Brown Pudding

Allan Bennett's The Habit of Art, which we discussed a few months ago, occasioned this reflection by acclaimed novelist and critic Philip Hensher on their relationship (Auden & Britten's), ostensibly the play's central theme. Hensher's essay will be interesting to anyone interested in either Auden or Britten—more generally librettists and composers—as well as the play itself. Even the half-awake reader will discover why I have come across it so late (and yet still recommend it).

Sweet Tooth

Serena finds a new boy friend, Jeremy, who is "attentive and skillful, and could keep going for as long as I wanted, and beyond." Perplexingly, however, he never comes. This poses a secret for her … and us. Careers separate them and a few months later she receives "a tender, regretful letter to say that he had fallen in love with a violinist he'd hear playing a Bruch concerto one evening at the Usher Hall, a young German from Düsseldorf with an exquisite tone, especially in the slow movement. [Notice how this is spun out.] His name was Manfred." So much for Jeremy in Ian McEwen's extract in the April 30th issue of The New Yorker from his forthcoming novel Sweet Tooth (does anyone remember Yves Navarre?). It should have come as no surprise since the story is in the first-person—Serena's—but I was disappointed enough to put it down. Still keep thinking of Jeremy, however, and his "sharply angled pubic bone" which made intercourse so painful that he resorted to a folded towel to pad the SAPB with. Hmm, Manfred—I wonder if he had any problem with it.

Gay Nobel Laureates

And no, not asking after Dag Hammarskjöld or other worthies, rather Nobel Laureates in Literature. Came up last night when we wondered who the first GNLIL was—more sharply the first out GNLIL. This question obviously depends on what we mean by "gay" and "out". My candidates, in chronological order, after a brief flip-thru on my iPhone, were: Thomas Mann (1929), André Gide (1947), and Patrick White (1973). Enumerate and/or discuss!

Are You My Mother?

Alison Bechdel's sequel to her Fun House which we read almost five years ago is going to be published next week. Judith Thurman's profile in last week's The New Yorker might tempt readers who don't know her work to think of it as a pre-pub puff piece. Of course it's not. Highly recommended but not available online.

I enjoyed this little confusion/confession: "I started drawing at the age everyone does—when they pick up a crayon. But most people stop, and I didn't. When I was little, I either wanted to be a cartoonist or a psychiatrist—they were conflated in my mind by all the analyst cartoons in The New Yorker."

And speaking of which, the new title reminds me of the anecdote regarding W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman shortly after they'd met, when the two of them were sorting out who was who in the psychodynamics of their relationship.

Scene: a NYC subway car. Decibel level: must shout to be heard.

AUDEN: "I am not your father, I'm your mother!"
CHESTER: "You're not my mother! I'm your mother! … You're my father!"
AUDEN: "But you've got a father! I'm your bloody mother, darling, you've been looking for her since you were four [when she died]!"

how books will survive amazon

—Jason Epstein blogging on the NYR website.

Notable 2011-2012 Books

by African-American LGBT Authors — Toni Newman in the Huffington Post.

Assaracus — a Best New Magazine

according to the Library Journal