Bodies and Souls

by John Rechy

In Bodies and Souls, Rechy paints a portrait of modern Los Angeles, "the most spiritual and physical of cities," where we meet characters like Amber, a porn superstar; Manny Gomez, a Chicano caught up in the punk-rock scene; and Dave Clinton, an aging male stripper. Epic in scope and vision, Bodies and Souls is classic Rechy.

Genres: Fiction, Gay Fiction, LGBT, Gay, Queer

432 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1983

About the author

John Rechy is an American author, the child of a Scottish father and a Mexican-American mother. In his novels he has written extensively about homosexual culture in Los Angeles and wider America, and is among the pioneers of modern LGBT literature. Drawing on his own background, he has also contributed to Chicano literature, especially with his novel The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, which is taught in several Chicano literature courses in the United States. His work has often faced censorship due to its sexual content, particularly (but not solely) in the 1960s and 1970s, but books such as City of Night have been best sellers, and he has many literary admirers.

Reviews

[Federica ~ Excusetheink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ho scoperto John per il solito caso fortuito cinque mesi fa e ora, dopo Città di notte e Numeri, termino la lettura dei suoi testi tradotti per il nostro paese. Quanta strada dobbiamo ancora percorrere, se lasciamo indietro tali prodigiosi pionieri favorendo chi fino all'anno precedente registrava video per YouTube nella sua cameretta! Non è certo se sia nato nel 1931 o nel 1934, fatto sta che John è più moderno di molti e assai più giovani. Ed è un vero scrittore: io non avrò letto le sue esatte parole, ma se già la traduzione fa sognare non posso che rivolgere ottimi pensieri verso colui che le ha prodotte. John ha intinto la penna nella volta celeste facendola approdare sulla Terra in forma cartacea. Sa cosa scrive anzi si trova lì, insieme ai personaggi che gli han dapprima bussato nel cranio perché gli venisse aperto, frementi di farsi conoscere ai loro lettori. La padronanza di linguaggio è degna di insegnanti che amano davvero la materia che hanno in mente di tramandare, spesso non riuscendovi.

Corpi e anime è il viaggio di Orin, Lisa e Jesse senza meta alcuna se non interrompere la propria esistenza e cominciare a vivere. Affidando il cuore a stelle del cinema e prendendo a prestito citazioni di opere filmiche, come tutti a diciotto anni facevamo nell'attesa che la vita giungesse a prenderci per portarci a fare un giro. Il corollario di distinte personalità dal mondo dell'hard a quello della strada saranno intervalli efficaci e mai lasciati al caso: la matassa si dipanerà nel breve spazio di mezza pagina, con l'epilogo. Arrivarci è arduo per l'infelice decisione di leggerlo in piena estate, resistendo infatti il tempo di un capitolo o due al giorno. Arrivano anche alle trenta pagine contate (mi riferisco sempre all'edizione italiana, pubblicata da Corbaccio nel 1994), ma tolti i primi leggeri scogli dettati dall'inusuale alternanza storia centrale-vita di personaggio X, il corso del romanzo procederà poi speditamente.

Mi fa sempre parecchio strano recensire un libro che il più delle volte 'finisce' con me perché fuori catalogo e non disponibile neppure in formato ebook. Pur presente su Instagram, quella di influencer è l'ultima definizione che oserei affibbiarmi, per cui anche il consiglio della ricerca nei reminders si conclude spesso ancor prima di arrivare al punto. Detto questo posso timidamente rivolgermi a chi ha la pazienza di leggere in lingua, una pulce nell'orecchio della baraonda di autori e presunti... John Rechy è solo uno scrittore omosessuale? Qui sta il bello. Ha una rara capacità di immedesimazione e scrutamento nell'animo umano da far dimenticare tutto il resto. Nei suoi scritti non mancherà mai l'uomo, né le sue origini, le passioni e i pensieri che lo distinguono da un altro o il suo percorso evolutivo. John Rechy va letto per completare il nostro viaggio, trovare chi siamo.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess as a 17 year old gay teen reading Bodies and Souls had a lasting impact on me. I had never read anything so matter-of-fact in its depiction of sexually graphic gay and straight sex. Now, re-reading it 22 years laters, it's neither as good as I remember it being nor (as I revisit Rechy's work) is Rechy as good of a writer as I thought he was. Thus, I removed a star from my initial 4 star rating that was based on my memory of reading it.

The story is fairly uneven. It opens with Orin, Lisa, and Jesse, a ragtag trio of despondent lost souls, standing on a bluff overlooking the L.A. freeway. Orin whips out a rifle and opens fire. The novel then rewinds ten days earlier as we the readers follow the events that lead this trio to commit this act of violence.

Sounds promising doesn't it? And it should have been. The problem is interpersed between the "Lost Angels" vignettes, chronicling the trio's wanderings throughout LA, are unrelated stories about random people.

These segments range from being wildly engaging and page turning to tedious, self-indulgent and pretentious. Some of the better sections for me were Mick Vale: "Mr. Universal" about a bodybuilder's who goes through a weird evening in his desperation for winning the Mr. Universal contest. And Billy and Stud: "Bitter Street Love" about an unlikely love between two male hustlers on the rough streets of Santa Monica Boulevard.

Other segments are bland, pointless, and felt incomplete. Mandy Lang-Jones: "The Lower Depths" is a poorly written sexually explicit segment detailing a newcaster screwing her camera man (Rechy is pretty awful at writing sex scenes). And by far the worst, worst, segment is the self-indulgent, pretentious, word vomit chapter The Lecturer: "On Nothing" in which a college lecturer, who is clearly suppose to be John Rechy himself, spouts off a bunch of psuedo-intellectual psycho babble to a college classroom. This segment alone is self congratulatory, ostentatious, literary masturbation. Rechy thinks highly of himself. He wants you to know this. He also wants you to know he gets off on knowing you know.

The overall story in a nutshell: Orin is on a quest to gain "proof" from Sister Woman, the elusive and hypnotic tele-evangelist whose presence has drawn him to LA (she has a pretty awful segment as well). Lisa and Jesse are hitchhikers he picks up along the way. The three form a bond and begin to explore LA awaiting the "proof". The only common thread is the trio's brief appearance in some of the segments and the brief, lackluster paragraph that concludes the novel tying everything together in a very, very loose knot.

I mean after 400+ pages of reading Rechy's overbloated writing and hamfisted metaphors of flowers, wind, bodies, souls, and his annoying use of calling men "youngmen" (something he does in almost ALL of his novels) I was expecting, hoping for some kind of conclusion that links everyone together in a huge WTF moment.

Since I has been 22 years from the last time I read this, I must say I was very pissed off at the one paragraph conclusion. I got my WTF moment but not in a good way? What was the point?

In any case, I'm still a fan of Rechy but not necessarily for his writing. Moreso for his place in literary history.

Semi-recommended.

[David Corvine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked City of Night because it was an authentic account of a lifestyle that has largely disappeared. Bodies and Souls is less interesting... it's a bit of a shambles. The vignettes of L.A. types are cliched and badly written and largely unnecessary. However the central theme of the trio was more interesting. I would have prefered it as a hundred pages of the central characters without the other sections... infact I could have done without the girl aswell. Just the Orin and Jesse would have been fine for me.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Multiple lives of Los Angeles residents -and new visitors still charmed by the ghost of Hollywood glamour- connect loosely in this long, large novel. Rechy presents early 1980s L.A. in lush descriptions, foreshadows a lot that doesn't quite deliver, and inserts some mostly unconnected short stories into the more threaded journey of three "youngpeople" in a big vintage convertible.

Rechy overuses "quotes" to describe "things" or "catch phrases." He also consistently combines the term youngman and youngwoman, despite changing POV in different stories.

The sexual tension between Jesse and Orin for Lisa (the main thread of their aimless tourism and motel tensions are the through-story) is countered by Jesse's resentful inner thoughts. Lisa conflates "all-time" vintage movie plots with the actors like a crazed fan. And Orin's obsession with a televangelist leads up to a too-late-told truth.

In between, a closeted gay stripper, a disgruntled porn actress, an ambitious TV reporter and her male hustler interviewee, a maid and her unhappy rich clients, and others have chapter/stories filled with sexual escapades and, with a few others, a bit of psychosis.

The connection all these people share, forewarned in the first chapter's flash-forward, collide like a rough cut of the film "Nashville" or a variation on "La Ronde." The Chekovian gun eventually goes off, with a big bang. Despite the eccentricities, or perhaps because of them, I have to give Rechy credit for the epic arc of this tale.

[Liam Ostermann]

This book was one of many that was seized in 1984 from the first gay bookshop in London, or anywhere in the UK, Gay's The Word as part of a policy of intimidation against 'uppity' gays and I am posting information on this event against many of the books seized by the police.

That intimidation was at the root of the 1984 events is clear when you consider that there were other John Rechy novels that had a UK publisher so were not touched, only novels like this that had yet to find a UK publisher. The hypocrisy is breath taking in its cynicism.

This is a history that should not be forgotten.

Bodies and Souls and the 1984 attempt to destroy 'Gay's The Word' the UK's first gay bookshop:

This novel was one of many 'imported' gay books which were at the centre of an infamous attempt to push UK gays back into the closet by the conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in 1984. Amazingly this event, important not only for gays but civil liberties in the UK, does not have any kind of Wikipedia entry. Because of this lack I have assembled links to a number of sites which anyone interested in free speech should read. If we don't remember our history we will be condemned to repeat it.

The genesis of the prosecution of 'Gays The Word' was the anger of homophobes to books like 'The Milkman's On His Way' by David Rees which were written for young people and presented being gay as ordinary and nothing to get your-knickers-in-a-twist over. Unfortunately there was no way to ban the offending books because censorship of literature had been laughed out of court at the 'Lady Chatterley Trial' nearly twenty years earlier. But Customs and Excise did have the ability to seize and forbid the import of 'foreign' books, those not published in the UK. As most 'gay' books came from abroad, specifically the USA, this anomaly was the basis for the raid on Gays The Word and the seizure of large amounts of stock. The intention was that the legal costs, plus the disruption to the business, would sink this small independent bookshop long before it came to trial. That it didn't is testimony to the resilience of Gay's The Word, the gay community and all those who supported them.

The best, not perfect, but only, guide to the event is at:

https://www.gayinthe80s.com/2012/10/1...

There follows a series of links to the event connected with an exhibition at the University of London:

The background:

https://www.london.ac.uk/news-events/...

The 142 books seized:

https://exhibitions.london.ac.uk/s/se...

The history of the prosecution:

https://www.london.ac.uk/news-events/...

The fight to clarify the law after the prosecution was dropped:

https://www.london.ac.uk/news-events/...

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rechy feels that this is his magnum opus and hopes it will be seen that way in the future. I believe he is right. It's a great book. The criticisms of it are not valid. The chapter "On Nothing" is beautiful, gorgeous. It's not nonsense at all. It's truly amazing. The scene at the end is not senseless. Orin pulls the trigger accidentally, not on purpose. Yes he kills off his characters at the end, but this happens in a lot of books, no. How exactly does Moby Dick end again? All the characters getting killed off, right?

This not gay literature. It is sad that Rechy is pigeonholed as a gay or Chicano novelist. He is so much more than that. But he gets ghettoized, so the only lit analyses you see of his work are in from weak fields like Queer Studies. I saw a recent review of this book from a Queer Studies scholar which tried to make the case that this entire book was about male homosexuality! Most of the characters are not even gay (which is a great reason for a straight person to read this book).

Apparently all the straight characters have lousy sex, which means? Gay sex is better? No idea. This reviewer also saw male homosexuality everywhere he looked in the book. Even the straight characters are filled with male homosexual desires. That was news to me. This is called solipsism. The reviewer is gay, so he sees gay stuff everywhere, even where it doesn't exist.

Rechy does this do, implying that straight characters have gay feelings when clearly they don't. I'm sure Rechy gets turned on by men in showers. But trust me, straight men simply do not. This is solipsism. Gay men get turned on by men in showers, so obviously straight men do too. This is a typical human inability to see things from another point of view. We all have this tendency. Women have a hard time seeing the male POV and think that if something is true for women it must be true for men too. Same with Rechy and gay men.

All of the characters are interesting. I didn't find any of them boring. I liked Stud and Billy. I didn't think they were illiterate morons. I liked the three teenagers. I didn't think they were poorly drawn at all. In fact, Rechy draws female characters very well. Does being gay have a role in this? He drew that teenage girl almost perfectly and that's not an easy mind to get into for anyone.

Highly recommended. This is up there with City of Night. A neglected masterpiece.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was strange. I am a big fan of multiple perspectives in a book, but this one did not deliver. Trying to tie it all together in the last paragraph of the book was not believable or conclusive in any way. It took away from the narrative, in my opinion. I thought it would be much more powerful leaving these stories scattered and mysterious and unconnected to emphasize how people in the same city are living vastly different lives and never meet. Or, if you’re going to connect them, perhaps make some interesting commentary or put any effort into their crossovers besides they happen to be on the same highway at the same time. For instance, the contrasts drawn between the two housekeeper vignettes are well done, because their crossovers working in the same house add meaning and commentary on racism, classism, and tradition (in the sense of heteronormativity and the family structure).

The major conflict the trio is trying to navigate does not end up being resolved in a satisfying way, nor is it really that interesting or make much sense. The vignettes alternating with the main narrative are sometimes interesting, containing beautiful prose, but sometimes terrible. In general, I don’t find Rechy to be very talented at writing realistic (or interesting) sex scenes, which is a problem when nearly every chapter contains sexual content. His commentary on the idealized body, the cruising scene, and class differences were thought provoking and memorable. His paragraph-less ramblings about religion/sex/I’m not even sure(?) were difficult to read and borderline indecipherable.

[Adam Dunn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought it would never end.
This isn't Rechy at his best, he's done this all before, and better. The slave auction was done better in The Sexual Outlaw: A Documentary, the hustler scenes done better in The Coming of the Night. Even the Sister Woman plot was done better in Paul Monette's Afterlife, although it should be noted this book was written first.
I read this in LA mostly while heading to some of the places mentioned in the book. Some of the passages were likable, like the porn star, the hustlers. Most weren't. The main threesome was terrible, they seem to exist only as tour guides with no character or motivation themselves. The college lecturer was unreadable, you have to skip that section or commit suicide. I have had eye-rolling repetitiveness in Rechy's books before, but never to this level. I couldn't wait for it to be over.
The book turns itself upside-down on the last page for no apparent purpose and with little description. Was it an accident? Who knows. It's over, and that's the main thing.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book back in the very late 80s/early 90s and the paperback has never left my possession since then. I remember having a fondness for the novel, how each chapter brought you closer to a really interesting ending. For me reading this book back in the day it was a raw gritty novel that portrayed a lifestyle that I could never even imagine. There was no glitz or glamour in this Hollywood it is awful and messy.

The story of Lisa, Jesse and Orin is what binds the novel together, other characters are provided a chapter to tell their story but you are not sure for the reason until the end. Each character is well realised and believable but as a reader you want to focus on the journey of the three main leads. You really want to know why they are there and what does drive them. The other character in the book is the city of Los Angeles and Rechy pays homage by providing a deep character study. I have never been to LA but I feel I could use this book as a guide map and not get too lost.

What does let the novel down is the structure as you are never sure why these other characters pop into the narrative when they never connect with the three main leads. Waiting for the 'ah-ha' moment at the end is a poor pay off in some ways. Still some wonderful descriptions and really captures the essence of that time period.

[Mirjam · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read about what I'd just read to try to make sense of it, and it turns out that author John Rechy is notable as someone who some credit with introducing the "gay novel." This book might have been banned here or there. Those historic factors, rightly or not, make me hate this story a little less.

But that doesn't change the fact that when I finally finished the thing, a rambling, random, over-sexualized (or am I just a prude?) romp through dirty Los Angeles, I said to myself: "Not again."

Never again will I force myself to finish a book I'm thoroughly not enjoying.

Oh, the hours I wasted on this, even as I wasn't really reading at some point, skimming the in-between chapters, almost all of them stubbornly sweaty and provocative, serving a purpose that wasn't exactly surprising and nowhere as profound as intended. Sigh.

I stuck around, suffering only so I could catch up with the trio at the center of the story, who I didn't love, but whom I found interesting, whom I believed had something exciting in store.

The exciting thing turned out to be exactly what readers expect, except the motivation for it was so dismally disappointing.

Not again.

[Cassiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too much wine late at night was the perfect accompaniment to reading. It's raunchy, the plot loose and some of the characters are feebly developed, but Rechy channels Nathaneal West pitch-perfect to evoke the filthy, amazing city of Los Angeles and its inhabitants. Stunning chapters: Rechy as his own character giving a university lecture, a typical day and night in the life of an L.A. Bag lady, the making and buying of a body-building star.

[Sara Bohl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird book. Strange story line, but very original. Strange choices of words sometimes but overall good writing style. The ending ties the whole book together in two sentences and depresses me though.