The Death in Venice Proposition: Mann/Cunningham/Harbach

In the past year or so there have been two novels published (Michael Cunningham’s “By Nightfall” and Chad Harbach’s “The Art of Fielding”) that had you not read “Death in Venice” might lead you to believe that it stands for the proposition that a 50yo man can just “turn gay” one day after being a lifelong non-homosexual when confronted by a younger man of exceptional beauty (in the classical sense, which just for the record is not my idea of beauty/woof). This is not AT ALL what’s going on with “Death in Venice” — which if you’ve not read it (or seen the Visconti movie), you should! — and unless I’m completely mistaken, is also not what’s going on with anyone I’ve ever met, which is why I had some issues with both novels, although I thought Cunningham’s older/younger relationship was an interesting intellectual/philosophical exercise. I’m not sure what Harbach was thinking about in terms of the gay relaish at the center of his novel because nobody seems to want to talk about it (or at least not in any interview I’ve seen), but I found the older guy problematic and the younger guy an unfortunate amalgamation of not-funny gay stereotypes/cliches that did not belong in a literary novel about serious athletes. (There’s also some very questionable language about sex acts involving men being done in “womanly” ways, which does not work on any level unless I’ve been doing something wrong all these years lol?) Which is not to say I hated the book; I really enjoyed the baseball story, it just pained me to see Harbach miss the mark sooo badly on what it means to be gay in 2012 (or even 1912, when “Death in Venice” was published), at least by any measure I could think of, and of course the book is being touted in the gay press as “gay inclusive,” which just goes to show how generally damaged/fucked up and desperate gays are for even the slightest whiff of serious literary representation. Anyway, I wrote many many more words about this topic in an essay at the Millions, if you’d care to check it out.

7 months ago 104 notes #This post is abt the gay voice in American literature

104 Notes

  1. This was featured in #Lit
  2. needsmoresalt said: LOVED your The Millions piece. Also, it made me want to ask you what you think about Guy Davenport’s writing on boy-love?
  3. peruzh reblogged this from matthewgallaway and added:
    literature. It’s weird but true.
  4. sdotmarymartha said: My favorite thing about your woof, is a dear friend of mine that I worked with for three years, would often punctuate his comments with woof- and always for men who would not be considered classically handsome.
  5. thethirdway said: FUCKING THANK YOU
  6. peterwknox said: Enjoyed your comparisons and analysis.
  7. langer said: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
  8. matthewgallaway posted this