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The Edmund Trilogy #1
La història particular d'un noi
An instant classic upon its original publication, A Boy’s Own Story is the first of Edmund White’s highly acclaimed trilogy of autobiographical novels that brilliantly evoke a young man's coming of age and document American gay life through the last forty years.
The nameless narrator in this deeply affecting work reminisces about growing up in the 1950s with emotionally aloof, divorced parents, an unrelenting sister, and the schoolmates who taunt him. He finds consolation in literature and his fantastic imagination. Eager to cultivate intimate, enduring friendships, he becomes aware of his yearning to be loved by men, and struggles with the guilt and shame of accepting who he is. Written with lyrical delicacy and extraordinary power, A Boy’s Own Story is a triumph.
The nameless narrator in this deeply affecting work reminisces about growing up in the 1950s with emotionally aloof, divorced parents, an unrelenting sister, and the schoolmates who taunt him. He finds consolation in literature and his fantastic imagination. Eager to cultivate intimate, enduring friendships, he becomes aware of his yearning to be loved by men, and struggles with the guilt and shame of accepting who he is. Written with lyrical delicacy and extraordinary power, A Boy’s Own Story is a triumph.
290 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 1982
456 people are currently reading
16821 people want to read
About the author
Edmund White
138 books907 followersEdmund Valentine White III was an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer, and essayist. He was the recipient of Lambda Literary's Visionary Award, the National Book Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. France made him Chevalier (and later Officier) de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993.
White was known as a groundbreaking writer of gay literature and a major influence on gay American literature and has been called "the first major queer novelist to champion a new generation of writers."
White was known as a groundbreaking writer of gay literature and a major influence on gay American literature and has been called "the first major queer novelist to champion a new generation of writers."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 595 reviews
January 15, 2019
Elegant prose describing here a unique experience that hardly resembles my own. (The paramount reason I adore fiction!) In this, the truth of the matter. That there are all types, there are many stories. Sexuality is fixed only in our minds. This is no mix between "Salinger & Wilde." White is an American Alan Hollinghurst, or sometype bourgeois William Burroughs.
March 14, 2016
Edmund White portrays his younger life in a narcotic and poetic style. not exactly the most flattering self-portrait... the protagonist's travails are emotionally affecting yet he remains creepily distanced from the events and people in his own life - in particular from his equally creepy, distant, self-absorbed father. the apple does not fall far from the tree, i suppose. overall, the language is some of the most beautiful, in my experience, of all of gay fiction - rivaling even Giovanni's Room. the prose is sometimes so gorgeous it becomes hypnotic. the man certainly knows how to write!
the episodic nature of the book - in some ways disguised by the circular narrative - is rich with at times dreamy, other times cruelly crystal clear recountings of key moments in this boy's life. i was so impressed by this one that i've forced a couple friends (straight ones) to give it a go. unfortunately, they both found the narrator to be, well... "poisonous" would be an accurate word, although i'm sure stronger, angrier words were used. i suppose i can see that. but the narrator is a character of depth, full of wry introspection and canny circumspection. he lives in a marvelously layered and mysterious world, one where he often turns out to be more predator than prey. the whole thing flows together in a way that is impressively cohesive and memorable. a very individualistic achievement in the Gay Coming of Age subgenre.
all that, plus i've never read a more sinister depiction of a blowjob in my life!
the episodic nature of the book - in some ways disguised by the circular narrative - is rich with at times dreamy, other times cruelly crystal clear recountings of key moments in this boy's life. i was so impressed by this one that i've forced a couple friends (straight ones) to give it a go. unfortunately, they both found the narrator to be, well... "poisonous" would be an accurate word, although i'm sure stronger, angrier words were used. i suppose i can see that. but the narrator is a character of depth, full of wry introspection and canny circumspection. he lives in a marvelously layered and mysterious world, one where he often turns out to be more predator than prey. the whole thing flows together in a way that is impressively cohesive and memorable. a very individualistic achievement in the Gay Coming of Age subgenre.
all that, plus i've never read a more sinister depiction of a blowjob in my life!
February 27, 2016
Judging by this book, the average young boy can, before the age of 15, look forward to being approached for sex by:
*A 12-year-old "straight" baby jock who's really into anal
*Not one, but two separate camp counselors
*A "special" student who wanders around with a constant erection, which everyone just accepts, like, "Oh hey, it's whatshisname with his perma-boner"
*A teacher and his wife looking for a three-way
*A totally different teacher
*A female black prostitute
*A guy in a park who's actually just trying to con you out of $200
I think I'm forgetting someone, but hey, you can always fill your downtime with sexual fantasies about your own father!
Look, I get that my experience does not in any way equal the universal experience, least of all that of a young gay man from half a century ago. Still, the sexual content of this book is so over the top that I started to feel like, instead of one of the Classics of Gay Literature, I had accidentally acquired an A/B/O fic* in book form.
A Boy's Own Story is supposed to be an autobiographical novel, but it has very little narrative: mostly it's a series of incidents, loosely tied together. (The novel's notes reveal that several of the chapters were originally written and published separately, and it shows.) This format only serves to make the narrator's adventures seem more crazed and unlikely -- you reach a point in almost every chapter where you start to distantly hear the bow-chicka-bow-wow music playing. ("Dear Playgirl, all I did was order a pizza, but you'll never believe what happened!")
All that said: White can be a beautiful and descriptive writer. I read this because I loved The Flaneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris, a work of nonfiction about wandering around Paris and the history of several marginalized groups there. There are flashes of what made me respond to that book in A Boy's Own Story -- descriptions of the hotel the narrator lives in with his mother and sister, of summer at his father's lake house, of a woman who runs a bookstore. These passages are filled with brilliant, vivid observation. I will definitely be seeking out more of White's nonfiction work.
But I eyerolled throughout all of this novel's sexual shenanigans. I must be getting old.
(Elderly and cantankerous as I am, I have one last bone to pick, although not with White. Staring out at me from the front of my edition was this blurb from the Chicago Sun-Times: "The best American narrative of sexual awakening since The Catcher in the Rye." Um. Did you read The Catcher in the Rye, anonymous Chicago Sun-Times critic from 1982? Or did you just catch the A/B/O AU on AO3? Just checking.)
*If you don't know what this is, bask in your innocence
*A 12-year-old "straight" baby jock who's really into anal
*Not one, but two separate camp counselors
*A "special" student who wanders around with a constant erection, which everyone just accepts, like, "Oh hey, it's whatshisname with his perma-boner"
*A teacher and his wife looking for a three-way
*A totally different teacher
*A female black prostitute
*A guy in a park who's actually just trying to con you out of $200
I think I'm forgetting someone, but hey, you can always fill your downtime with sexual fantasies about your own father!
Look, I get that my experience does not in any way equal the universal experience, least of all that of a young gay man from half a century ago. Still, the sexual content of this book is so over the top that I started to feel like, instead of one of the Classics of Gay Literature, I had accidentally acquired an A/B/O fic* in book form.
A Boy's Own Story is supposed to be an autobiographical novel, but it has very little narrative: mostly it's a series of incidents, loosely tied together. (The novel's notes reveal that several of the chapters were originally written and published separately, and it shows.) This format only serves to make the narrator's adventures seem more crazed and unlikely -- you reach a point in almost every chapter where you start to distantly hear the bow-chicka-bow-wow music playing. ("Dear Playgirl, all I did was order a pizza, but you'll never believe what happened!")
All that said: White can be a beautiful and descriptive writer. I read this because I loved The Flaneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris, a work of nonfiction about wandering around Paris and the history of several marginalized groups there. There are flashes of what made me respond to that book in A Boy's Own Story -- descriptions of the hotel the narrator lives in with his mother and sister, of summer at his father's lake house, of a woman who runs a bookstore. These passages are filled with brilliant, vivid observation. I will definitely be seeking out more of White's nonfiction work.
But I eyerolled throughout all of this novel's sexual shenanigans. I must be getting old.
(Elderly and cantankerous as I am, I have one last bone to pick, although not with White. Staring out at me from the front of my edition was this blurb from the Chicago Sun-Times: "The best American narrative of sexual awakening since The Catcher in the Rye." Um. Did you read The Catcher in the Rye, anonymous Chicago Sun-Times critic from 1982? Or did you just catch the A/B/O AU on AO3? Just checking.)
*If you don't know what this is, bask in your innocence
June 19, 2019
What a disappointment. I thought I was an Edmund White fan but it turned out I just like the funny Edmund (The Beautiful Room is Empty, My Lives). There wasn’t the faintest impression of the wan attenuated ghost of any kind of humour in the half that I read. Not whatsoever. This was Serious Edmund, this was Literary Edmund. I just don’t care for that guy. He’s more than somewhat pompous.
The other thing, and I haven’t seen any other reviews refer to this, is that right there in chapter one we have a long full-on sex scene between a 15 year old boy and a 12 year old boy. It probably pushed the envelope back in 1982 but now – even though the sex is entirely consensual – and I’m sure it depicted the reality of some teenage experience - it can only make the modern reader uneasy. Maybe I’m turning into a conservative, I don’t know.
The other thing, and I haven’t seen any other reviews refer to this, is that right there in chapter one we have a long full-on sex scene between a 15 year old boy and a 12 year old boy. It probably pushed the envelope back in 1982 but now – even though the sex is entirely consensual – and I’m sure it depicted the reality of some teenage experience - it can only make the modern reader uneasy. Maybe I’m turning into a conservative, I don’t know.
January 6, 2015
This is a hard book to rate, but I would give it a 3.5.
It's said to be partly autobiographical and it does read like a memoir. However, the story is not linear and at times the timeline is confusing. Progressions of events are broken up by anecdotes that are sometimes told through narrative but are other times written out scene-by-scene. The digressions are sometimes interesting but often felt unnecessary or disconnected from the main character's adolescent journey.
Despite those criticisms, the book is very readable. At times it reminded me of Call Me by Your Name, but only in the sense that the narrator is a teenage boy who comes from a privileged background and feels isolated from his peers and at times his family. But unlike the Italian backdrop of that novel, the narrator in A Boy's Own Story is a wealthy WASPish fellow with a stern Republican father, a flighty mother, and the setting is the 1950s Midwest. There's a fair amount of racism in the novel and even though the mindset is accurate for the time period, that didn't make it any less cringe-worthy. There is also a lot of unrecognized white privilege in this book that makes the narrator a little insufferable. He's a poor little rich boy (who can get away with minor transgressions and risky behavior because he knows in the end he will be all right), but his internalized self-hate and homophobia is so intense that I could still feel sympathy.
Despite the negatives, there were still some things I could relate to. The distant and only semi-interested parents. The type of parents who remind me of my own because their behavior begs the question: Why did you ever have a kid in the first place? But also, the adolescent feeling of feeling like you have to be something else to prove you're anything but what you really are. I played sports and paraded enough girls around my parents for them to not ask too many questions. The narrator tried to attach himself to the popular crowd, to become one of the guys, to immerse himself in the "boyhood" of a boarding school before ultimately giving up. Like me, the narrator became unapologetic about his sexuality after a time. But unlike me, there was still an internalized sense of alien wrongness.
Apparently this is the first part in a trilogy, and I will be reading the others.
Quotes that I connected with:
On escape: "This house where I'd never felt I belonged no longer belonged to me, and the future so clearly charted for me--college, career, wife, and white house wavering behind green trees--was being exchanged."
On unwanted children: "My grandmother had not wanted my father, as she told him, she'd pummeled her stomach with her fists every day while she was bearing him. Nonetheless, my father somehow got born and survived."
On divorce: "The real excitement, of course, lay in learning that a life could be changed and that one could enter a brand-new, better world."
On his mother: "Then something nice would happen. Someone would compliment her or a ma would take an interest in her--and presto, she was not only equal to other people but superior to them."
On his father: "Much later my stepmother told me I'd caused my father weeks of sleepless despair and that at first he had chosen to believe I wasn't really a homosexual at all, merely a poseur hoping to appear "interesting"."
On cynicism and self-hate: "We were losers who talked a winning game. No wonder honesty came to mean for my sister saying only the most damaging things against herself. If she began by admitting defeat, then something was possible: sincerity, perhaps, or at least the avoidance of appearing ludicrous."
On ingrained homophobia: "I wanted to overcome this thing I was becoming and was in danger soon of being, the homosexual, as though that designation were the mold in which the water was freezing, the first crystals already forming a fragile membrane."
On being an alien: "Nothing I did or said among the other boys came to me naturally. As a result, in every encounter, even the most glancing, I had to be a performer, for at all times I was aware I was impersonating a human being."
On marriage: "Marriage became more and more impossible, a transubstantiation as eerie and irreversible as death. Perhaps by framing this ideal and funereal homosexual marriage in a prospect of poisonous flowers, I was making it more and more remote."
It's said to be partly autobiographical and it does read like a memoir. However, the story is not linear and at times the timeline is confusing. Progressions of events are broken up by anecdotes that are sometimes told through narrative but are other times written out scene-by-scene. The digressions are sometimes interesting but often felt unnecessary or disconnected from the main character's adolescent journey.
Despite those criticisms, the book is very readable. At times it reminded me of Call Me by Your Name, but only in the sense that the narrator is a teenage boy who comes from a privileged background and feels isolated from his peers and at times his family. But unlike the Italian backdrop of that novel, the narrator in A Boy's Own Story is a wealthy WASPish fellow with a stern Republican father, a flighty mother, and the setting is the 1950s Midwest. There's a fair amount of racism in the novel and even though the mindset is accurate for the time period, that didn't make it any less cringe-worthy. There is also a lot of unrecognized white privilege in this book that makes the narrator a little insufferable. He's a poor little rich boy (who can get away with minor transgressions and risky behavior because he knows in the end he will be all right), but his internalized self-hate and homophobia is so intense that I could still feel sympathy.
Despite the negatives, there were still some things I could relate to. The distant and only semi-interested parents. The type of parents who remind me of my own because their behavior begs the question: Why did you ever have a kid in the first place? But also, the adolescent feeling of feeling like you have to be something else to prove you're anything but what you really are. I played sports and paraded enough girls around my parents for them to not ask too many questions. The narrator tried to attach himself to the popular crowd, to become one of the guys, to immerse himself in the "boyhood" of a boarding school before ultimately giving up. Like me, the narrator became unapologetic about his sexuality after a time. But unlike me, there was still an internalized sense of alien wrongness.
Apparently this is the first part in a trilogy, and I will be reading the others.
Quotes that I connected with:
On escape: "This house where I'd never felt I belonged no longer belonged to me, and the future so clearly charted for me--college, career, wife, and white house wavering behind green trees--was being exchanged."
On unwanted children: "My grandmother had not wanted my father, as she told him, she'd pummeled her stomach with her fists every day while she was bearing him. Nonetheless, my father somehow got born and survived."
On divorce: "The real excitement, of course, lay in learning that a life could be changed and that one could enter a brand-new, better world."
On his mother: "Then something nice would happen. Someone would compliment her or a ma would take an interest in her--and presto, she was not only equal to other people but superior to them."
On his father: "Much later my stepmother told me I'd caused my father weeks of sleepless despair and that at first he had chosen to believe I wasn't really a homosexual at all, merely a poseur hoping to appear "interesting"."
On cynicism and self-hate: "We were losers who talked a winning game. No wonder honesty came to mean for my sister saying only the most damaging things against herself. If she began by admitting defeat, then something was possible: sincerity, perhaps, or at least the avoidance of appearing ludicrous."
On ingrained homophobia: "I wanted to overcome this thing I was becoming and was in danger soon of being, the homosexual, as though that designation were the mold in which the water was freezing, the first crystals already forming a fragile membrane."
On being an alien: "Nothing I did or said among the other boys came to me naturally. As a result, in every encounter, even the most glancing, I had to be a performer, for at all times I was aware I was impersonating a human being."
On marriage: "Marriage became more and more impossible, a transubstantiation as eerie and irreversible as death. Perhaps by framing this ideal and funereal homosexual marriage in a prospect of poisonous flowers, I was making it more and more remote."
February 8, 2018
Achingly beautiful...and that's before the "corn-holing" even begins. White levels some serious stingers at you in this sucker, written with his customary flair for Proustian filigree. While evidence that a truly fucked up childhood can engender great Art, the beneficiary (me/you/etc) thereof is behooved to ask—
Q: Does that justify it?
A: No. It can never be worth the manifold tortures adults foist upon their young—physical, psychological, or any variation of both. I think cummings is applicable here:
[you shall above all things be glad and young]
you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you're young,whatever life you wear
it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love
whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time
that you should ever think,may god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
Q: Does that justify it?
A: No. It can never be worth the manifold tortures adults foist upon their young—physical, psychological, or any variation of both. I think cummings is applicable here:
[you shall above all things be glad and young]
you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you're young,whatever life you wear
it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love
whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time
that you should ever think,may god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
March 14, 2020
Yo conocí en persona a Edmund White.
Os cuento la historia, por si estáis de cuarentena en casa y no tenéis na mejor que hacer.
Yo vivía en Brighton (pre-Brexit, obviamente), que era como el epicentro gay de la vida británica. Toda mariquita que se precie tenía que salir de marcha en Brighton. Entonces, como todo ambiente subversivo, había allí también un tremendo sarao cultural. No, no eran todo raves. Sí, también éramos muy leídos.
Pero por si fuese poca cultura (y por rivalizar con Londres) había una semana (que duraba como 3) cultural; o sea, una semana (poned voz de rever) CULTURAL. Se hinchaba uno de teatro, charlas, música, cine y mercadillos. Era como el tratamiento detox de materia gris, después de toda la basura que veías por la tele. Por no hablar de toda la basura que comías. Bueno, que me disperso.
En una de estas anuncian una charla de Edmund White. Yo estaba en la innopia (lo acabo de buscar, se escribe con una ene, pero, ¿no queda como raro? Yo pronuncio esta palabra como si tuviese dos...), pero mi novio de aquella se enteró y compró entradas.
La charla estuvo guay, y el entrevistador no era otro que Neil Bartlett. Luego Edmund White firmó ejemplares y charló con todos, yo incluida, y me dijo que leyese Nocturnes for the King of Naples, cosa que no hice.
Este es mi libro favorito de White. Fue el primer libro suyo que leí y recuerdo perfectamente algunos pasajes que me parecían asombrosos en su franqueza. Creo que lo he releído al menos dos veces y creo también que es un buen libro para comenzar con White, porque todavía no es tan crudo como My Lives, todavía hay esperanza aquí, aún hay cosas por descubrir.
Recuerdo también que muy poco después intenté leer a Holleran, Dancer from the Dance y me abrumó sobremanera tanta tristeza. Lo abandoné.
White es historia de la literatura. Que no me digan que solo de la literatura queer. No, porque habla constantemente de la historia de los Estados Unidos desde una perspectiva que, siendo personal, abarca las grandes verdades de los 80 y 90. Es inevitable asociarle con Violet Quill, pero es que Violet Quill es también historia de la literatura, un momento artístico de la mano de una situación social extrema, igualito a la Generación del '27, por poner un ejemplo patrio.
Creo que cualquiera puede disfrutar de White y animo a todo el mundo a que lo haga.
Y no sé cómo acabar esta reseña.
Os cuento la historia, por si estáis de cuarentena en casa y no tenéis na mejor que hacer.
Yo vivía en Brighton (pre-Brexit, obviamente), que era como el epicentro gay de la vida británica. Toda mariquita que se precie tenía que salir de marcha en Brighton. Entonces, como todo ambiente subversivo, había allí también un tremendo sarao cultural. No, no eran todo raves. Sí, también éramos muy leídos.
Pero por si fuese poca cultura (y por rivalizar con Londres) había una semana (que duraba como 3) cultural; o sea, una semana (poned voz de rever) CULTURAL. Se hinchaba uno de teatro, charlas, música, cine y mercadillos. Era como el tratamiento detox de materia gris, después de toda la basura que veías por la tele. Por no hablar de toda la basura que comías. Bueno, que me disperso.
En una de estas anuncian una charla de Edmund White. Yo estaba en la innopia (lo acabo de buscar, se escribe con una ene, pero, ¿no queda como raro? Yo pronuncio esta palabra como si tuviese dos...), pero mi novio de aquella se enteró y compró entradas.
La charla estuvo guay, y el entrevistador no era otro que Neil Bartlett. Luego Edmund White firmó ejemplares y charló con todos, yo incluida, y me dijo que leyese Nocturnes for the King of Naples, cosa que no hice.
Este es mi libro favorito de White. Fue el primer libro suyo que leí y recuerdo perfectamente algunos pasajes que me parecían asombrosos en su franqueza. Creo que lo he releído al menos dos veces y creo también que es un buen libro para comenzar con White, porque todavía no es tan crudo como My Lives, todavía hay esperanza aquí, aún hay cosas por descubrir.
Recuerdo también que muy poco después intenté leer a Holleran, Dancer from the Dance y me abrumó sobremanera tanta tristeza. Lo abandoné.
White es historia de la literatura. Que no me digan que solo de la literatura queer. No, porque habla constantemente de la historia de los Estados Unidos desde una perspectiva que, siendo personal, abarca las grandes verdades de los 80 y 90. Es inevitable asociarle con Violet Quill, pero es que Violet Quill es también historia de la literatura, un momento artístico de la mano de una situación social extrema, igualito a la Generación del '27, por poner un ejemplo patrio.
Creo que cualquiera puede disfrutar de White y animo a todo el mundo a que lo haga.
Y no sé cómo acabar esta reseña.
June 4, 2025
J'ai l'impression d'avoir partager mon histoire et un moment avec l'auteur. A l'heure où j'écris ses lignes, l'auteur vient de décéder, le jour même. et pourtant j'ai longtemps vu ses ouvrages au Emmaüs que je fréquente. Jeune ado / jeune adulte je passais devant en me disant "ça fait trop gay". et je finissais par prendre un énième tome de Maupassant défraîchi pour m'élever culturellement.
il aura fallu au moins 10 ans pour retomber dessus. j'ai acheté ce livre ce weekend, lu dans la foulée et je le termine le jour de la mort de l'auteur.
comme l'auteur / narrateur, j'avais peur du regard des autres, j'ai eu envie de "guérir", je ne voulais pas être stigmatisé comme Le Gay. comme l'auteur/narrateur, j'ai vécu des périodes d'isolement qui n'ont fait qu'accroitre mes désirs et cette homosexualité.
histoire ironique entre moi et lui, qui me fait sourire et me rendre compte que la culture dont j'avais besoin, c'était pas un quelconque auteur reconnu mais de celle d'Edmund White. je crois que ça aurait facilité plein de choses. alors avec 10 ans et 1jour de retard, je vous dis quand même Merci Monsieur.
il aura fallu au moins 10 ans pour retomber dessus. j'ai acheté ce livre ce weekend, lu dans la foulée et je le termine le jour de la mort de l'auteur.
comme l'auteur / narrateur, j'avais peur du regard des autres, j'ai eu envie de "guérir", je ne voulais pas être stigmatisé comme Le Gay. comme l'auteur/narrateur, j'ai vécu des périodes d'isolement qui n'ont fait qu'accroitre mes désirs et cette homosexualité.
histoire ironique entre moi et lui, qui me fait sourire et me rendre compte que la culture dont j'avais besoin, c'était pas un quelconque auteur reconnu mais de celle d'Edmund White. je crois que ça aurait facilité plein de choses. alors avec 10 ans et 1jour de retard, je vous dis quand même Merci Monsieur.
April 13, 2017
I read this for my lifetime challenge (1982).
I picked "A Boy's Own Story" because it's also on the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" list. Unfortunately, it's another one from the list I didn't particularly enjoy. It is not a long book, but it felt long and was a chore to get through it.
The book is the memoir of a boy coming to terms (or not) with being gay. While that topic interested me, and I had no issues with the sexual content in the book, the actual writing didn't hold my interest. There is no narrative thread in the book. It reads like a memoir, skipping from incident to incident. I enjoyed that in Tove Jansson's "The Summer Book", but in that book the writing was sparse and elegant and had a subtle poignant wry humor. "A Boy's Own Story" is very over-written with elaborate prose and dense metaphors all the time. And though I found myself highlighting in many places where a sentence struck me as being very beautiful and rather profound, the overall effect page after page was to obscure and weight down the story. It was hard to stay focused. It was like listening to a professor who rambles on and on.
I also found I didn't like the main character. There was a lot of pretentiousness, talking about Proust and Sartre and a general air of "I'm so much smarter than everyone else" (When it really came across as very White and fusty/dated now). And then in the end the boy does something which is reprehensible. I understand how this act was thematically about self-loathing and not being able to accept his homosexuality, but it nevertheless made me dislike him intensely. So self-centered.
So I can't really recommend this book, and at this point I'm not feeling the "1001 Books..." list either. However, if you like very dense, poetic prose, and a picture of what it was like to grow up gay when it was really quite a terrible thing to be, you may find this book worth your time. Below is one particularly evocative passage.
No sooner would such a temptation present itself than I would smother it. The effect was of snuffing out a candle, two candles, a row of twenty, until the lens pulled back to reveal an entire votive stand exhaling a hundred thin lives of smoke as a terraced offering before the shrine. In this religion hidden lights had been declared superior to those that glared.
I picked "A Boy's Own Story" because it's also on the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" list. Unfortunately, it's another one from the list I didn't particularly enjoy. It is not a long book, but it felt long and was a chore to get through it.
The book is the memoir of a boy coming to terms (or not) with being gay. While that topic interested me, and I had no issues with the sexual content in the book, the actual writing didn't hold my interest. There is no narrative thread in the book. It reads like a memoir, skipping from incident to incident. I enjoyed that in Tove Jansson's "The Summer Book", but in that book the writing was sparse and elegant and had a subtle poignant wry humor. "A Boy's Own Story" is very over-written with elaborate prose and dense metaphors all the time. And though I found myself highlighting in many places where a sentence struck me as being very beautiful and rather profound, the overall effect page after page was to obscure and weight down the story. It was hard to stay focused. It was like listening to a professor who rambles on and on.
I also found I didn't like the main character. There was a lot of pretentiousness, talking about Proust and Sartre and a general air of "I'm so much smarter than everyone else" (When it really came across as very White and fusty/dated now). And then in the end the boy does something which is reprehensible. I understand how this act was thematically about self-loathing and not being able to accept his homosexuality, but it nevertheless made me dislike him intensely. So self-centered.
So I can't really recommend this book, and at this point I'm not feeling the "1001 Books..." list either. However, if you like very dense, poetic prose, and a picture of what it was like to grow up gay when it was really quite a terrible thing to be, you may find this book worth your time. Below is one particularly evocative passage.
No sooner would such a temptation present itself than I would smother it. The effect was of snuffing out a candle, two candles, a row of twenty, until the lens pulled back to reveal an entire votive stand exhaling a hundred thin lives of smoke as a terraced offering before the shrine. In this religion hidden lights had been declared superior to those that glared.
August 9, 2021
‘Historia de un chico’ es una novela que constituye una auténtica institución en la historia de la literatura gay estadounidense: que por fin haya sido traducida al castellano es un auténtico motivo de celebración y una excusa perfecta para acercarse fácilmente a la literatura de Edmund White, uno de los autores más transgresores y prolíficos de la literatura gay desde los años 70. Aunque tiene absoluta autonomía y se puede disfrutar perfectamente como un volumen único, este libro es el primero de una trilogía de autoficción en la que White mezcla muchísimos elementos de su propia vida con otros puramente novelados para narrar las dificultades de un chico gay de familia privilegiada en la América profunda de los años 50 y 60.
Como muchas otras novelas de crecimiento, ‘Historia de un chico’ es un testimonio emocionante y, en algunos capítulos, bastante doloroso. Al narrar la adolescencia del protagonista, el autodescubrimiento y la propia negación se intercalan en una sociedad en la que su identidad era un lastre del que sentía que tenía que liberarse de cualquier manera.
Edmund White imparte en esta novela una auténtica clase de escritura y demuestra una inteligencia, una chispa y un uso de la lengua que le emparenta en primera línea de consanguinidad con otros grandes nombres de la historia de la literatura gay. Sin embargo, en mi humilde opinión, la novela tiene luces y sombras: mientras que la primera mitad es bastante brillante, la segunda se vuelve más rocambolesca y demasiado desordenada. Además, creo que lo de la autoficción se le va a veces demasiado de las manos y otorga al joven protagonista unas vivencias que creo que son extremadamente poco verosímiles. Aunque el texto, de 1982, ha envejecido bien, pienso que está un poco descompensado: en algunos episodios pasa demasiado de puntillas y en otros se enreda hasta la extenuación. Pero, aun con estas circunstancias que me han despegado un poco del absoluto entusiasmo que me despertó al principio, me ha parecido una lectura muy interesante que me alegro de haber hecho.
Como muchas otras novelas de crecimiento, ‘Historia de un chico’ es un testimonio emocionante y, en algunos capítulos, bastante doloroso. Al narrar la adolescencia del protagonista, el autodescubrimiento y la propia negación se intercalan en una sociedad en la que su identidad era un lastre del que sentía que tenía que liberarse de cualquier manera.
Edmund White imparte en esta novela una auténtica clase de escritura y demuestra una inteligencia, una chispa y un uso de la lengua que le emparenta en primera línea de consanguinidad con otros grandes nombres de la historia de la literatura gay. Sin embargo, en mi humilde opinión, la novela tiene luces y sombras: mientras que la primera mitad es bastante brillante, la segunda se vuelve más rocambolesca y demasiado desordenada. Además, creo que lo de la autoficción se le va a veces demasiado de las manos y otorga al joven protagonista unas vivencias que creo que son extremadamente poco verosímiles. Aunque el texto, de 1982, ha envejecido bien, pienso que está un poco descompensado: en algunos episodios pasa demasiado de puntillas y en otros se enreda hasta la extenuación. Pero, aun con estas circunstancias que me han despegado un poco del absoluto entusiasmo que me despertó al principio, me ha parecido una lectura muy interesante que me alegro de haber hecho.
May 4, 2022
My lingering impressions of this book are that it was overwritten and that this supposed autobiographical novel about a young teen boy had an awful lot of sex, to a ridiculous degree. Anyway, here's someone else's review that says what I probably would've said if I'd written a review right after reading this:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
August 22, 2007
There's a kind of bittersweet loneliness/excitement at sexual awakening that most gays will intrinsically understand and that White always manages to caputure so perfectly. Somehow, he romances the unromantic, charming us with images of cruising in parks and getting STD's.
August 24, 2019
"Like a blind man's hands exploring a face, the memory lingers over an identifying or beloved feature but dismisses the rest as just a curve, a bump, an expanse. Only this feature—these lashes tickling the palm like a firefly or this breath pulsing hot on a knuckle or this vibrating Adam's apple—only this feature seems lovable, sexy. But in writing one draws in the rest, the forgotten parts. One even composes one's improvisations into a quite new face never glimpsed before, the likeness of an invention. Busconi once said he prized the most those empty passages composers make up to get from one "good part" to another. He said such workmanlike but minor transitions reveal more about a composer—the actual vernacular of his imagination—than the deliberately bravura moments. I say all this by way of hoping that the lies I've made up to get from one poor truth to another may mean something—may even mean something most particular to you, my eccentric, patient, scrupulous reader, willing to make so much of so little, more patient and more respectful of life, of a life, than the author you're allowing for a moment to exist yet again."
May 18, 2018
Essentially the homosexual’s The Catcher in the Rye, this modern classic is beautifully rendered; lush language and haunting passages abound. This one earns a spot amongst my all-time favorites.
November 15, 2007
The last of White's novels that I picked up, and to be honest I wasn't expecting any surprises. Was I stupid! I cringe when I hear this book praised as if it were the first and best thing White ever wrote...but it is very good. After the fervid manner of Nocturnes for the King of Naples (still my favorite of his books) White took to heart Isherwood's advice to write more plainly. The style he achieves in this book is a marvel. A formal chasteness that doesn't trammel lyricism, a clarity that doesn't dry up the sources of mysterious suggestion:
I had rowed laboriously over every mile of the lake; it was a mild sort of pleasure to see those backbreaking distances beautifully elided by the Chris-Craft. For Dad had gunned the motors again and we were sitting once more on our high, thundering throne. We passed the point where the clipped lawns of an estate flowed down from a white mansion and its lit, curtained windows. Late last Sunday afternoon, as I was pulling hard through the turbulent water at the point, I'd seen a young man in a seersucker suit and a girl in a party dress. They sauntered up the hill away from me, he slightly in the lead, she swinging her arms high in an exaggerated way, as though she were a marionette. The sun found a feeble rainbow in the mist above a sprinkler and made the grass as green and uniform as baize. The light gave the couple long, important shadows.
I had rowed laboriously over every mile of the lake; it was a mild sort of pleasure to see those backbreaking distances beautifully elided by the Chris-Craft. For Dad had gunned the motors again and we were sitting once more on our high, thundering throne. We passed the point where the clipped lawns of an estate flowed down from a white mansion and its lit, curtained windows. Late last Sunday afternoon, as I was pulling hard through the turbulent water at the point, I'd seen a young man in a seersucker suit and a girl in a party dress. They sauntered up the hill away from me, he slightly in the lead, she swinging her arms high in an exaggerated way, as though she were a marionette. The sun found a feeble rainbow in the mist above a sprinkler and made the grass as green and uniform as baize. The light gave the couple long, important shadows.
March 8, 2010
A book about a gay boy in the US during the 50's. This coming-of-age story is peppered with lyrical prose and said to be an instant hit when it was first published in 1982. Considering that the setting of the story is in the heartland of the conservative US and it was in the 50's (before the rock n roll era), the difficulties that the author of this semi-autobiographical novel went through to fight for his desire to be loved (by men including his father) are something worth knowing. As the blurb says, "It's any boy's story... For all I know, it may be any girl's story as well..."
There is just one shocking scene (that could turn you off) in the first few pages of the book: a sodomy between the 16-y/o narrator and a 12-y/o boy who is spending a few days vacation in their ranch. However, this kind of sex scene becomes infrequent towards the end as the story focuses on the emotional aspect of being gay particularly in his struggle to be accepted and happy. The last few pages of the book also reveals that the seemingly "normal" people also had their "hidden unpleasant" sides. In the end, you would have the feeling that gay men are just like another other human beings and should not be mocked, treated and seen differently.
There is just one shocking scene (that could turn you off) in the first few pages of the book: a sodomy between the 16-y/o narrator and a 12-y/o boy who is spending a few days vacation in their ranch. However, this kind of sex scene becomes infrequent towards the end as the story focuses on the emotional aspect of being gay particularly in his struggle to be accepted and happy. The last few pages of the book also reveals that the seemingly "normal" people also had their "hidden unpleasant" sides. In the end, you would have the feeling that gay men are just like another other human beings and should not be mocked, treated and seen differently.
February 17, 2015
A Boy's Own Story is about a young boy's coming of age and his coming out in the 1950s. It is told in a very sensitive voice and the language used is very beautiful. At the beginning of the book there is a very explicit sex scene. I was quite surprised at that because I had never expected that. I've read a lot of books by John Irving who especially in his later work uses a lot of sex scenes as well but never anything like that.
I always enjoy reading coming of age stories including the ones set at boarding schools and this book was no exception. I often disliked the main character (particulary at the end) but the book was still great and I'm looking forward to reading the next volume in this trilogy.
(I received a free digital copy via Netgalley/the publisher. Thanks for the opportunity!)
I always enjoy reading coming of age stories including the ones set at boarding schools and this book was no exception. I often disliked the main character (particulary at the end) but the book was still great and I'm looking forward to reading the next volume in this trilogy.
(I received a free digital copy via Netgalley/the publisher. Thanks for the opportunity!)
December 10, 2017
When I first started reading this, I couldn't figure out why I had never heard about it before: the writing is really quite good. But then I realized that for all of his belletrism, White doesn't really write about anything very compelling or interesting. Sure there's some smut and the carefree (if shopworn) experience of the rich white boy away at boarding school, wearing his immunities to consequence like his house's heraldic colors. But nothing much goes on.
I read this because it's the first in a series the second of which I will have to read to lead a bookclub discussion in January. We shall see how the next installment stacks up!
I read this because it's the first in a series the second of which I will have to read to lead a bookclub discussion in January. We shall see how the next installment stacks up!
February 24, 2018
This groundbreaking novel about a gay teenage boy coming of age in the 1950s is full of nostalgia and the yearning to be comfortable with oneself. The narrator recalls snippets of his formative years in which he struggles with his sexuality and the sense of shame that accompanies his then-forbidden desires. The writing is elegant and the story is an important one to tell, though I found certain sections to be far more affecting and compelling than others. This was an uneven read for me, though I'm glad I read it.
October 8, 2017
On the back of my disappointment with Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You I went to Twitter and meditated on the state of the gay novel. My friend Conrad said I should try out Edmund White. So I did.
A Boy’s Own Story (1982) is a novel about a gay teen’s coming of age in 1950s America. White holds nothing back. Within the first 20 pages we are already reading about our narrator’s rendezvous with a younger boy, Kevin. Kevin is 12 and our narrator is 15 but Kevin already knows the ropes when it comes to ‘cornholing’. These first couple of pages act as an admonition to the reader, you can hear White tapping at his keys, ‘I am not going to hold back’. The unabashed portrayal of teenage sexuality is so wonderfully refreshing. This novel is far more than just sex however.
Our narrator faces genuine struggles. Throughout the novel he chastises himself for being homosexual. At times he wishes he wasn’t. His father sends him to boarding school in order to straighten him out (pun intended). His life is a series of unfulfilling encounters and perpetual self-hate. The novel rejects the conventional bildungsroman narrative. We jump around the narrator’s life because that seems to be the only thing that he’s able to control, us. In her original review for the NYT, Catherine Stimpson described A Boy’s Own Life as The Catcher in the Rye meets Wilde’s De Profundis. It’s a fair comparison but White recedes into depths that Salinger could only dream about.
While I will admit that the novel can get boring in some parts I overall really admired A Boy’s Own Life. It acts as a reminder to me that for every middling book you read there’s always a great one to counteract it. I will most definitely be continuing on with Edmund White’s oeuvre.
A Boy’s Own Story (1982) is a novel about a gay teen’s coming of age in 1950s America. White holds nothing back. Within the first 20 pages we are already reading about our narrator’s rendezvous with a younger boy, Kevin. Kevin is 12 and our narrator is 15 but Kevin already knows the ropes when it comes to ‘cornholing’. These first couple of pages act as an admonition to the reader, you can hear White tapping at his keys, ‘I am not going to hold back’. The unabashed portrayal of teenage sexuality is so wonderfully refreshing. This novel is far more than just sex however.
Our narrator faces genuine struggles. Throughout the novel he chastises himself for being homosexual. At times he wishes he wasn’t. His father sends him to boarding school in order to straighten him out (pun intended). His life is a series of unfulfilling encounters and perpetual self-hate. The novel rejects the conventional bildungsroman narrative. We jump around the narrator’s life because that seems to be the only thing that he’s able to control, us. In her original review for the NYT, Catherine Stimpson described A Boy’s Own Life as The Catcher in the Rye meets Wilde’s De Profundis. It’s a fair comparison but White recedes into depths that Salinger could only dream about.
While I will admit that the novel can get boring in some parts I overall really admired A Boy’s Own Life. It acts as a reminder to me that for every middling book you read there’s always a great one to counteract it. I will most definitely be continuing on with Edmund White’s oeuvre.
August 14, 2017
A strong 3.5!
"Is it real wet and slippery in there? Some guy told me it was like a wet liver in a milk bottle"
One of the many weird and funny quotes from this book.
A boy's own story follows a young boy's story and his relationship with his family and exploring his sexuality.
It isn't what you would expect to be from the outset, which makes is quite refreshing.
I had some problems while reading the book, for example, A boy that is 15 that is goes from calling his father "daddy" in a child like manner to then describing events in his life like a memoir in an elaborate emotive language. The text jumps from basic narration to suddenly describing his feeling in a deeply metaphorical way - It almost seems as though the author is writing a memoir of his life, but became confused in whether it was him reflecting or him in the moment. One minute he is a fifteen year old helpless boy, the next a 45 year old librarian. It does get a little bit confusing.
There are parts of the story that I can however really relate to, a lot of the internal dialogue that the main character has I could find myself finding similarities. Also with how society views gay people. The protagonist has lots of character traits that I can relate to so that made it enjoyable for me.
Chapter 4 was one of my favourite intros, the character analysis is so vivid, I could almost smell the cigarette being put out of the woman that worked in the bookshop.
My major criticism would be that the author focuses on minor details and then races through the important ones, and it becomes extremely frustrating while reading! It also felt extremely long for the size of the book, I read longer books far quicker but there wasn't really anything to keep me hooked.
Overall I did like it despite the ranty review! It felt really fresh and I enjoyed how weirdly relatable it was.
"Is it real wet and slippery in there? Some guy told me it was like a wet liver in a milk bottle"
One of the many weird and funny quotes from this book.
A boy's own story follows a young boy's story and his relationship with his family and exploring his sexuality.
It isn't what you would expect to be from the outset, which makes is quite refreshing.
I had some problems while reading the book, for example, A boy that is 15 that is goes from calling his father "daddy" in a child like manner to then describing events in his life like a memoir in an elaborate emotive language. The text jumps from basic narration to suddenly describing his feeling in a deeply metaphorical way - It almost seems as though the author is writing a memoir of his life, but became confused in whether it was him reflecting or him in the moment. One minute he is a fifteen year old helpless boy, the next a 45 year old librarian. It does get a little bit confusing.
There are parts of the story that I can however really relate to, a lot of the internal dialogue that the main character has I could find myself finding similarities. Also with how society views gay people. The protagonist has lots of character traits that I can relate to so that made it enjoyable for me.
Chapter 4 was one of my favourite intros, the character analysis is so vivid, I could almost smell the cigarette being put out of the woman that worked in the bookshop.
My major criticism would be that the author focuses on minor details and then races through the important ones, and it becomes extremely frustrating while reading! It also felt extremely long for the size of the book, I read longer books far quicker but there wasn't really anything to keep me hooked.
Overall I did like it despite the ranty review! It felt really fresh and I enjoyed how weirdly relatable it was.
May 19, 2015
To be sixteen again, curled up on a bed devouring a novel in one afternoon! Of course, in 1982--the year ABOS was published--few gay-themed novels were readily available. I was lucky to live in an area with a public library that stocked the book. The 1980s: the apex of gay fiction (written by gay men for gay men). A celebration of the American spirit, with a homoerotic twist. The essence of individuality. Man versus society. American authors fed us the antihero (from surname-less Ishmael to dropout Holden Caufield). Edmund White was perhaps the trail-blazer that cemented the "Reagan-era" as arguably the finest in gay letters.
There's a certain Western-like aura to ABOS. White's semi-autobiographical tale set in the 1950s meanders like an antsy teenager--or an ornery cowboy on a quest. Hands thrust deep in jeans pockets. Kicking at the loose scree. Itching to stir up something. Lyrical writing carries us like the wind, but it's the protagonist's heated ambition that keeps us turning page after page. We don't care where the nameless protagonist ends his journey. We appreciate the journey itself. And the journey, after all, is the crown of American lit.
White's ending conjures up images of John Wayne blowing on his smoking gun after taking care of the bad guy. The Western-theme burgeons fiercer than an orange sunset melting into the desert. The "boy"--our cowboy--wipes himself and moves on. We don't wonder where he will travel next. For some reason, we figure, he's going places.
There's a certain Western-like aura to ABOS. White's semi-autobiographical tale set in the 1950s meanders like an antsy teenager--or an ornery cowboy on a quest. Hands thrust deep in jeans pockets. Kicking at the loose scree. Itching to stir up something. Lyrical writing carries us like the wind, but it's the protagonist's heated ambition that keeps us turning page after page. We don't care where the nameless protagonist ends his journey. We appreciate the journey itself. And the journey, after all, is the crown of American lit.
White's ending conjures up images of John Wayne blowing on his smoking gun after taking care of the bad guy. The Western-theme burgeons fiercer than an orange sunset melting into the desert. The "boy"--our cowboy--wipes himself and moves on. We don't wonder where he will travel next. For some reason, we figure, he's going places.
September 4, 2007
An account of growing up queer when growing up queer wasn't as mainstream as it is today. I think will appeal almost universally to a gay audience, but also to anyone who has felt different or like an outsider. It also deals with some interesting father-son issues.
August 18, 2023
Another of the great landmarks in American gay literature, this one had moments that really shone through for me—things that only a great writer could have worked from vague, slippery consciousness into recognizable, “that’s exactly it!”-inducing words on a page. And White’s story shows with some clarity how a gay person soaked in heteronormativity can be so aware of inner feelings and identity and still so confused about what they mean; the dichotomy of living in dissociation that way that straight and even gay people who haven’t grown up in that conservative world think is a thing of the past… he captures some of that here.
That said, I felt like this didn’t have much heart as a piece of literature in the way its peers from Baldwin and Isherwood do. It feels like an excuse for introspection more than a piece of art that is offering something more. And that’s okay, for what it is.
On to Vidal and Hollinghurst!
That said, I felt like this didn’t have much heart as a piece of literature in the way its peers from Baldwin and Isherwood do. It feels like an excuse for introspection more than a piece of art that is offering something more. And that’s okay, for what it is.
On to Vidal and Hollinghurst!
January 27, 2020
One of the most original coming-of-age/coming out stories I have ever read. While clearly influenced by Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask or even The Cather in the Rye and Proust, White manages to create a character that feels real and that you end up falling in love with this through the journey of his childhood and young adulthood.
Edmune White is quickly becoming my favourite queer author and I cannot wait to read the other two novels in this trilogy.
Edmune White is quickly becoming my favourite queer author and I cannot wait to read the other two novels in this trilogy.
January 14, 2021
"Like a blind man's hands exploring a face, the memory lingers over an identifying or beloved feature but dismisses the rest as just a curve, a bump, an expanse."
Originally published in 1982 'A Boy's Own Story' is the first of White’s trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels. Initially the book was banned which almost certainly added to its popularity it became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. .
Told from the perspective of an adolescent boy who represents the author growing up during 1950's America, the unnamed narrator struggles to embrace his own sexuality whilst also dealing with distant parents, a cruel sister and having few friends. The novel casts an eye on American gay life during that era, a time when many saw it as a sickness that could be cured by either doctors or priests, and is a coming of age story packed with yearning and shame.
The narrator longs to be loved by the men in his life (father, teachers or peers) but must also give the outward impression of being straight which becomes apparent very early on in the book. When at the age fifteen he is asked by Kevin, the son of his father's house-guests and himself only twelve, about his experiences with women, he pretends to have had female lovers before the two boys share the first of several sexual encounters with each other. This is an experience the narrator in particular has longed for but also shows a curiosity for pleasure and intimacy in young boys. A point underlined when the narrator is surprised that the physical act of love can mean giving as well as receiving pleasure.
No doubt the very age of these two boys became, along with the narrators parting shot, one of the main reasons why the book was banned. It was the fact that the book had once been banned and I wanted to see what all the fuss was all about was one of my motivations for picking up this book along with the fact that it is on the 1001 list. I have little interest in the homosexual nature of the novel however, I still feel that this story is one that is worth reading. The prose is quite wonderful, sometimes sad sometimes funny. It fully captures a lonely young boy with a vivid imagination struggling on many fronts and never slips out of that adolescent voice.
So why didn't I enjoy it more? As the author himself admits in the afterword, homosexuality is no longer a taboo subject in Western literature, film and television, bookshops that once catered solely for this sort of material have been put out of business by mainstream outlets. Therefore, as stories like this have become more acceptable I feel that they now lack the shock value that they once enjoyed. I'm not saying that this isn't a good thing but it does mean that I've read other books of a similar vein and just did't really grab me as it might once have done. The rather jumbled timeline also meant I found it unbalanced with many of the more interesting points at the beginning of the book and some of the events totally unbelievable.
I have yet to read the following two novels but no doubt will at some point. However, I believe that 'A Boy’s Own Story' can read as a stand-alone novel and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys well written 'coming of age' stories whatever their sexual orientation.
Originally published in 1982 'A Boy's Own Story' is the first of White’s trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels. Initially the book was banned which almost certainly added to its popularity it became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. .
Told from the perspective of an adolescent boy who represents the author growing up during 1950's America, the unnamed narrator struggles to embrace his own sexuality whilst also dealing with distant parents, a cruel sister and having few friends. The novel casts an eye on American gay life during that era, a time when many saw it as a sickness that could be cured by either doctors or priests, and is a coming of age story packed with yearning and shame.
The narrator longs to be loved by the men in his life (father, teachers or peers) but must also give the outward impression of being straight which becomes apparent very early on in the book. When at the age fifteen he is asked by Kevin, the son of his father's house-guests and himself only twelve, about his experiences with women, he pretends to have had female lovers before the two boys share the first of several sexual encounters with each other. This is an experience the narrator in particular has longed for but also shows a curiosity for pleasure and intimacy in young boys. A point underlined when the narrator is surprised that the physical act of love can mean giving as well as receiving pleasure.
No doubt the very age of these two boys became, along with the narrators parting shot, one of the main reasons why the book was banned. It was the fact that the book had once been banned and I wanted to see what all the fuss was all about was one of my motivations for picking up this book along with the fact that it is on the 1001 list. I have little interest in the homosexual nature of the novel however, I still feel that this story is one that is worth reading. The prose is quite wonderful, sometimes sad sometimes funny. It fully captures a lonely young boy with a vivid imagination struggling on many fronts and never slips out of that adolescent voice.
So why didn't I enjoy it more? As the author himself admits in the afterword, homosexuality is no longer a taboo subject in Western literature, film and television, bookshops that once catered solely for this sort of material have been put out of business by mainstream outlets. Therefore, as stories like this have become more acceptable I feel that they now lack the shock value that they once enjoyed. I'm not saying that this isn't a good thing but it does mean that I've read other books of a similar vein and just did't really grab me as it might once have done. The rather jumbled timeline also meant I found it unbalanced with many of the more interesting points at the beginning of the book and some of the events totally unbelievable.
I have yet to read the following two novels but no doubt will at some point. However, I believe that 'A Boy’s Own Story' can read as a stand-alone novel and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys well written 'coming of age' stories whatever their sexual orientation.
February 28, 2024
„Wszedłem z nim do sklepu, choć jemu kazałem poprosić o wazelinę. Zarumieniłem się, nie mogłem podnieść wzroku. On załatwił to bez cienia zażenowania, poprosił nawet o słoiczek średniej wielkości, zanim zdecydował się kupić najmniejszy. Ten mały, okrągły słoiczek wazeliny powiedziałby wszystko mojemu ojcu albo ojcu Kevina, gdyby go znaleźli. Co gorsza, świadczył, że do seksu zastosowaliśmy metodę: był zewnętrzną oznaką zdrady tego, co chciałem uznać za miłość, czyli pewnego wewnętrznego stanu. W końcu słońce zaszło, jezioro stało się chłodniejsze, jakby większe. I wydawało się, że oboje zostaliśmy osieroceni.”
„Zuch” to pierwsza z autobiograficznej trylogii Edmund’a White’a. Największym błędem będzie czytać ją z odniesieniem do dzisiejszego, bardziej tolerancyjnego, świata i stwierdzić, że niczego nie wnosi do życia czytelnika. Taką krótkowzroczną opinię przeczytałam na lubimyczytac - co ta książka niby wnosi i po co została napisana? Absolutnie nieuzasadnione pytania i niesprawiedliwe spłycenie wagi tej książki.
Do „Zucha” przylgnęło przyrównanie go do gejowskiego „Buszującego w zbożu”, i choć rozumiem to porównanie, to White tworzy swój odrębny głos w prozie. Akcja dzieje się w latach 50-tych, długo przed wybuchem zamieszek w Stonewall, w których notabene brał udział sam autor.
To bezpardonowy portret dorastania w pogardzie do samego siebie, które jednak nieśmiało raczkuje, by się wyswobodzić, uciec od konwenansów i oceny bliskich. Wszystko po to, by spróbować żyć w zgodzie ze sobą. White nie boi się nagiej szczerości, opisuje najbardziej intymne chwile pierwszych zbliżeń. To tutaj przeczytałam bodajże najodważniejszą scenę seksu pomiędzy młodymi chłopcami, jaką czytałam w życiu. Choć czy „najodważniejszy” to najlepszy przymiotnik w tej sytuacji? Po chwili pomyślałam, że to smutne, że to te określenie przyszło mi do głowy przy opisie sceny, która mnie zachwyciła, bo wiem, że kogoś innego może obrzydzić, dlatego staje się odważna. Dla mnie jest po prostu krystalicznie szczera. I ta niewinna szczerość jest piękna.
„Zuch” w moich oczach jest jedną z najpiękniejszych, szczerych, a zarazem smutnych książek opisujących życie młodego homoseksualisty. Jest tu tak wiele. Pragnienie miłości i akceptacji ojca, wiecznie brzemię bycia innym, „lalusiem”, próba leczenia u psychoanalityka, bezpardonowy obraz tego, jak nieosiągalne jest małżeństwo. „Zuch” jest wielopłaszczyznowym obrazem tego, ile nietolerancji mieszka na świecie na długo przed jakimkolwiek ruchem praw społeczności LGBT+.
Ta niezwykła powieść składa się dla mnie z małych fragmentów stających się kamieniami milowymi dojrzewania w pragnieniu. W pragnieniu, które społeczeństwo będzie nienawidzić a rodzina gardzić. Zerkając na niektóre oceny na portalach, tym bardziej polecam. Taka książka nieustannie jest potrzebna, jej tematyka wciąż jest rzeczywistością wielu, a nie tylko częścią autobiografii chłopca dorastającego w połowie ubiegłego wieku, w czasach, kiedy homoseksualizm wciąż był klasyfikowany jako choroba. Póki istnieją ludzie, którzy wciąż ją za taką uważają, to takie książki wciąż będą potrzebne.
tłum. Jerzy Jarkiewicz
„Zuch” to pierwsza z autobiograficznej trylogii Edmund’a White’a. Największym błędem będzie czytać ją z odniesieniem do dzisiejszego, bardziej tolerancyjnego, świata i stwierdzić, że niczego nie wnosi do życia czytelnika. Taką krótkowzroczną opinię przeczytałam na lubimyczytac - co ta książka niby wnosi i po co została napisana? Absolutnie nieuzasadnione pytania i niesprawiedliwe spłycenie wagi tej książki.
Do „Zucha” przylgnęło przyrównanie go do gejowskiego „Buszującego w zbożu”, i choć rozumiem to porównanie, to White tworzy swój odrębny głos w prozie. Akcja dzieje się w latach 50-tych, długo przed wybuchem zamieszek w Stonewall, w których notabene brał udział sam autor.
To bezpardonowy portret dorastania w pogardzie do samego siebie, które jednak nieśmiało raczkuje, by się wyswobodzić, uciec od konwenansów i oceny bliskich. Wszystko po to, by spróbować żyć w zgodzie ze sobą. White nie boi się nagiej szczerości, opisuje najbardziej intymne chwile pierwszych zbliżeń. To tutaj przeczytałam bodajże najodważniejszą scenę seksu pomiędzy młodymi chłopcami, jaką czytałam w życiu. Choć czy „najodważniejszy” to najlepszy przymiotnik w tej sytuacji? Po chwili pomyślałam, że to smutne, że to te określenie przyszło mi do głowy przy opisie sceny, która mnie zachwyciła, bo wiem, że kogoś innego może obrzydzić, dlatego staje się odważna. Dla mnie jest po prostu krystalicznie szczera. I ta niewinna szczerość jest piękna.
„Zuch” w moich oczach jest jedną z najpiękniejszych, szczerych, a zarazem smutnych książek opisujących życie młodego homoseksualisty. Jest tu tak wiele. Pragnienie miłości i akceptacji ojca, wiecznie brzemię bycia innym, „lalusiem”, próba leczenia u psychoanalityka, bezpardonowy obraz tego, jak nieosiągalne jest małżeństwo. „Zuch” jest wielopłaszczyznowym obrazem tego, ile nietolerancji mieszka na świecie na długo przed jakimkolwiek ruchem praw społeczności LGBT+.
Ta niezwykła powieść składa się dla mnie z małych fragmentów stających się kamieniami milowymi dojrzewania w pragnieniu. W pragnieniu, które społeczeństwo będzie nienawidzić a rodzina gardzić. Zerkając na niektóre oceny na portalach, tym bardziej polecam. Taka książka nieustannie jest potrzebna, jej tematyka wciąż jest rzeczywistością wielu, a nie tylko częścią autobiografii chłopca dorastającego w połowie ubiegłego wieku, w czasach, kiedy homoseksualizm wciąż był klasyfikowany jako choroba. Póki istnieją ludzie, którzy wciąż ją za taką uważają, to takie książki wciąż będą potrzebne.
tłum. Jerzy Jarkiewicz
November 18, 2018
"A popular quiz on masculinity in those days asked three questions, all of which I flunked: 1) Look at your nails (a girl extends her fingers, a boy cups his in his upturned palm); 2) Look up (a girl lifts just her eyes, a boy throws back his whole head); 3) Light a match (a girl strikes away from her body, a boy toward - or perhaps the reverse, I can't recall)."
He can't recall!? I need to know!
"Kevin was the sort of son who would have pleased my father more then I did. ... On the surface he had good manners, but they were born of training, not timidity. ... He hadn't invented another life; this one seemed good enough."
"His delay in coming went on so long that soon I'd passed from anticipation to nostalgia."
Staying with mum and her new boyfriend:
"My mother wore a new, dazed expression and treated us with great politeness, as though my sister and I were guests she didn't know very well."
"'But, Daddy ... I love my mother.'
'Like. Like,' he said. 'A man likes things. Girls love, men like.'"
"For my father ... manliness was not discussable, but had it been, it would have included a good business suit, ambition, paying one's bills on time, enough knowledge of baseball to hand out tips at the barbershop, a residual but never foolhardy degree of courage, and an unbreachable reserve; to the headmaster manliness was discussed constantly, every day, and entailed tweeds, trust funds, graciousness to servants, a polite but slightly chilly relationship to God, a pretended interest in knowledge and an obsessive interest in sports, especially muddy, dangerous ones like lacrosse or hockey or rugby that ended with great sullen lads hobbling off the field to lean on sticks at the sidelines, the orange and blue vertical stripes of their jerseys clinging to panting diaphragms, bare knees scarred, blond hair brown with sweat, an apache streak of mud daubed across a wan, bellicose cheek."
"I see now that what I wanted was to be loved by men and to love them back but not to be a homosexual. For I was possessed with a yearning for the company of men, for their look, touch and smell, and nothing transfixed me more than the sight of a man shaving and dressing, sumptuous rites. ... It was men, not women, who struck me as foreign and desirable."
"'At least he's a real man, and absolute evil is preferable, far preferable to your mauvais foi.'"
"Their desire to be bohemian outweighed their desire to be good."
"I knew I was worthless and at the same time I was convinced somebody would find me worthy,"
"Of course I wanted to love a man and be heterosexual; the longer I could delay sorting out this antinomy the better."
He can't recall!? I need to know!
"Kevin was the sort of son who would have pleased my father more then I did. ... On the surface he had good manners, but they were born of training, not timidity. ... He hadn't invented another life; this one seemed good enough."
"His delay in coming went on so long that soon I'd passed from anticipation to nostalgia."
Staying with mum and her new boyfriend:
"My mother wore a new, dazed expression and treated us with great politeness, as though my sister and I were guests she didn't know very well."
"'But, Daddy ... I love my mother.'
'Like. Like,' he said. 'A man likes things. Girls love, men like.'"
"For my father ... manliness was not discussable, but had it been, it would have included a good business suit, ambition, paying one's bills on time, enough knowledge of baseball to hand out tips at the barbershop, a residual but never foolhardy degree of courage, and an unbreachable reserve; to the headmaster manliness was discussed constantly, every day, and entailed tweeds, trust funds, graciousness to servants, a polite but slightly chilly relationship to God, a pretended interest in knowledge and an obsessive interest in sports, especially muddy, dangerous ones like lacrosse or hockey or rugby that ended with great sullen lads hobbling off the field to lean on sticks at the sidelines, the orange and blue vertical stripes of their jerseys clinging to panting diaphragms, bare knees scarred, blond hair brown with sweat, an apache streak of mud daubed across a wan, bellicose cheek."
"I see now that what I wanted was to be loved by men and to love them back but not to be a homosexual. For I was possessed with a yearning for the company of men, for their look, touch and smell, and nothing transfixed me more than the sight of a man shaving and dressing, sumptuous rites. ... It was men, not women, who struck me as foreign and desirable."
"'At least he's a real man, and absolute evil is preferable, far preferable to your mauvais foi.'"
"Their desire to be bohemian outweighed their desire to be good."
"I knew I was worthless and at the same time I was convinced somebody would find me worthy,"
"Of course I wanted to love a man and be heterosexual; the longer I could delay sorting out this antinomy the better."
March 19, 2012
Edmund White is the type of writer who freely uses words like “uxorious” in his novels without batting an eyelash. Thus it’s small wonder it was such a chore for me to plod through this book back as a young twentysomething - my little punkass simply wasn’t ready for such writerly erudition and I henceforth banned Mr. White to the shameful rank of Privileged Irrelevant Old Gay White Male Writer (PIOGWMW), basically the literary equivalent of a Sweater Queen to my judgmental young mind. But that’s all changed now that I am old and somewhat more of a literary sophisticate, and I hereby give this one a solid thumbs up after my second go-round with it last week. I’d originally thought of White’s sentences as somewhat akin to those little finger foods preciously meted out on silver trays at stuffy luncheons, but his writing is actually sharp and precise yet ethereal, and radiates with a love for the beauty of language. It’s Literature with a Capital L, yes, but I now finally know that this is a good thing, especially in our present situation, as our culture continues to circle the drain from Dumbed Down to Even Dumber Down. This classic novel can now have its place on the hallowed Rob’s Required Reading For All Gay Men. (Who Maybe Should Be Over Thirty Or At Least Open-Minded Or Highly Literate) - aka RRRFAGM (WMSBOTOALOMOHL). Anyway, read this book, it's good stuff (but my acronyms seriously need some work, they'll never catch on at this rate).
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