Picos Gemeos

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I really wanted to love this book, and at first I really admired its style, its blend of English and Patois, its violence and energy. A novel not only by a queer writer, but a Jamaican one at that, about an attempted murder on Bob Marley in the 70s and its aftermath. It seemed like the kind of book I wouldn’t be able to put down. I was willing to give Marlon James a lot of credit and let him seduce me, take me on this journey.

But then something unforgivable for a novel happened: none of the characters got traction. And more: I got bored.

To me, the novel is nothing without character. Although this novel is filled with them, moving from one voice to another, none work, none seduce, none infuriate. Their language, which at first bears down on you with innovation and speed soon grows repetitive, flat, tiresome, and pointless. The ventriloquism that some reviewers claimed was the novel’s strength seemed weak to me, not fully realised.

The novel is divided in chapters narrated by different characters, spanning the 70s and 80s. I found myself checking how many more pages until a chapter came to an end, hoping the next character would engage me. The comparison with Tarantino on the book jacket is apt – there’s a love with violent language just for the sake of it, as a form of jolting the reader and keeping them interested. But swear words, rape and torture don’t make a story, don’t draw us into an inner life. Maybe the point is that these characters are already half dead and don’t have much to offer apart from their internal, malfunctioning verborrhea.

I gave up on the novel halfway, around page 386. Perhaps something clicks later on and it turns into an amazing piece of work deserving of all the reviews and awards it has received.

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Troglodyte Rose by Adam Lowe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I recently stumbled upon this novel in Wattpad, where it's available for free as a novella. I was drawn to it because it was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, an award that celebrates "the best lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender books of the year".

Troglodyte Rose is a sci-fi that feels like a mesh between Mad Max and Tank Girl. It's written in short, psychedelic sentences, mostly through the eyes of a young woman, Rose, who lives in an apocalyptic underworld with her lover Flid, an intersex (hermaphrodite) referred to in the text with the gender-neutral pronoun "per" (borrowed from Margaret Piercy's "Woman on the Edge of Time".)

Rose and Flid are addicted to a drug that blurs reality and fantasy, and their lives are centred on stealing this drug while also dreaming of one day escaping to the overground. They nonchalantly save four princesses from a nearby world early on and the princesses join them in their robberies. Like most dystopias, this one has its monsters that keep the population in check: the Justicars hunt down anyone perceived to have committed a crime and are terrifying creatures nearly impossible to destroy. Soon, one of them is after Rose, Flid and the princesses.

This was an enjoyable, punchy read that left me wanting more. Some of its zest reminded me of Poppy Z. Brite's early novels. I look forward to whatever Adam Lowe comes up with next.

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It's been years since anyone's thrown a homophobic remark at me. In fact, I can't remember the last time it happened. So I was really surprised last night when my boyfriend and I, as we'd come out of a corner shop with some wine, had a comment aimed at us by a group of guys.

We were on the same sidewalk as them so I stepped behind my boyfriend to give them way (there were three young guys followed by a couple - all in their early 20s). I got this strong feeling that they "spotted" us - their conversation stopped, they all looked at us. It happened very quickly - one of them said to me in a very effeminate way "oh hi honey, how are you" and made this move to touch me.

We just kept walking. My boyfriend didn't even hear very well what he said. As you can imagine, all sorts of scenarios started playing in my mind: that I said something back, that we got into an argument, that we got into a fight.

All in all, it was a tiny little incident. Nothing compared to what many people put up with everyday. I have a gay friend who is harassed all the time; even had someone punch him in the face once for no reason and then walk away (right in Piccadilly, with tons of people around.) And when I hear of what some guys have said to my girlfriends...

Living in the East End, you'd think I'd get this annoying stuff all the time, what with marauding Muslim gangs supposedly controlling my area, but it's never even crossed my mind. I was starting to forget I was gay! There are more and more gay people living in the East End, and this has made "us" feel more visible and part of a silent community - a group that doesn't need to feel so displaced and alone when in public (though I've also heard that homophobic attacks are on the rise here exactly because of this community's growth.)

We were in Parson's Green last night, a posh bit of West London. The home I would imagine of people with good education, who are past this sort of stuff. But I suppose young and dumb white males will always be themselves?! I felt after this encounter like everyone we walked past was a giant asshole. And very straight. The whole rah rah crowd thing.

I've been thinking since then what it must be like to get this sort of harassment fairly regularly. Either you grow a tough skin or… I don't know. What do you do with that rage and sense of unfairness inside of you?

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I found this to be a beautiful and touching retelling of the mythological love between Achilles and his faithful companion Patroclus, from their first meeting as boys into their adulthood. Miller, an Ancient Greece scholar, poured into the novel all that is known about their lives and the roles they played in the Trojan War (as told in Homer's Iliad), with a bit of creative imagination thrown into the mix. Her style is very light, full of similes that evoke the period and the gods and entities that walked the land. She tells the story through Patroclus' eyes and by the end, as the Trojan war comes to life, you can't stop reading out of fear for what could happen to these characters you've grown to know and like.

Mary Renault, who also specialised in same-sex love stories (most famously the trilogy about Alexander the Great and Hephaestion's love) would have adored this novel. Maybe Miller is her natural successor? They are both fascinated by a long gone time when a man's love for another wasn't a problem as long as his duties to family and country were attended to. In Miller's novel you also get the added benefit of fantastical figures walking among men as portents of victories or disasters, or sometimes simply because they love too much the mortals they are bound to and can't escape them. This is Ancient Greece after all and tragedy is never too far away.

Teen girls have the fantastical creatures in "Twilight" to keep them up at night. Teen gay boys now have "The Song of Achilles", except that this is a very well written story that should please everyone, of all ages. I dare anyone not to be moved by the final page and I'm already playing cast director in my mind as to who should play these characters in the film version (which, if Zeus is fair, should already be in pre-production.)

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Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's hard to believe this is the first novel in the English language. It still feels very modern - to the point where I wondered how much of it was plundered by the writers of the TV show LOST. It was also the first book I ever read on an ebook, which I thought was nicely symmetrical.

A young sailor and adventurer ends up on a deserted island after a storm catches his boat as he returns to England from "the Brazils". He's already an experienced adventurer by this stage - having escaped captivity in Africa as a young man, set up his own plantation in South America and crossed the Atlantic Ocean a few times. After a dose of initial good luck (his shipwrecked boat is not too far in the water and he can salvage quite a few useful items), he settles down to survival and exploration of the island.

It's written as a memoir, probably based on the real experiences of a sailor in the 1600s. Because the voice is so convincing and attentive to the details of the experience, suspense is notched up and intensified as one obstacle after another appears in Crusoe's life. (Did Defoe invent the Adventure Genre?) It's also a fascinating read if you put on your post-colonial/queer lit glasses: Crusoe goes into some length about the slave trade and the differences between Africans and natives in the Americas; and he also develops a passionate and intense love for a captive he saves - Friday - that stands at odds with his complete lack of mention or desire for any women. Well, after more than twenty years on a deserted island, would you say no to a young, beautiful man whose life you save and who worships you? (This could be, though, Defoe's way of also reflecting the very well known habit of sailors having love affairs with other men because of so much time spent without any women around.)

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