Querelle

by Jean Genet

The paths of two very different men collide after each commits a murder

Genres: Fiction, Queer, France, LGBT, Gay, Classics, Literature

Paperback

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Jean Genet was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His work, much of it considered scandalous when it first appeared, is now placed among the classics of modern literature and has been translated and performed throughout the world.

Reviews

[Carolyn Gandouin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was reading this book on the train, and the lady seated next to me suddenly glared at me in indignant self-righteousness and hissed 'that's DISGUSTING.'

[Meike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crime, depravity, eroticism, betrayal - welcome to one of the most important transgressive texts ever written, and of course it's French. Jean Genet, lauded as Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr by no other than Jean-Paul Sartre, tells the story of a violently nihilistic sailor called Georges Querelle (quarrel) who is so hypnotic that everyone becomes mesmerized by him (go figure). In Brest, he visits the brothel run by his brother's lover and murders his accomplice in a drug smuggling scheme. Then, he falls in love with Gil, another murderer...

Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of explicit scenes dealing with sex and violence, and the whole thing plays out in a hazy, sexual atmosphere. The underlying tensions revolve around ideas of masculinity and homo-eroticism, most prominently in a scene in which Querelle intentionally loses a game to be able to have sex with a man. The idea of the double is played out in Querelle and his brother, whom he later projects on Gil, his love interest, and questions of power and sex are negotiated between Querelle and his boss, Lieutenant Seblon, another sexually demonstrative gay character. The whole text, while it can be read as a crime novel or, if you really want to, a love story, is pointing to the mythological, a tale of a-morality where love and betrayal are two sides of the same coin, and where daring queer aesthetics are celebrated.

Genet likes his characters who cannot be condoned by moral standards, and that's the whole point: Literature is not moral indoctrination. This is the kind of writing that completely goes against the grain of current literary tendencies. Rainer Werner Fassbinder turned "Querelle de Brest" into his last film, and check out the insane visual language that conveys the homoerotic vibe that clashes with violence in the novel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc_UO...

That's the kind of classic schools will never dare to put on the syllabus.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a straight man, I sure do have a love for Gay literature and Gay authors. Genet is just an once-in-a-life-time genius. "Querelle" is a magnificent book that is so iconic that I can't imagine anyone on this planet passing this book up. And again, i have a love for the twilight world that basically slips out of the pages in this book. Everything is sexualized to the max, and it's a work of great inner-world beauty.

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Querelle is Genet's most novel-like book, if indeed anyone can call Genet a novelist. Betrayal is a theme that Genet elevates into the sublime; there is an ecstacy in betrayal that Genet enjoys beyond all else. The highest value in a bond, or a friendship, is in its being betrayed. The deeper the bond, the sweeter the betrayal.

Handsome criminals, violent and duplicitous, are also a delicious treat!

Betrayal, seduction, deceit, misplaced loyalty, murderous innocence, innocent treachery— all that and more from this banquet of cops and sailors.

This Panther edition has one of the best covers— a predatory view from behind, a sailor's naked exposed neck.

[Bram De Vriese · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in the original language. There are some really beautiful pages in here. The eroticism is very tangible. A book that can be read multiple times.

[Trodeponent · Rating 5 out of 5]

coses que m'agradaria poder ensenyar a jean genet:
- utena
- la colònia que la lady gaga volia que fes olor de semen
- el chuck bass de gossip girl
- tot l'àlbum d'ultraviolence de la llana del paer (especialment money, glory, power)
- nissaga de poder
- el carlos cuevas

absolutament tots els personatges d'aquest llibre tindrien trinxaire (grindr) avui dia sense foto de perfil i amb missatges elon masc x masc, fins i tot la popudessa de la casa de barrets. bé, potser els neulets (twink) del roger i el dédé no perquè ells serien tendrament insubmisos (aixi es van reivindicar no krissejadament un cop des de no sé quin col·lectiu lgtbiq+ alçadi).

he de dir, però, que aquest llibre me l'he imaginat una mica com la versió transmasc de sailor moon de tant com es parla de la roba dels mariners. alhora, el llibre també m'ha semblat, no sé, com si la jane birkin hagués fet una cover de sexyback del justin timberlake.

però fora krissejos... quin senyor llibre.... m'ha desnatat el trussy. el desig homosexual, la virilitat, la traïció.... he llegit poques coses tan ben elaborades!! sobretot sobretot he de dir que el que més m'ha bussyversat ha set el domini absolutament perfecte de la llengua francesa que té Genet. juga amb l'argot d'una manera envejable, sense caure en frivolitats, i l'alterna amb un francès súper refinat quan li dona la veu al capità del vaixell. la llengua identifica els personatges i això m'encanta!!

no sé si m'estic passant de milfifes però hi ha hagut moments en què quan parla de la virilitat i tal m'ha recordat una mica a la genealogia de la moral de nietzsche...genet ens presenta tot de personatges subjugats a un doble desig: són prou delulus de fer-se percussionar el bussy fent veure que són cosas da nois i a través d'això reafirmen la seua masculinitat???....però alhora saben que hi ha mar i cels afruitats (esas locas de ciudad q diria lorca lel) i es dediquen a fer-los crims d'odi. em sembla francament tendra aquesta pugna de tots els personatges!! és que de fet el llibre no és una mica una genealogia de l'homosexualitat?? en fi he googlejat i genet estanejava nicse pero nidea simplement es un pensament d'una bimbo i aixo es goodreads mantinguem el cap a estribord i les popes a proa pel meu bé

per cert aquest llibre encara no està traduït al català i jo estaria encantat de fer-ho muacs

[Inderjit Sanghera · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world of Genet reverberates with blood and poetry, violence and vituperation are transmogrified into poetry, a punch into a flower whose petals scatter via the wind of Genet’s prose, like the blood of the toughs and thugs who populate Genet’s novels. Genet’s remarkable alchemy, in which the story of a serial killer becomes a kind of paean to murder and Querelle a high poet of murder, resembles the alchemy which Querelle himself undertakes of friends who he betrays but transforms into the gold necklaces, braces and watches which will be his reward for his betrayals. The luscious gold of Genet’s prose, a kind of perverse combination of Flaubert and Baudelaire, is truly original and his descriptive powers are extraordinary;
“For several seconds of the eyes of the murderer marveled at the astounding stillness of the forest, where the vault of hanging creepers gilded by a mysterious sun in a dim yet sparkling air filtered through from immense far-distant blue skies, and where the depths were illuminated by the infinitely variables lights and shades of all walking dreams.”

Genet’s imagination is a rough, ghoulish nightmare, dominated by men, muscular and yet strangely feminine, Genet’s dangerous yet decorous heroes intoxicate the reader with their bawdy and bellicose behavior-his descriptions of the sexual relations and intercourse between men would seem banal in any other novel, but here they somehow become beautiful, kind of like if a romance novelist took a heady dose of crack and dealt exclusively in the world of homosexual sailors and police officers-there is something intensely innocent in the sexual relations between the male characters as they approach each other with the attitude of a young virgin. From the bizarre diary of Lieutenant Seblon, to the violent longings of Querelle, love and desire are intertwined with violence, pain and a desire to be dominated-Fassbinder’s film version of Querelle brings out the artificial and surreal nature of the romantic relationships in ‘Querelle’ brilliantly.

The world of Genet is not one for the light-heard, but for those who feel art is the path by which we are able to explore the infinite experiences and viewpoints which life has to offer us. Quiescent and querulous, the narrator’s voice is constantly shifting and changing, echoing the violent, yet beautiful, world of Brest.
“If ever Brest seems less austere, it is when is a feeble sun gilds the waterfront, where the facades are as noble and grand as those in Venice; or again, when its narrow streets are thronged with a tumult of carefree matelots; or finally, under fog and rain.”

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't give out 5 stars lightly.
the English translation of Querelle (originally French) is easily one of the best translations I've ever read. The lyrical beauty of the work remains wonderfully in tact. Querelle is super thick, rich, compelling, and dark. The filthy world of sailors and brothels lends itself to one of the queerest (here i meant "strangest" until I realized that it fully embodies both meanings of the word) things I've ever read. It's difficult, but so worth getting through. I feel bad on my 5 star ratings because I feel that nothing I could ever say would portend what lies between the covers of these books. But as of yet, its in the best 10 books I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

[Prince Mendax · Rating 4 out of 5]

mycket kukar i denna <3

[Don · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read Querelle after finishing Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward (a must read), in which Steward tries for years to get his translation of it published in English, to no avail. Genet's book originally appeared in French in the 40's and Steward was simply too far ahead of his time in thinking that the subject matter would be accepted in the US. Steward, and several of his literary companions, shared a reverence for Genet and Querelle in particular….one going so far as to travel to Brest to hunt down every nook and cranny mentioned in the book that was still standing and accessible. Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to finish Steward's bio and get my hands on a copy of it. That anticipation and the build up to it is, in large part, responsible for my reaction to the book and this review. In no uncertain terms I can say that the writing is beautiful, almost hypnotically poetic. Add to that a delicious cast of characters- murderers, thieves, whores, sex addicts, liars, convicts and voyeurs. Add also an appropriately dangerous setting- the sinister underbelly of a seedy, French, port town with all its hiding places, abandoned prisons, whore houses, dark alleys, bleak ramparts and deserted dockyards. Yes! The perfect storm I thought as I dove in and began turning pages. (I could just see Jean Paul Belmondo with the collar of his pea coat turned up, lurking in the shadows.) Unfortunately, as I went along, I became increasingly aware that I was grasping for something in the book that wasn’t altogether there. I couldn't get a hold of a through line that compelled me to keep going, yet I did. Was it because of Genet's tendency to ramble off on philosophical tangents that constantly interrupted the story line? Was it the result of a poor translation? My over-eagerness to 'get into it'? Whatever it was, I was left with an ambivalence, a disappointment that there wasn’t more to wrest from the experience. Finally, as with many things in life, I’m sorry to say that my disappointment in it was almost as great as my anticipation of it, and will quote the same sentence that another reviewer, below, quoted from page 255: “This book goes on for too many pages, and it bores us.”....probably not unlike this interminable review, you're thinking.

[Alex Pler · Rating 3 out of 5]

El deseo impregna cada página de este libro excesivo. A Querelle de Brest le sentaría bien un trabajo de edición para acotar tramas y personajes y eliminar divagaciones típicas de un borrador, pero entonces se perdería la fascinación de podernos asomar a un pozo prohibido.

[d · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esta es la obra de un santo, una Anunciación dionisíaca. Parece que durante miles de años olvidé lo realmente importante. El cuerpo de un hombre, que es parecido a todos los hombres, a todos los errores amorosos que arrastro como lectora mujer heterosexual. El arrepentimiento es histérico, femenino, malamente católico. En Querelle no hay arrepentimiento por nada. Sí, hay melancolía superficial, pero la gloria es, aquí y siempre, la vitalidad. La pro-yección hacia una vida (y una literatura, una ideología) que se hace cargo de los deseos del cuerpo. En un párrafo de Genet están cristalizados miles de deseos y toqueteos amorosos, de miradas furtivas en calles, subtes, trenes, y colectivos.

Texto sagrado-texto manifiesto: allí donde el que se reconoce como discípulo de Genet entiende todo el trabajo que tiene por delante. La liberación del cuerpo es acompañada por la expansión de los límites de la percepción artística. O para decirlo en criollo: a través del arte volvemos con más intensidad a lo que nos apasiona en la vida.

[xelsoi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Querelle de Brest es un clásico de la literatura gay. Cuenta la historia de Querelle, un marino que arriba en el puerto de Brest, donde se relaciona con los criminales de la ciudad: asesinos, prostitutas, ladrones y, por supuesto, homosexuales.
Leer esta novela fue un ejercicio de paciencia y atención. El estilo abarrotado y filosófico de Genet me dificultó muchísimo la lectura. A ratos habían escenas interesantes - pienso, particularmente, en todas las escenas gráficas de sexo y violencia - pero el grueso del relato estaba desconectado de la acción. Además, los saltos temporales y de perspectiva eran tan repentinos que desorientaban, tal vez a propósito, al lector.
En una nota personal, quise terminar de leerlo para probarme a mí mismo que podía hacerlo. Genuinamente creo que mi atención, como la de muchos de mis contemporáneos, está frita por el consumo de contenido de las redes sociales. Y la verdad es que sí, apenas pude terminarlo.

[Indica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Querelle calls his pants “farting-gear.” 5 stars

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

i'll quote directly from page 255. "this book goes on for too many pages, and it bores us."

[Hetian bias · Rating 5 out of 5]

you guys know that genet is my god and my father and my brother and my lover, right?

[Samelu Binumcole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don´t like stars but for some reason I have decided to give this five..
Is it because of it´s meditative insights on murder, theft and betrayal
wrapped through Genets masterful text that flicker seducingly between spectral,
crumbling poetry and the kind of visceral disturbance that can only be the divine mark of the material world ?

Is it because of it´s notions of masculinity whether rocking gold jewelry and elbowing
it´s way through sweaty whorehouses and seedy bars in a concrete city, infused
with fog and a temporality that heaves with violent crime and vice, Or
- squeaking soft and beatiful and treacherously loud, as a bluebird trapped in a
charred ribcage ?

This is a book about transformation, possession, and most of all I believe murder.
I picked it up, completely unknowing of who Genet was, and became mercilessly
dragged away to Brest.

I can´t say that I enjoyed every page. It certainly is not a book for the faint of heart.
Genets veneration of theft, betrayal and homosexuality bleeds through the entire book.
It is dirty, scary and excruciatingly sensitive.

Nuff said, good litterature

and better then "Thiefs Journal" imo.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helene Cixous identified Genet as one of few purveyors of écriture feminine - a style of writing which rejects phallogocentrism, which challenges the idea a text must tell us something, which subverts signification itself.

Querelle of Brest, in it's strange and confusing glory, confirms Cixous' diagnosis. This is a novel in which tableaux surface without warning, as if emerging out of the near-impenetrable mist that covers the city of Brest, and in which we are taken on lengthy journeys into the convoluted psychologies of an array of largely amoral men - there is only one female character to speak of. It is a novel which often reads like the unconscious - disorganised, immoral, relentlessly sexually charged.

And yet Genet is a sophisticated and deliberate writer - while Querelle is not always an easy read, it is ever a pleasurable one, and, with some of the current trends in queer literature in mind, a refreshing one. Genet is never moralistic, never judgemental. Indeed, he has only one thing to tell us: sailors are hot.

[regina · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been about 2 decades since I read Querelle, but the scenes and poetic style marked me like a tattooed sailor.

Warning: the scenes are sexually and violently graphic. Yet, when the murderous main character describes how he felt when he killed... Well, it's mind-boggling that Genet could describe it so sensitively and beautifully.

If you loved the Todd Haynes' film, Poison, and if you enjoy exploring the minds of the damaged and desperate, Querelle is the book for you.

It is a master's work and probably deserves 5 stars; I'll re-visit and update. (BTW, Fassbinder made this into a film , but its tone is nothing like the book. If you must see the film, read the book first. The book is not campy.

[Jack Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

My only excuse for reading so slowly is that it was too beautiful to rush.

[Nicolas Lontel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enfin lu ce classique de Brest! C'était assez loin de ce que je m'imaginais être, mais aussi vraiment meilleur. George Querelle, notre protagoniste, est autant attiré par les hommes que par la criminalité dont il se revendique, mais pas n'importe quelle criminalité, une très romanesque, faite de bagarre, de vols et de meurtres un peu accidentels au fond.

En débutant le livre, je voyais bien resurgir un peu toutes ces associations gaies/criminalité/débauche dont Genet se réapproprie brillamment pour les transformer en véritable poétique du récit et de Querelle. La vulgarité du récit est là pour ponctuer, provoquer et s'en revendiquer. J'ai même eu peur à un moment qu'il tombe trop dans la répétition, surtout en ce qui avait à trait au scatologique (très rabelaisien en un sens, et je comprends beaucoup beaucoup mieux l'inspiration derrière le chapitre scatologique de Bourcier Homo Inc.orporated : Le triangle et la licorne), mais une fois qu'il "épuise" les métaphores et les synonymes, Genet réussit à passer à autre chose. Quelques commentaires méta-narratifs indiquent aussi son désire d'avancer dans le récit pour éviter de trop s'attarder et d'ennuyer son lecteur.

Une excellente lecture qui en vaut définitivement le détour, un style et une poétique absolument unique, impensable aujourd'hui, brillante et vraiment très gaie à faire plaisir.

[Cette édition de Gallimard a aussi un DVD du film de Fassbinder que je regarderais probablement un autre jour.]

[Luis Chinaski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es muy difícil, con la experiencia que llevo detrás, no ver en los conceptos de virilidad que maneja Genet algo más divertido que trascendental. Tampoco puedo tomarme en serio muchas de las piruetas que dan sus personajes a la hora de rendirse ante la evidencia del deseo (no necesariamente homosexual) por lxs demás. Algunas de las divagaciones se me han atragantado aunque otros pasajes me han parecido muy bellos y las descripciones tórridas de sexo... Pues no voy a negarlo, me han puesto bastante cachondo. Y es que aunque el ideal de masculinidad con el que fantasea Genet es una caricatura, uno está influido por el homoerotismo de Tom of Finland y claro... Siente cosas

[Mathias Chouvier · Rating 4 out of 5]

À Brest, tout le monde est gay. Sauf le marin Querelle, qui est également un tueur. Un roman saisissant mais extrêmement déroutant qui mêle l’argot et lyrisme (souvent dans la même phrase) dans une intrigue pour le moins nébuleuse.

[Brian O'Connell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entrancing reading, even if I’m not sure that the translation I read (by Gregory Steatham) is exactly up to snuff. Genet has a spooky ability to suggest the most minute implications of gesture and sensations of emotion through his lush, winding language. The exploration of cruelty, masochism, shame, and masculinity is surely one of the finest ever penned. And his sex scenes, loaded with despair and desire and often with violence, are unlike anyone else’s. Fassbinder’s adaptation, my favorite film, is a perfect translation of (and commentary on) this text.

[Joshua Drasin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genet has this sort of non-linear, non-Socratic writing style that kind of eschews logic??? Reminds me a bit of Clarice Lispector, but not as crazy, but wayyyyyy gayer and self-aware. Loved the depictions of masculinity this book, gay sailors make great protagonists …

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genet è una bestia. Scrive un libro bellissimo, ed assieme osceno. Lento, e violento.
Inattuale nel profondo. Ma è un bel tuffo nell'agire umano.

[Zac Hawkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Ah those knock-out body fluids: blood, sperm, tears!”

Oh hum. Guess I have a new favourite book.

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not feeling inspired. I went to bed super early on New Year's Eve. It wasn't even seven p.m. yet. My big plans for the night was watching my dvd of Fassbinder's Querelle. I fell asleep some point. I felt overwhelmingly tired. Maybe waking up at 3 a.m. had something to do it. I still feel tired (same reason. Instead of early birds getting worms I just feel wormy). More than anything, my brain is pushing through extra brain fogginess. I apologize in advance if this doesn't make any sense (that's not like when someone prefaces something offensive with a "Now don't get offended" as if it is license to say whatever they like. It's more like me kicking myself ahead of time when I don't make any sense. If that makes sense). I have a lot of thoughts on this but in the most disjointed train of thought way. I'm relieved that no one can read my mind. (Maybe it would be better if someone could.)

The previous owner of my copy of Querelle must have been writing a paper for some class. There are notes in the margins and underlined meaningful passages. Or maybe Christian Slater was plotting a suicide note for a mythologically prevalent person named Heather.

I'm developing a weird sort of mind relationship with Jean Genet. It's not reading but more like a push-probe. I relate to living in the empty fireplaces of dreams not dreamed. Fire poker? I four starred both I've read because they haven't yet achieved the "goosebumps" status in my frame of references in the Mariel train of thoughts that I think about all day. I'm resistant to giving in to this is who I really am.(I'm sure I look absolutely crazy to anyone who catches me having these conversations in my head.) I take in the psychotic humanly observations and will use them in my frame of reference for things that I think about a lot and pretend I don't want to run back into his cell when I'm afraid I'll never fit into the belonging world. I am starting to use Genet a lot these days. It's not getting better. All I want to do is read.

Okay, I didn't like what I've seen of the movie so far because the viewer relationship is changed. The book feels like that jazzed up feeling I get only from watching someone very charismatic. The Morrissey feeling of my space but it has a mirror for you. That's what I really want to say, to me, to explain it. Querelle's build-up within himself I felt like that feeling when you imagine you are living in your own movie. Your favorite songs are "the soundtrack to your life". It could have a soundtrack. See their gesture and they could know how you feel when your legs pulse, catch what your eyes alight. It's a one-sided mutual attraction because it hums off of them from inside of you.

The thing that makes other people seem less real. I can't say exactly what that is because I haven't figured it out yet. If there's no reflection they seem less real to me than the one far away that I cannot touch. I know it's a Jean Genet thing. The voice in a tin can with strings, or a seashell, dead sea salt authors and prophets... It's probably all some visual trick I forgot the science to explain. You know how the sky isn't really blue? I know it is acting. I know they are stories. I know I make it all up. I believe it more.

Young, in all cases, in the movies. Voices that say never say die. I haven't really thought about the age thing that much. I think it's that time when the mental fires haven't been used up. Or the energy. I don't feel in my heart that it is "What have you done for me lately?" But there is something about a young David Bowie that the older David Bowie doesn't have. Ambition for output for others? Maybe? I'll have to add this to my mental discussions with myself. It's probably a looking back at others. That would be the worst- to only look at yourself.

Mariel, you know there was more to it than that.

Querelle was okay looking. In that good body frat boy way of someone you wouldn't really look twice at.
This is what the movie is like:


Generic fetishism. Stuff that you hear other people are into that doesn't really mean anything. Leather, or nurse outfits, or horny catholic schoolgirls, firemen. It's just the faceless (I'm stealing this line from Lanark) "gaggle of sexuality". That was pretty much why Seblond's desire for the tight bodies of young muscle boys didn't go that far with me. His desire is like the horny old man you see in libraries who is watching a group of boring teen girls together. Separate them from each other and they are the average girl. He probably wouldn't be that into them. But now he can't stop staring at the legs in the short skirts. I don't really care about that.
I thought for sure the movie would have it in spades. It's watching, after all. Okay, some of it was because the actors looked like "Okay, if you say they are hot, girls" love interests on The Golden Girls ick to me. Genet's writing manages to not be telling like it is, despite the many times a sentence is shadowed with a "This is how it is gonna be". It wouldn't be right if the dream will worked out that way.

The shadowy to them friendships and invisible connecting threads between the men. Something I am unsure of in either of Genet's books I've read is the feminine role that allows two men to be together. (I have always wondered about why there are butch lesbians and effeminate men. If you were attracted to men wouldn't they be the most manliest of men?) I probably don't want to think of it in those terms, as if women are the subordinate ones. It's like how sometimes personality types depress the shit out of me. I don't want to know about the sameness of everybody. .. I am not interested in man and woman differences so much as unique differences. Yeah, so the shadowy connections between the men. I do wonder about that male camaraderie
that I see happen. Men who get buoyed up by being around each other. Sometimes I can actually see a guy feel like more of a man because of another more manly man talking to him. Somehow this translates to me as different than the IT thing Morrissey has and more a lonely shadowy friendship among others that I have no idea how to tap into (if I wanted to). I've seen women feel attractive as if they imagine themselves to look like a pretty woman standing next to them. This is not the same thing as the story. To do this Genet dream right you are not in it at all. It's like having a dream about an animal running. You're the horse but you're not you.

I have a great capacity to feel lonely. I was really interested in the lines in Querelle's loneliness. He felt separated from the rest of the world after his murders, rather than separated from himself, because he had accepted what he'd done and felt changed. I felt the deliberate sever but not the line from before. I think you'd have to be able to see gaggles of sexuality, or maybe a whole stampede.

Something I'm very interested in is what I've seen like collectively decided as "losing" is unrequited love. Our Lady of the Flowers rejoiced in that feeling, the beauty of living in your own created beauty in another person. Okay, I don't know if anyone who is reading this has ever seen Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66 (one of my favorite films). It has one of my favorite descriptions ever on unrequited love. Billy only needs that something good to think about to make everything else stop. It's sustaining itself, real or not doesn't matter. (The girl he liked is utter shit.) I love that making stuff up and the ideas becoming a part of something real inside of you. There's a different side shown in Querelle. Everybody is losing. It's the ego of youth. The status of who has the upper hand happens over and over. The upper hand because of who is better looking, or who cares more. Love making you weak. The jealousy and wanting to be the other person.
I could relate to Querelle's own planet of loneliness, if not the murders. I don't want the faceless tight young bodies of lust loneliness. I don't ever want a stampede.

Christian Slater wrote notes in the margins about Seblond's taking Christianity at its word. His humility and divinity. I wouldn't have seen it that way as Christianity isn't in my thoughts.
He wants to give himself up to that beauty that he wants. He is wont to cry for his joy of it. Maybe I just don't get possession in that sense.
Querelle wants to take into his own everything that he steals, things and life. He has to make his mark and forge a bond lest they take over him and haunt. I can get those forms of self imposed detachment. It's a way of putting oneself at ease that nothing can hurt you. I feel like Querelle, with his "star" that he talks to, and his own "planet" of himself, is possible to him because he imposes onto what he comes into contact with.

I felt that the murders were like sexual desires that exist as an overwhelming urge to take over, to penetrate. Until it is over and then he's not horny any longer (so to speak). The murders were confidence to him like his own appearance was his personal build-up in his mind as his own power. Querelle lives his whole life as his own movie stage in his own mind. One without any eyes. (I realize I use this description a lot in my reviews since, and probably before. I can't help it. I'm conflicted about how much I NEED stories.)

I had written something about Gil feeling his murder victim, Theo, was more alive to him than to dead. There was more to it than that (Theo hated what he couldn't have. Gil hated him for wanting to own him). I think I was struck by all of the threads of everyone wanting to take hold of everybody else. Theo finally got Gil in by being murdered by him. He'd never go away.
Oh! There was twin stuff too. It's so stupid that the film casted actors as identical brothers Robert and Querelle who look absolutely nothing alike. Robert is the pet lover of brothel Madame Lysiane. Theirs is one of those relationships that changes and grows sinister based on the imperceptible tides of who needs who the most. Lysiane grows jealous when she can't get over how much alike the two brothers are. They hate and love each other. I'm an identical twin myself so it was both ludicrous and fascinating to me this idea that they were the same person because they looked exactly alike. I have been the one to be railed at in jealous speeches about loving my twin more. Damn straight I do. I could have told her that she'd have gotten absolutely nowhere with that. I was repulsed when she "gives herself up" as his natural slave (I think it was something like an essential cave mentality) in order to fit between the two of them (which she does not do. it's not like that! It's like asking someone to love their child less than they love you, or their parent). Anyway, I was fascinated with their closeness. It's the urge to separate yourself from your family when you are growing up. Yet, nothing else will be able to touch on it or replace it. Your own life, shared life, the part of you no one will ever touch.

This is a long review and I didn't mention any of Christian Slater's thoughts about sailors as natural criminals and murders. I guess I don't think of anyone as having a natural place in life. It's fucking hard. I get that these men all insist that they are not gay (despite having a whole lotta gay sex). They feel like women and men. They try and exert in some sick and cruel ways and then make up fictions to get by. It's watching over your back in paranoia and making up loves. I get feeling like a man and like a woman and then it's the placement that confuses me.

It's taken me a long time to say why Jean Genet tears me so. It's that he forced himself to live in the hole, slower than the speed of light and the only brightness he could have by inventing. He would kill them before they could have an unhappy ending. I don't know how not to be like that either. There's something like loving in it because it's always travelling. It's pretty damned miserable. Time has to go by better. Placement has gotta be wrong. I still don't know how to keep getting the romantic part in the mirrors but I do know that Genet could do it in the first look.

Is it losing to die over and over in doing it? Somehow he starts to feel less like a phoenix rising and it's too lonely. When does it ever stop?

(Funny how in my memory there's so much passion in him but really he's the burning fire inside a bullet proof tummy I always said he was. Fuck, me too.)

[Luis G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tras completar el intensísimo proceso que supone la lectura de Querelle de Brest, estoy seguro de haber accedido a una novela única, una obra literaria como ya nunca más volverá a escribirse, por ser el producto de una determinada etapa de la Historia de la Literatura -transmisora de una manera de ver el mundo que, por múltiples razones, ya jamás podría volver- y, sobre todo, por ser la más icónica creación de un artista tan independiente e irrepetible como Jean Genet. Con todo esto, ya considero que merece la pena sumergirse en las páginas del Querelle, que -todo sea dicho- puede llegar a exigirle al lector un verdadero esfuerzo a la hora de enfrentarse a los dificultosos procedimientos narrativos, la enredada forma de redacción y las rebuscadas referencias que -junto a otros rasgos positivos que también quedarán referidos inmediatamente- dan forma a esta singular creación.
Primeramente, he de destacar el maravilloso estilo de escritura que Jean Genet despliega en muchísimas de las estampas que articulan su novela. A través de ellas, el lector no dejará de impresionarse con la apreciación de descripciones de lo más especiales, hermosísimas metáforas y comparaciones con base en elementos tan inicialmente inimaginables como finalmente ilustrativos. También he de destacar un muy elevado lirismo al que el autor es capaz de llegar para, inmediatamente después, pasar a combinarlo de una manera muy inteligente con palabras malsonantes y voces procedentes del argot más callejero, que, por cierto, están también muy bien elegidas. Además, no puedo abandonar este pequeño apartado del estilo sin dejar de destacar la notoria utilización que Genet -considerablemente precursor en este caso- realiza de la técnica de la anticipación narrativa, que tan presente estaría en las creaciones de muchísimos escritores posteriores.
En segundo lugar, merece una mención aparte la caracterización de los personajes. En este sentido, sobresale de manera innegable el protagonista de la novela, Georges Querelle, que puede llegar a causar sobre el lector un efecto tan auténticamente sugestivo como el que ocasiona sobre el resto de los personajes de la obra: según ésta avanza, se hace casi comprensible el hecho de que la belleza y la sensualidad extrema de Querelle, mágica y fatalmente combinadas con la violencia y el crimen, lleguen a desencadenar los estragos que el lector, también irremediablemente imbuido por el hechizo del viril marinero, se verá forzado a contemplar. A pesar de que Querelle refulja con un brillo del todo superior, también son muy sugerentes las profundidades de otras de las figuras de esta historia. Así, también me han resultado llamativos personajes como el teniente Seblon -muy especialmente resaltable por toda la belleza contenida en las anotaciones de su cuaderno íntimo-, el joven Gil -del que principalmente me ha impresionado el particular vínculo que le une al todavía más joven Roger- o la opulenta Madame Lysiane, que terminará tan turbada como el lector a causa de la intensa unión que fusiona al potente Querelle con otro personaje bastante curioso, su hermano Robert.
Por último, destaco el punto que, con diferencia, más me ha llamado la atención de toda la obra: el tan singular tratamiento del tema de la homosexualidad que en ella se lleva a cabo. Es impactante observar cómo en la mayoría de las situaciones literarias del Querelle, creado por una figura tan manifiestamente homosexual como Genet, se enfoca esta orientación desde una perspectiva del todo salvaje y forzosamente llevada a lo violento. A día de hoy, esta visión del asunto podría ser vista como políticamente incorrecta e incluso llegar a causar crispaciones entre determinados grupos. No obstante, lo cierto es que la homosexualidad se encuentra presente a lo largo de toda la obra y que, de hecho, esta ferocidad erótica desde la que se aborda el tema precisamente termina funcionando como un claro punto de unión entre casi todos los personajes, que, en mayor o menor medida, se ven arrastrados por este uranismo indómito. Además de que, a pesar de ser así de negativamente fiera, esta concepción de la homosexualidad tiene una importancia capital en la obra, considero positivamente destacable el siguiente hecho: si esta visión simplemente se observa, sin cortapisas, como una caracterización literaria, puede llegar a resultar muy interesante, tanto para un lector aficionado como para un estudioso específicamente interesado en el análisis de las distintas perspectivas desde las que se ha plasmado, con mayor o menor acierto, la homosexualidad a lo largo de la Historia del Arte. En este último sentido, quizás tanto para bien como para mal, Querelle de Brest supone, tal y como adelantaba al comienzo de mi reseña, un testimonio literario verdaderamente único.

[shamaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here Genet considers the inherent desire that rests between male friendship, the constant eruption of violence and sex, the difference between the homosexual and the fuckers