Archive for the ‘Writers-French’ Category
In which The Gay Recluse recommends a scholarly work. Recently we heard from Scott Gunther, an old friend of ours from college (we also spent a semester together in Paris) and law school. Scott is now a French professor at Wellesley — i.e., he’s practicing as much law as we are, lol — and it […]
Filed under: Gay, Landscape, Language, Letters, Writers-American, Writers-French | 2 Comments
Tags: Academic Works, France, Homosexuality, Scott Gunther, The Elastic Closet
In which The Gay Recluse remembers Sergio Leone. Recently we watched the director’s cut of Once Upon a Time in America, Sergio Lione’s epic Jewish/New York City gangster movie from 1984. When originally released in the United States, the producers imposed a chronological sequence onto the movie to shorten it, whereas Lione intended it to […]
Filed under: Dream, Film, Gay, History, Memory, Writers-French | 1 Comment
Tags: Bad Film Scores, Death in Venice, James Woods, Jewish Stereotypes, Luchino Visconti, Once Upon a Time in America, Robert De Niro, Sergio Leone
In which The Gay Recluse loves Robert Bresson. In Diary of a Country Priest (1951), Robert Bresson offers us a portrait of a beautiful and painfully sensitive young priest who has just arrived to his new parish. For reasons that are never quite explained, the priest is mocked and detested by the local citizens; those […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Film, Gay, Search, Sickness, Stereotypes, Writers-French | 2 Comments
Tags: Counts, Diary of a Country Priest, Farm Girls, Grief, Priests, Robert Bresson, The Dark Ages
In which The Gay Recluse watches French film. In Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket, the young (and kinda hot, in an aloof, cerebral way) lead is given to wandering the streets of Paris, looking into the eyes of men with whom he has the briefest and most exhilarating (but ultimately soulless) encounters. Surprise: at least superficially, this […]
Filed under: Addiction, Film, Longing, Obsession, Writers-French | 4 Comments
Tags: Dark Ages, Gay Film, Pickpocket, Robert Bresson
In which The Gay Recluse loves The Manhattan Times. Hey, so The Manhattan Times wrote a charming (if we say so) piece on The Metropolis Case. If you’ve never read the uptown weekly, you’re missing out (and really, we’re not just saying that!). In this week’s issue alone, there are excellent articles about Andy Linares […]
Filed under: Animals, Literature, The Gay Recluse, The Russian Blue, Washington Heights, Writers-American, Writers-French | 4 Comments
Tags: Beatrice, Book Deals, Novels, The Manhattan Times, The Metropolis Case, Uptown
In which The Gay Recluse incurs the wrath of Stephanie. Remember how we took on Milan Kundera for writing homophobic blather in The Curtain, his highly acclaimed book of essays about the art of novel-writing? In which he says that Albertine was “killed” for him when he learned that the Proust character was based on […]
Filed under: Drivel, Letters, Sickness, Stereotypes, The Gay Recluse, Writers-French | 4 Comments
Tags: Anger, Homophobia, Milan Kundera, The Curtain, Unimportant Crap
In which The Gay Recluse compares and contrasts. Recently we stumbled across a review of The Curtain, Milan Kundera’s 2007 collection of essays about the art of the novel. We found the review notable 1) for its pretentious language and 2) for its failure to acknowledge what is really a rather shockingly homophobic passage in the book. Let’s start with the […]
Filed under: Conspiracy, Dissonance, Drivel, Language, Literature, Pessimism, The Gay Recluse, Writers-French | 14 Comments
Tags: Critics, Homophobia, Milan Kundera, The Curtain
On Orchids
In which The Gay Recluse admires orchids. Orchids have a reputation for being “difficult” plants, which is one reason we love them. We always feel a little sad to see them on display in office buildings, knowing that as soon as the blooms begin to show a little fatigue, the entire plant will almost certainly […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Dissonance, Orchids, Pessimism, The Gay Recluse, Writers-French | 4 Comments
Tags: Huysmans, Office Buildings, Orchids
In which The Gay Recluse ponders a sampling of recent search terms used to find the very pages you are now reading. Note: All search terms listed are in the exact form provided by WordPress.com, which is the host (at least for a while) of this blog. Hyperlinks to relevant posts included. Search: disaster + […]
Filed under: Architecture, Gay, Politicians, Search, Stereotypes, Technology, The Gay Recluse, The Times, Writers-American, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Baudelaire, Bully, Cascadilla, Cornell, Cuties, Daniel Jones, Dead City, Disaster Footage, Don McLean, ESPN, Fiction, Gay Bears, Gaydar, Herbert Muschamp, Huckabee, Modern Love, Pottery, Spacemen 3, Spleen, Suicide, sweeties, Terry Bradshaw, Toothpaste
Recently we arranged a visit to the doctor, who in frantic tones described the many maladies he had encountered just that morning in his other patients. “One young man just contracted ____, which means he will probably not live more than _____; meanwhile the drugs I prescribed for Ms. _____are not exactly helping with the […]
Filed under: Capitalism, History, Politicians, Sickness, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baudelaire, Medicine, Spleen, Symbolism, United States
On Beatrice
When the russet hues of the setting sun stream through our western window, as happened today, it is quite possible to imagine Beatrice in the distorted, filtered light, contemplative and hovering as if she were still there, peering into the distance, longing for something to take her away. The first time we saw her, however, […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Dream, Drivel, Good Rock, Memory, Orchids, Resignation, Sickness, The Russian Blue, The Times, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: 9/11, Animal Medical Center, Baudelaire, Beatrice, Candy Darling, Cannanes, Cats, Dante, Daphne Merkin, Death, Lipidosis, Love, Robert Moses, Russian Blue
In reading great works of literature, we are sometimes struck by the presence of what could be termed a “gay voice.” It is a voice that resonates with perspective of the sexually-oriented “outsider,” so that we come away with an understanding (and it does not have arrive by way of a literal representation) that “heterosexuality” […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drivel, Gay, Infrastructure, Sickness, The Gay Recluse, The Times, Writers-American, Writers-British, Writers-French, Writers-German | 1 Comment
Tags: A.O. Scott, Gay, Henry James, Herman Melville, Marcel Proust, Michael Kimmelman, Peter Nadas, Susan Sontag, Thomas Mann, Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf
There was a sleeping man, presumably homeless, in the subway station; as we approached, he turned over and gazed at us with eyes like those of a beaten animal, which is to say both fearful and imploring. He cleared his throat and began to speak in a surprisingly deep and resonant voice, which echoed in […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Dream, Infrastructure, Subway, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baudelaire, History, MTA, NYC, Spleen, United States
Is there any doubt that one did not lead directly to the other, that our collective misery in Bush’s incapable but malevolent hands is only slightly more extreme than it was twenty years ago when we were in the same situation with Reagan? Those who defend Reagan but criticize Bush display a disregard of history […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, History, Philosophers, Politicians, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Arthur Schopenhauer, George W. Bush, Jean-Jaques Rousseau, Ronald Reagan
On Albus Dumbledore
Last night at the midtown bistro ______, we were pleased to find Des Esseintes at the bar, his thin hand clutched around a tumbler of amber-colored liquid. We asked about this, and he confirmed it was a single highland malt from the ____ distillery, which he had long professed to be the most burnished yet […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Dream, Gay, Opera, Writers-British, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Albus Dumbledore, Aristocracy, Opera, Paparazzi, Whiskey
Whenever the gay recluse leaves home, we find our dreams inhabited by those we have left behind. Several times in the passing nights we feel the slight pressure of paws walking across the terrain of the bed, pausing now and again to balance on our legs, as if to ask us if anything we have […]
Filed under: Dream, The Russian Blue, Travel, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baudelaire, Dream, Russian Blue, Spleen, The Clock
In the introduction to the Emile Zola work Nana — which we have recently been reading — we are given the following insight into the French author: “Zola tried to establish an analogy between literature and sciences, arguing that imagination had no place in the modern world, and that the novelist, like the scientist, should […]
Filed under: Obsession, The Times, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Emile Zola, Joris-Karl Huysman, The New York Times
Today on the way up Whiteface Mountain, we stopped to take in the view and were surprised when a hawk suddenly appeared above the treeline. It flew toward us and landed on a nearby boulder; in its beak it carried a single sheet of paper, which we were equally surprised to learn — after the […]
Filed under: Drivel, Memory, Travel, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Adirondacks, Albertine, Marcel Proust, Milan Kundera, Whiteface Mountain
Today we read about Exit Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 2007), Philip Roth’s new book in which his alter ego Zuckerman is said to be (ahem) a recluse, which led us to think he might at least be on familiar terms with the sublime metaphorical/metaphysical qualities so critical to the reclusive state. We wondered if it were […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drivel, Pessimism, Resignation, Writers-American, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: 9/11, Fiction, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Philip Roth, Technology
The Gay Recluse 