Faggots

There was a point where I wanted to start reading classic gay literature. I remember seeing Larry Kramer's FAGGOTS on the shelf at a local Borders, but decided to get it another time. I have read his fantastic play THE NORMAL HEART years ago, just when I came out and wanted to explore gay themed writings. I finally bought FAGGOTS a weeks ago on amazon. All I have to say is WOW!!!! This is not just a "walk in the park" kind of read. This is a book which really slaps you in the face. Larry Kramer does NOT (and he really doesn't) hold back ANYTHING in the lives of gay men. The focus of the book is Fred Lemish, a 39-year old man who is looking for love. However, there were more obstacles in the world of gay men than he should have known. The issue of sex is very very exploitive. From outdoor sex, to leather, to raunch, to pig-sex, to groups, and also an explisive orgy scene. (And just you wait until the climax of the novel!!) But what Kramer shows is how obsessed sex is with gay men. Many scenes take place in gay clubs, which many sexual activities occur. I did not mind the many characters in the book. Even though Kramer makes Fred Lemish the hero, we also observe many others in the gay lifestyle. At first is may seen complicated. BUT as the novel progresses I was able to follow and know the characters in the book. The nover was written in 1978, just before the AIDS crisis began. HOWEVER, after I read this book, I thought--Could this REALLY happen today?? I felt it still…

Boy, this was a bit of a marathon to get through, but I masochistically made myself do so. I think this book may have turned me off to men and gay men in particular for awhile (and I'm one of them). Since I've been reading it, my libido has disappeared. I hope it comes back. How could these people have behaved this way? I've always been turned on by subtlety and mystery. I must be a unicorn. Also, this book seems to mainly be about privileged, upper-class New York gays, with the exception of a couple of younger guys who are preyed upon because of their looks. It's really quite sickening in many ways. One wonders, did these elite New York gays of that era care about anything besides the raunchiest sex they could possibly have? It seems they were using sex for some deep, un-satiated inner hunger that could never be filled. Kind of like the Buddhist concept of the "hungry ghost." I guess maybe I really didn't miss out on as much as I thought I did, as I've often looked longingly at this era and wished I could have lived then. But this book presents little more than narcissism and utterly unchecked lust and hedonism. I'll be glad when it begins to recede from my consciousness.

I tried this novel 10 years ago and put it down after 25 pages. Too choppy, too crazy I thought. Picked it up again and was hooked for some reason. I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of pleasure, sex, etc lately... so the novel worked into that train of thought. First, this book is insane. You will not make it through unless you embrace the insanity at least a little. It’s not like other novels. You have to allow yourself to go back to the 70s gay world, orgies, and most of all Kramer’s idiosyncratic angry interpretation of that era. After a while his attitude starts to rub off on you. You begin to think in short staccato, angry sentences. You begin to think it’s ok to curse and refer to genital body parts every sentence. It’s a little fun actually. Imagine a sexual act so depraved you don’t want to think it. It’s in Kramer. After a while I started to wonder if this book is really satire or if it’s just Kramer having fun describing zany 70s porn scenes. A guy being lifted off the ground and spraying on the wall while being done from behind by a giant black guy. Another guy cleaning it off the wall frantically. Seems more like entertainment than satire, but I guess the line is fine. I liked it enough to start Kramer’s “The American People”. One thing you learn from him is that anger can be a constructive force. I can see this in his writing alone. It’s like “get the words out, say f*** if you have to multiple times for effect, then keep going...”. Interesting…

The telling of a close knit group of friends in a time before AIDS Epidemic hit in New York City. Larry Kramer introduces individuals who relate to each us of as if we were intimate pals or lovers. The characters stories intertwine with relationships including sexual escapades and cheap tricks in a dark place we all desire if we were lucky enough to get caught with pants pulled down. I read reviews that some people thought Larry Kramer sold out because he was honest in his storytelling which was a brave act. Nothing in life is guaranteed but he wrote this a few years prior to the AIDS Crisis hit in full force. We remember what the good old days were even if we weren't born prior. You connect with some characters as a few others you become disgusted. Kramer writes honestly. A true documentation of that generation.

Larry Kramer is a very important figure in American gay history. He wrote the screenplay for the homoerotic Women in Love, one of the first AIDS plays The Normal Heart and this, his only novel. I read it when it came out in 1978. I found it very readable but problematic. It purports to be a serious satire of gay men unable to form real romantic relationships because of their hedonism and self absorption. In the 70s that applied to straight people too though. Kramer starts his story with one character, a man entering middle age, then veers off into multiple stories with characters of various ages, including a promiscuous adolescent. Kramer knows how to hold onto attention, which is half the battle. The other half though, he’s a little shaky on. The part where you care about the characters. Although some of the satire works and is clever, much of the mini-stories are so outrageous they offset the seriousness that I presume Kramer was trying to get across. Case in point that adolescent boy. He’s a runaway who quickly absorbs into child pornography and the party circuit. He comes across as a cartoon. He’s so narcissistic and egotistical that what would be a harrowing story in another novel here functions as a pornographic satire. The seriousness is drowned out by the shallowness of the characterization and extreme sexual descriptions. The first middle aged man, who started the story, turns into a whiner in the end. As I said the book is interesting, but literature it’s not.