilson, Alan Bennett (who only came out of the closet recently), Colette, Yourcenar, Karin Boye, Mary Renault, Ali Smith, Gertrude Stein, Truman Capote, Juan Goytisolo, Georges Eekhoud, P?ter N?das, Gerard Reve, Hennie Aucamp, Joan Hambidge, Jens Bj?rneboe, Eva-Stina Byggm?star, Edith S?dergran, plus the huge number of other authors mentioned at: Category:Gay writers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Category:Lesbian writers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And so it goes on. That's lists for you. If you stuck to translating gay LGBT authors alone, you'd manage to have a hell of a lot more authors brought to the UK than we have now!

But you can't deny one thing: if an author is bisexual, s/he can see their characters from both points of view - handy when writing literature.

Personally, I feel that it is important to know an author's sexuality, have it at the back of your mind when reading their work, but to read books by both the kind of sexuality you may identify with, and other. Otherwise, heterosexual men will never even read books by, for instance, heterosexual women. So they never find out how the other half feels. That would be a pity.

 

[titania7]

Eric,
I was unaware of Katherine Mansfield's bi-sexuality. I did wonder
a bit about her, after reading the Intro to Lawrence's Women in Love. I don't know whether or not you know that Mansfield was the basis for Guthrun Brangwen in this book? At any rate, it is a bit surprising that Mansfield was bi-sexual, as she had so many affairs
with men and also had a great yearning for children. She and her husband, John Middleton Murry, did spend time staying with the Lawrences. Murry was to write later, regarding these experiences, "Here (with the Lawrences)....the heights are always wuthering."
Mansfield also had choice words regarding D.H. and Frieda, "I don't know which disgusts one worse--when they are very loving and playing with each other or when they are roaring at each other and he is pulling out Frieda's hair and saying, 'I'll cut your throat, you bitch.'" Sounds like such an affectionate marriage, doesn't it?

At any rate, Lawrence's plans for a quartet among Mansfield, Murry, and Frieda went awry. In his novel, Women in Love, he is able to "live" out his fantasy. In real life, things were different. He did manage to coerce a befuddled Murry into swearing an oath of
"blood brothership" (a scene that's echoed in Women in Love). However, Murry and Mansfield only stayed with the Lawrences from April until mid-June. The year, lest you wonder, was 1916.

I did not know that Dorothy Sayers was bi-sexual either. Where
did you find this out about good ole Dorothy, Eric? Goodness, she had a child out of wedlock (by a married man--didn't know he was married at the time, however....)
and dedicated herself to writing on the subject of religious theology in her later years. One can only imagine what secrets she disclosed to her priest at confession (she was a devout Catholic).

I agree regarding reading books by authors whose sexuality you
identify with. I am a heterosexual lass myself; so, books by
heterosexual men would be in order, wouldn't they? Thankfully,
I was not so deluded to imagine that the male/female relationships
that Lawrence depicts in his novels are "normal," by any means.
Heavens, taking his books too much to heart might be enough to make a girl enter a nunnery (and I'm not Catholic).

~Titania