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The Kissing Fish
A naive young girl in Paris becomes obsessed with one of her father's friends, a war hero. When he leaves Anne throws herself on the first man who have her, becomes pregnant, has an abortion, and becomes so disgusted with love she joins a band of Parisian "kissing fish" (young homosexuals) as playmate, mother-confessor & confidante on their travels to Venice, Pamplona, and other pleasure haunts. A startling first novel.
90 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1959
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About the author
Monique Lange
36 books1 followerMonique Lange was born on September 11, 1926. She was a writer and actress, known for La Truite (The Trout) (1982), Emmanuelle 3 (1977) and A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later (1986). She died on October 7, 1996 in Paris, France.
(from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0486171/bi...)
(from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0486171/bi...)
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 13, 2016
Unjustly forgotten, or perhaps it just never managed to establish any kind of reputation in the first place when translated into English. This is exactly the kind of text that would be ideal for New York Review Books to pluck out of obscurity: think of Bonjour Tristesse in style, brevity, and tone, only instead of wreaking havoc within her family, precocious, experience-hungry Cécile instead falls in with the queers—the “kissing fish” of the title.*
When she passed away in 1996 Lange had established herself as a novelist, screenwriter, and editor of some renown in France (similar acclaim appears to have eluded her outside of her native country); giving an almost prophetic inflection to her first novel, she had an open marriage with noted Spanish author Juan Goytisolo, allowing him to take male lovers. Set in 1946, The Kissing Fish is related in the first person by Anne, an eighteen year old who becomes helplessly (and rather inexplicably) infatuated with melancholic Bernard. After some coaxing Bernard agrees to take Anne out one evening, but it immediately proves to be a disaster, leading to a funny, sad little exchange:
It doesn’t take much imagination to infer other registers of meaning as well, but Anne resolutely attributes Bernard’s romantic disinterest to her youthful naiveté and sexual inexperience (she is a virgin when they first meet). So she settles for a platonic mentoring relationship instead, musing how “he taught me everything. Paris, painting, flamenco music, Monteverdi, dancing, and trees. He taught me everything—except love." (And this is where the reader lets out a little sigh and a rueful “oh girl.”)
If Lange’s breezy and elegantly spare literary style is clearly indebted to Françoise Sagan, then the character of Anne sometimes calls to mind the half-adventurous/half-passive heroines that populate the work of Marguerite Duras (particularly The Lover). Quickly she is zipping through a series of interesting events, with things particularly picking up once she befriends “the Boys,” a young intellectual couple named Eric and Guy. Her description of their relationship remains startling in its clear-eyed frankness:
The pair invites Anne to join them in Rome, which gives her occasion to describe their sexual behavior and promiscuous sex lives with similarly unflinching acuity (“Guy often brought home for a day or two some stupid little piece of trade who was imitating the James Dean of the moment” (28); her increasingly wry observations also provide a fascinating glimpse into the mechanisms and mores of gay life in the immediate post-war era. As Anne’s friendship with “The Boys” develops she becomes increasingly imbricated into “the secret universe of homosexuals” (28), the gay subcultures of Paris and other parts of Europe she visits.
If this all seems like classic “fag hag” behavior it most certainly is; however, Anne also views this connection as fundamentally based on a deeper congruity when she straightforwardly admits that it is “a world I enjoyed because it was as sad as mine and much more desperate than the other one” (28). Even in its brevity—it’s not a dynamic Lange explores in depth—The Kissing Fish nonetheless provides one of the best representations I’ve yet encountered of the deep kinship that can spring up between straight women and gay men (cf. my disappointment with Breakfast at Tiffany’s ).
Through it all Bernard continues to wander in and out of the narrative, the underlying impetus behind all of Anne’s behavior and questionable decisions. She is consistently disappointed, of course, leading to a series of escalating circumstances that culminate in a manner that “the wheel had come full circle."
A lovely little book that deserves to find a readership.
*A prefatory note explains that the breed of tropic fish known as “kissing fish” have “gained wide publicity from their kissing habits.” Among other things, they are known to”frequently change partners” before noting that “why they unite their lips is a mystery…” (ellipsis in the original).
[This is a condensed version of the full review posted on my blog, Queer Modernisms.]
When she passed away in 1996 Lange had established herself as a novelist, screenwriter, and editor of some renown in France (similar acclaim appears to have eluded her outside of her native country); giving an almost prophetic inflection to her first novel, she had an open marriage with noted Spanish author Juan Goytisolo, allowing him to take male lovers. Set in 1946, The Kissing Fish is related in the first person by Anne, an eighteen year old who becomes helplessly (and rather inexplicably) infatuated with melancholic Bernard. After some coaxing Bernard agrees to take Anne out one evening, but it immediately proves to be a disaster, leading to a funny, sad little exchange:
“Poor gypsy. And I was counting on your to cure me.”
“Cure you of what?”
“Cure me of the world. But I must have been crazy.”
It doesn’t take much imagination to infer other registers of meaning as well, but Anne resolutely attributes Bernard’s romantic disinterest to her youthful naiveté and sexual inexperience (she is a virgin when they first meet). So she settles for a platonic mentoring relationship instead, musing how “he taught me everything. Paris, painting, flamenco music, Monteverdi, dancing, and trees. He taught me everything—except love." (And this is where the reader lets out a little sigh and a rueful “oh girl.”)
If Lange’s breezy and elegantly spare literary style is clearly indebted to Françoise Sagan, then the character of Anne sometimes calls to mind the half-adventurous/half-passive heroines that populate the work of Marguerite Duras (particularly The Lover). Quickly she is zipping through a series of interesting events, with things particularly picking up once she befriends “the Boys,” a young intellectual couple named Eric and Guy. Her description of their relationship remains startling in its clear-eyed frankness:
"After a passionate love affair lasting two days, they slept together in an extremely narrow bed with affectionate complicity, cruising separately. Their relation was a strange one: Eric loved Guy, Guy loved Eric, but they didn’t love each other.”
The pair invites Anne to join them in Rome, which gives her occasion to describe their sexual behavior and promiscuous sex lives with similarly unflinching acuity (“Guy often brought home for a day or two some stupid little piece of trade who was imitating the James Dean of the moment” (28); her increasingly wry observations also provide a fascinating glimpse into the mechanisms and mores of gay life in the immediate post-war era. As Anne’s friendship with “The Boys” develops she becomes increasingly imbricated into “the secret universe of homosexuals” (28), the gay subcultures of Paris and other parts of Europe she visits.
If this all seems like classic “fag hag” behavior it most certainly is; however, Anne also views this connection as fundamentally based on a deeper congruity when she straightforwardly admits that it is “a world I enjoyed because it was as sad as mine and much more desperate than the other one” (28). Even in its brevity—it’s not a dynamic Lange explores in depth—The Kissing Fish nonetheless provides one of the best representations I’ve yet encountered of the deep kinship that can spring up between straight women and gay men (cf. my disappointment with Breakfast at Tiffany’s ).
Through it all Bernard continues to wander in and out of the narrative, the underlying impetus behind all of Anne’s behavior and questionable decisions. She is consistently disappointed, of course, leading to a series of escalating circumstances that culminate in a manner that “the wheel had come full circle."
A lovely little book that deserves to find a readership.
*A prefatory note explains that the breed of tropic fish known as “kissing fish” have “gained wide publicity from their kissing habits.” Among other things, they are known to”frequently change partners” before noting that “why they unite their lips is a mystery…” (ellipsis in the original).
[This is a condensed version of the full review posted on my blog, Queer Modernisms.]
May 15, 2016
A slight, teasing book that hurriedly dangles a few delicious bonbons before us then pops them back into its mouth rather stingily. As it breathlessly whizzes by with the dispatch of an animated flip book, there are about a half dozen lovely little reflective passages that give one pause, and some regret in pondering what it might have been if more amply filled out, because author Lange clearly had some talent.
Lange, who outdoes Hemingway in writerly minimalism, ironically plays out her story in much the same geographical territory (Paris and Pamplona in Spain) and with the same kind of aimless post-war aura (WWII rather than WWI).
Before I say more, Goodreads reviewer, Jesse, has written the best review of this book that will ever be, and there's no hope of me reinventing his wheel, as he digs deeply and with authority into the book's thematic meat:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The book certainly has much more interest as a "prehistoric" consideration of gay lives (even if told rather fleetingly from the perspective of an outsider) than it does as a work of pure literature. It never really approaches the level of Françoise Sagan or Marguerite Duras, two writers that it conjures for comparison.
It's Paris in 1946, and Anne, our young first-person protagonist who works at a bookshop, itches to learn about life and love, taking a somewhat passive-aggressive approach to her quest. She, of course, decides to offer up her virginity and her love to the man least interested, a pompous older artist named Bernard whose real agenda does not seem to cross her naive radar. Along the way, she drifts into the gay subculture as a sort of mascot/observer, fascinated by what seems to her an almost feral kind of existence lived by its inhabitants. The limitations of author Lange and her main character do not detract from the interesting issues arising from this "outsider" take on a community that was rarely written about at the time (particularly in a largely positive way, as here), and of the simple sheer delight in seeing such words and phrases as "straight," "queer", "cruising", "queens" and "drag queens" in a book published as long ago as 1960.
Among the so-called "Kissing Fish" she encounters are Eric and Guy, a couple with which she rooms part of the week when not with Bernard, and whose relationship is open, though not so much because of Eric's approval, but because of Guy's pursuit of promiscuity. Their story is possibly the most interesting thing in the book. A later scene in the book involving a funeral attended by all the "queens" has Eric emoting too outwardly in public, an interesting passage because it touches on the fears of the gay community of being called out as it tries to exist under the radar and because it reflects on the disappointment of Eric's mother at his orientation (the moment of epiphany for her came when she realized that her young son would never have a "real" wife). The fears of the community were justified, given the tenor of the times, when such admissions could mean jail, a record and ostracism and the predatory threats of characters like Jojo the blackmailer.
Anne sees Eric's open emotional display as something of a rebellious act, a way of forcing the issue of authenticity in a world in denial: "Queens are already a little dead to the world, and he wouldn't try to take that way out."
In her quest for acceptance and love, Anne twists with the wind and flows with the tide, choosing poorly in her pursuit of sexual knowledge. There is more than one abortion, a gang bang with bullfighters and other encounters as she and her cadre flits about Europe (people in this book seem to zip along the map of the continent at the drop of a hat; someone says, hey let's go to Venice or Spain, and in the next sentence they're there; it gives Voltaire's Candide a run for its money in terms of lightspeed travel).
The book has a boffo finale, I will say, in which Anne's eyes finally open and she's able to move on, having gained some maturity.
This reminded me a bit of the kind of book that the Grove Press used to publish, transgressive for the time and typically short in length. The publisher in this case was Criterion. As Goodreads reviewer Jesse suggests, this would be a good candidate for re-publication by the New York Review of Books. Having said that, I wouldn't consider it one of their stronger titles, but certainly one worthy of consideration for its sociological content, more so perhaps than for its literary merit.
(KevinR@Ky 2016)
Lange, who outdoes Hemingway in writerly minimalism, ironically plays out her story in much the same geographical territory (Paris and Pamplona in Spain) and with the same kind of aimless post-war aura (WWII rather than WWI).
Before I say more, Goodreads reviewer, Jesse, has written the best review of this book that will ever be, and there's no hope of me reinventing his wheel, as he digs deeply and with authority into the book's thematic meat:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The book certainly has much more interest as a "prehistoric" consideration of gay lives (even if told rather fleetingly from the perspective of an outsider) than it does as a work of pure literature. It never really approaches the level of Françoise Sagan or Marguerite Duras, two writers that it conjures for comparison.
It's Paris in 1946, and Anne, our young first-person protagonist who works at a bookshop, itches to learn about life and love, taking a somewhat passive-aggressive approach to her quest. She, of course, decides to offer up her virginity and her love to the man least interested, a pompous older artist named Bernard whose real agenda does not seem to cross her naive radar. Along the way, she drifts into the gay subculture as a sort of mascot/observer, fascinated by what seems to her an almost feral kind of existence lived by its inhabitants. The limitations of author Lange and her main character do not detract from the interesting issues arising from this "outsider" take on a community that was rarely written about at the time (particularly in a largely positive way, as here), and of the simple sheer delight in seeing such words and phrases as "straight," "queer", "cruising", "queens" and "drag queens" in a book published as long ago as 1960.
Among the so-called "Kissing Fish" she encounters are Eric and Guy, a couple with which she rooms part of the week when not with Bernard, and whose relationship is open, though not so much because of Eric's approval, but because of Guy's pursuit of promiscuity. Their story is possibly the most interesting thing in the book. A later scene in the book involving a funeral attended by all the "queens" has Eric emoting too outwardly in public, an interesting passage because it touches on the fears of the gay community of being called out as it tries to exist under the radar and because it reflects on the disappointment of Eric's mother at his orientation (the moment of epiphany for her came when she realized that her young son would never have a "real" wife). The fears of the community were justified, given the tenor of the times, when such admissions could mean jail, a record and ostracism and the predatory threats of characters like Jojo the blackmailer.
Anne sees Eric's open emotional display as something of a rebellious act, a way of forcing the issue of authenticity in a world in denial: "Queens are already a little dead to the world, and he wouldn't try to take that way out."
In her quest for acceptance and love, Anne twists with the wind and flows with the tide, choosing poorly in her pursuit of sexual knowledge. There is more than one abortion, a gang bang with bullfighters and other encounters as she and her cadre flits about Europe (people in this book seem to zip along the map of the continent at the drop of a hat; someone says, hey let's go to Venice or Spain, and in the next sentence they're there; it gives Voltaire's Candide a run for its money in terms of lightspeed travel).
The book has a boffo finale, I will say, in which Anne's eyes finally open and she's able to move on, having gained some maturity.
This reminded me a bit of the kind of book that the Grove Press used to publish, transgressive for the time and typically short in length. The publisher in this case was Criterion. As Goodreads reviewer Jesse suggests, this would be a good candidate for re-publication by the New York Review of Books. Having said that, I wouldn't consider it one of their stronger titles, but certainly one worthy of consideration for its sociological content, more so perhaps than for its literary merit.
(KevinR@Ky 2016)
May 16, 2022
La reginetta della Nouvelle Vague.
E' strano che non esista la voce "Monique Lange" su Wikipedia, non dico italiana, ma neanche francese, poiché, all'inizio degli anni '60, ha pubblicato un paio di libri di successo, questo "I pescigatto" e il successivo "I platani", nonché una successiva biografia di Edith Piaf che fu tradotta in italiano. Ha lavorato a lungo per Gallimard, occupandosi di diritti stranieri, fu amica di Jean Genet e moglie dello scrittore spagnolo Juan Goytisolo. Mi sono stati regalati, in edizione originale Einaudi del 1960, questo "I pescigatto" e "I platani". In italia adesso si trova soltanto "I pescigatto", ristampato da Cargo ed., mentre "I platani" (che ho letto subito dopo questo e di cui non vi è traccia da nessuna parte, tanto che ho inviato la richiesta ad Anobii da vari giorni ma ancora non ho ricevuto risposta) è da lungo fuori stampa.
Il secondo paragrafo del romanzo è questo:
“Avevo diciotto anni. Ce l'avevo con tutti perché ero grassa e brutta,i miei occhi si riempivano di lacrime per nulla. Ero di un sentimentalismo disgustoso. Mi credevo generosa e non pensavo che a me stessa, mescolando la miseria del mondo con la mia stupidaggine, sempre pronta a compatirmi attraverso gli altri”.
Ecco, questa è la storia di Anne, che torna a Parigi dopo sette anni di vita coloniale, e comincia la sua vita e le sue scoperte sessuali (che spaziano da Parigi, a Venezia, a Pamplona) coadiuvandosi dell'aiuto dei Pescigatto. Chi sono? Nient'altro che i suoi amici pedé, che la aiutano nel distrarsi dalla sua ossessione di nome Bernard e le fanno scoprire un mondo sotterraneo di locali notturni e vacanze particolari.
Il romanzo è scritto con uno stile asciutto e preciso, dialoghi secchi e brillanti, osservazioni tutt'altro che scontate. Una buona opera prima che merita di essere riscoperta, come pure il successivo romanzo, "I platani", che ho gradito ancora di più.
E' strano che non esista la voce "Monique Lange" su Wikipedia, non dico italiana, ma neanche francese, poiché, all'inizio degli anni '60, ha pubblicato un paio di libri di successo, questo "I pescigatto" e il successivo "I platani", nonché una successiva biografia di Edith Piaf che fu tradotta in italiano. Ha lavorato a lungo per Gallimard, occupandosi di diritti stranieri, fu amica di Jean Genet e moglie dello scrittore spagnolo Juan Goytisolo. Mi sono stati regalati, in edizione originale Einaudi del 1960, questo "I pescigatto" e "I platani". In italia adesso si trova soltanto "I pescigatto", ristampato da Cargo ed., mentre "I platani" (che ho letto subito dopo questo e di cui non vi è traccia da nessuna parte, tanto che ho inviato la richiesta ad Anobii da vari giorni ma ancora non ho ricevuto risposta) è da lungo fuori stampa.
Il secondo paragrafo del romanzo è questo:
“Avevo diciotto anni. Ce l'avevo con tutti perché ero grassa e brutta,i miei occhi si riempivano di lacrime per nulla. Ero di un sentimentalismo disgustoso. Mi credevo generosa e non pensavo che a me stessa, mescolando la miseria del mondo con la mia stupidaggine, sempre pronta a compatirmi attraverso gli altri”.
Ecco, questa è la storia di Anne, che torna a Parigi dopo sette anni di vita coloniale, e comincia la sua vita e le sue scoperte sessuali (che spaziano da Parigi, a Venezia, a Pamplona) coadiuvandosi dell'aiuto dei Pescigatto. Chi sono? Nient'altro che i suoi amici pedé, che la aiutano nel distrarsi dalla sua ossessione di nome Bernard e le fanno scoprire un mondo sotterraneo di locali notturni e vacanze particolari.
Il romanzo è scritto con uno stile asciutto e preciso, dialoghi secchi e brillanti, osservazioni tutt'altro che scontate. Una buona opera prima che merita di essere riscoperta, come pure il successivo romanzo, "I platani", che ho gradito ancora di più.
July 27, 2019
Quite short, but vaguely similar to the novella Giovanni’s Room in set and setting, as well as parallel themes. Beautifully written and very simple, the ending is short and sweet and satisfying.
September 6, 2024
every page is coatable coats. beautifully written. i could masturbate to this.
December 23, 2021
This book has an incredible “voice”.
But I’m somewhat afraid that certain things were lost in the translation from French to English. I found this book in the basement of my new house and decided to read it. I started it yesterday so definitely this is not a long read.
The story is great, I love how much traveling the narrator/main protagonist does with “the boys”.
My favorite part is how distinctly feminine she is compared to all the men in her life, including the drag queens. Her idea that women just disgust men is sad but so true sometimes within and without this story. However, her naivety is really what stops her from finding love. Her love for Bernard is all consuming and the things he says to her are perfect, and he seems to her to be a man that she wants to find love with.
The ending of this story finds her finally wanting to confront the person who Bernard desires over her, and it turns out to be a man. Honestly, I wasn’t surprised. And it’s easy to say “why didn’t he just tell her instead of leading her on for years?” But the time setting and the controversy of being gay during this period probably had something to do with that. In the end, she finds freedom from her love for Bernard.
But I’m somewhat afraid that certain things were lost in the translation from French to English. I found this book in the basement of my new house and decided to read it. I started it yesterday so definitely this is not a long read.
The story is great, I love how much traveling the narrator/main protagonist does with “the boys”.
My favorite part is how distinctly feminine she is compared to all the men in her life, including the drag queens. Her idea that women just disgust men is sad but so true sometimes within and without this story. However, her naivety is really what stops her from finding love. Her love for Bernard is all consuming and the things he says to her are perfect, and he seems to her to be a man that she wants to find love with.
The ending of this story finds her finally wanting to confront the person who Bernard desires over her, and it turns out to be a man. Honestly, I wasn’t surprised. And it’s easy to say “why didn’t he just tell her instead of leading her on for years?” But the time setting and the controversy of being gay during this period probably had something to do with that. In the end, she finds freedom from her love for Bernard.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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