Reviewing the Book Review at 125

Last month (scroll down), I posted an item here about the New York Times Book Review's ambitious plans to celebrate its 125th-anniversary year. As part of that retrospective, Parul Sehgal, a staff critic and former editor at the Book Review, has delved into the archives to critically examine its legacy in full. I found the resulting critique, "Reviewing the Book Review," fascinating, but her examples of how poorly the Times (along with many other literary publications, to be fair) treated the LGBTQ community until recently are particularly salient (if painful). 

For instance, Carlos Baker's review of Truman Capote's 1948 first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, ends with this putdown: "The story of Joel Knox did not need to be told, except to get it out of the author's system." Even more savage is Rebecca West's 1974 takedown of Conundrum, Jan Morris's landmark memoir about her gender transition. Throughout her review, West refers to the author as Mr. Morris, sneering: "One feels sure she is not a woman." (!)

RIP, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet, publisher and activist who founded the famous City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, died yesterday at the age of 101. Though straight, Ferlinghetti was practically a patron saint for gay authors like Allen Ginsberg (standing trial on obscenity charges for publishing Howl in 1956), as well as many of the Beat writers. Here are obituaries from the San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, New York Times and Guardian. 

Where Everyone Knows You're...

My thanks to Octavio Roca for sharing this Hazlitt.net interview with Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of the brand-new book, Gay Bar: Why We Went Out. I found myself nodding in agreement with some of Lin's comments, then shaking my head in vigorous disagreement with others, so I'm not sure how much I'd like his book. But I'm glad I read the interview, at least.

Another Perspective on "The Color Purple"

Today's New York Times contains a thought-provoking essay by Salamishah Tillet titled "Can an Abuser Make Amends? 'The Color Purple' Points the Way." Ms. Tillet weaves together several threads, but the heart of her thesis is the journey that Celie's husband Albert (M___) takes from abusing her (because he is beaten down by his father and by Jim Crow) to loving her and accepting her love in return. I seem to recall that a couple of participants in our discussion of Alice Walker's novel this past Wednesday touched on that transformation, so they may find this analysis particularly congenial.

Beware the Velvet Mafia!

A tip of the hat to Octavio Roca for alerting me to this Guardian review of a new book: The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran the Swinging Sixties, by Darrell W. Bullock. It tells the story of the people who shaped and advised the stars who sang the songs, spun the solos or thrashed the drums--many of whom were gay men. Most of us already know about Brian Epstein's role in managing the Beatles, but this book (which will be released on Feb. 25) shares the story of many others, too.

Remembering Yukio Mishima

Back in April 2009, we discussed Yukio Mishima's novel, Confessions of a Mask. While catching up on back issues of The Economist, I discovered that the Dec. 5 issue included an article reflecting on the 50th anniversary of Mishima's Nov. 25, 1970, death by seppuku (ritual suicide). It rightly traces his choice to die in such a public manner to Mishima's "obsession with pleasure, pain and homoeroticism," and observes that in one of his greatest novels, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, "a monk burns a temple because it is too beautiful. Mishima, in turn, was building his body for a final sacrifice." On a related note, there is a new documentary about the novelist's appearance before a hall of left-wing students the year before his death: "Mishima: The Last Debate."