Buy Love in a Dark Time and Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature

Love in a Dark Time and Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature

Book Trade Paperback

More Info

Usually ships in
5-10 days

$13.49 (10% off)
List Price: ~~$14.99~~

When new special editions or price reductions are announced.

Review

In Love in a Dark Time, Colm Toibin examines the life and worrk of some of the greatest and most influential writers of the past two centuries, figures whose homosexuality remained hidden or oblique for much of their lives. Either by choice or neccessity, the larger world couldn't know about their sexuality, but in their private lives, and in the spirit of the work, the laws of desire defined their expression.

This is a celebration reveling in Thomas Mann, James Baldwin, Elizabeth Bishop and contemporary poets such as Thom Gunn and Mark Doty. Through their work, Toibin is able to come to terms with his own inner desires - his interest in secret erotic energy, his admiration for courageous figures and his abiding fascination with sadness and tragedy.

Product Format Information

Book Trade Paperback: $13.49

Availability: Usually ships in
5-10 days
Catalog #: BT1885083

Publisher : Scribners

Keywords

Biographical/Autobiographical, Book, Gay Male, Gay/Lesbian, History, Writer/Writing

Genres

Biography/Autobiography/Memoirs, Books

Customer Reviews

Colm Tóibín, May His Tribe Increase!

Grady Harp wrote on 11/28/2010:

Once captured by the liquid, informed prose of Colm Tóibín it is difficult to ignore anything this brilliant writer has written. Still under the spell of 'The Master' and having just sadly finished 'The Story of the Night' (that novel could have been extended another 300 pages!), it seemed only appropriate to read an investigative work, just to see how this man's mind absorbs and dissects the world of reality instead the one of fiction.

Happily LOVE IN A DARK TIME is as fascinating a read as his novels. Tóibín searches the lives of many writers and artists asking how did/does their sexuality inform what they create. After a few historic references regarding the gay aspects of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Melville, Joyce, Lorca, Yeats, Kafka, Proust, Gide et at, he analyses biographies (example: Lionel Trilling's bio of EM Forster) that appear unaware of the subject's sexual proclivities! That thrusts us into the exploration of history before the term 'homosexual' was created, regards the aspects of 'the gay being', and proceeds to introduce postulates as to how the works created by nine particular people were deeply influenced by their sexuality, occult or accepted.

What then follows is a richly detailed and elegant series of essays on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Roger Casement (of The Black Diaries), Thomas Mann, Francis Bacon (the painter), Elizabeth Bishop, James Baldwin, Thom Gunn, Pedro Almodovar, and Mark Doty. In each essay Tóibín takes a new stance of investigation, finding incidents or traits in the lives of those discussed that allow 'stories' to develop naturally.

For those who have read 'The Master' (Tóibín's own "biography" of Henry James) this series of highly researched essays will come as no surprise. Tóibín's mind is rich with a plethora of books read and a penetrating mind that examines art from a vantage peculiar to a man that has arrived at the top of the heap in the field of literature. For enjoyable and informative reading, LOVE IN DARK TIME is a pearl. And reading Tóibín's older works only serves to whet the appetite for his next opus. Highly Recommended.

Grady Harp