Aaron Thomas > Recent Status Updates

Now my favorite of Baldwin's novels. This is gorgeous.

I've moved fully into hate-mode with this book. I'm gonna finish it, but why are all of the characters awful people? The narrator, who manages to be not at all self-critical isn't the worst of the characters, but he basically has no personality of his own, as far as I can tell. He understands everything by examining how others evaluate him. What will grandma think? What will the cute boy think? Who cares.

BRITTEN: It seems no one wants us.
AUDEN: Why should they? Most people are ignorant. Most people have no taste.

This book is annoying me for lots of reasons but the chief one is that it's obvious that the narrator is keeping a very important plot point from us for reasons that seem to have only to do with the author wanting to surprise us later. The character spends his time thinking and talking to himself, and keeping information from yourself makes NO sense. I am annoyed for other reasons, but this FALSENESS is the worst.

One Hour Only is sweet and smart.

Love Suicides in the Women's Temple contains a really intriguing homosexual love plot. The young man (he's 19) leaves his older male lover to go be with his 18-year-old girlfriend. But there is a lot of weeping all around, and the male-male sex in the Buddhist temple between older priests and younger pages is taken for granted by Chikamatsu, and is even the source of a good deal of comedy.