– XLI –

Education is not everything, but it is a component of opportunity. At the very least: it makes you more interesting.  

Edmund White Dies Aged 85

Hello Gentle Reader,

While it’s not a term that I appreciate or endorse, regardless of the younger generations attempts at remediation of it, The Chicago Tribune is correct in defining Edmund White as “the godfather of queer lit[erature],” a sentiment echoed by Alan Hollinghurst, who described White as “The Patron Saint of Queer Literature.” More specifically, White brought the gay experience to forefront as a serious literary topic and discussion. While not necessarily gentrified to the point making it more agreeable with the prevailing ideas of romance and sexual relations; White’s work did abandon the shock value transgressions of Jean Genet, and instead embraced a more eloquent and measured commentary on the gay experience and love, both within the confines of oppression and need to confirm or fit in, to the freedom of liberation with all its boundless beauty. In order to do this, Edmund White often mined his own catalogue of experiences. His monumental trilogy, which started with “A Boy’s Own Story,” recounts the coming out tale of a gay adolescent during the 1950’s, this would later be followed up with “The Beautiful Room is Empty,” and “The Farewell Symphony,” which chart the young man’s course through the 60’s and into the horrors of the AIDs pandemic as he approaches middle age. The hallmark of Edmund White’s career was a luxuriance of style, which has been praised by both Alan Hollinghurst and Colm Tóibín, who both agreed that White’s candor and openness regarding discussions and descriptions of sex and sexual exploits, does not need to be framed withing a pornographic manner, but can be discussed within the context of beauty and romance as its heterosexual counterpart is. This may also come from the fact that Edmund White was as much a scholar as he was purveyor of novels, having written biographies on Arthur Rimbaud, Marcel Proust, and the aforementioned Jean Genet. In 1977 he co-wrote the book “The Joy of Gay Sex,” to provide a how-to guide for the other half, and took its cues from the monumental book “The Joy of Sex.” Of course, “The Joy of Gay Sex,” and the subsequent Gay Liberation, was cut short by the arrival of AIDs, which burned through the gay community like wildfire. Through essays, novels, biographies, and memoir, Edmund White continued to curate an environment, whereby homosexuality could be discussed within any terms, be it literary or otherwise; but, as Colm Tóibín also pointed, White was a great surveyor of city life, a true connoisseur of the urbane, and his work could capture the colour, light, and personality of a city. His legacy is monumental in a myriad of writers choosing to explore such relationships and lifestyles. “A Boy’s Own Story,” is a classic alongside James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room,” and Jean Genet’s “Our Lady of the Flowers,” which inadvertently or otherwise set the foundation for a whole generation of future writers to write about gay relationships and love, with all its nuances and complexities.

Rest in Peace Edmund White.

 
Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary