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Love in a Dark Time: and Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature
Colm Tóibín knows the languages of the outsider, the secret keeper, the gay man or woman. He knows the covert and overt language of homosexuality in literature. In Love in a Dark Time, he also describes the solace of finding like-minded companions through reading.
Colm Tóibín examines the life and work of some of the greatest and most influential writers of the past two centuries, figures whose homosexuality remained hidden or oblique for much of their lives, either by choice or necessity. The larger world couldn't know about their sexuality, but in their private lives, and in the spirit of their work, the laws of desire defined their expression.
This is an intimate encounter with Mann, Baldwin, Bishop, and with the contemporary poets Thom Gunn and Mark Doty. Through their work, Tóibín is able to come to terms with his own inner desires—his interest in secret erotic energy, his admiration for courageous figures, and his abiding fascination with sadness and tragedy. Tóibín looks both at writers forced to disguise their true experience on the page and at readers who find solace and sexual identity by reading between the lines.
Colm Tóibín examines the life and work of some of the greatest and most influential writers of the past two centuries, figures whose homosexuality remained hidden or oblique for much of their lives, either by choice or necessity. The larger world couldn't know about their sexuality, but in their private lives, and in the spirit of their work, the laws of desire defined their expression.
This is an intimate encounter with Mann, Baldwin, Bishop, and with the contemporary poets Thom Gunn and Mark Doty. Through their work, Tóibín is able to come to terms with his own inner desires—his interest in secret erotic energy, his admiration for courageous figures, and his abiding fascination with sadness and tragedy. Tóibín looks both at writers forced to disguise their true experience on the page and at readers who find solace and sexual identity by reading between the lines.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 22, 2002
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1383 people want to read
About the author
Colm Tóibín
232 books5,441 followersColm Tóibín FRSL, is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. Tóibín is currently Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University in Manhattan and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 86 reviews
September 1, 2014
When I read books by gay authors, I try to see if their gayness find its way to their works. However, it's not only about being gay but their family background or influences. That's why I always check their Wiki entries or read the book's "About the Author" section. I always find out the author's year and place of birth and if his biography is comprehensive enough, at what age and time of his/her life he wrote or published the book.
It never fails to amuse me how the background of the author influences his works. That's why I argue with a friend who does not appreciate fiction works. Novels or short stories may be considered as fiction but they can sometimes be truer than non-fiction. Why? Because the author can "hide" from the label (fiction = untrue). People think that what the author is telling is wholly a figment of his/her imagination. However, how can an author transmit the exact emotion of the story to its target readers if he/she has not experienced the story in the first place?
This book is about the gay lives of Oscar Wilde, Thomas Mann, James Baldwin, Pedro Almodovar and a few others whose works I am not familiar with. However, for this four? I read their chapters with gusto. Prior to this, I had read Wilde's "Dorian Gray", "De Profundis", "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" and "The Happy Prince and Other Stories." His gayness is of course revealed in "De Profundis" as he lamented on what happened to his love affair with Bosie, their scandal that lead to Wilde's incarceration. This is the title story of the book: "Love in the Dark Time." Indeed, had they became lovers nowadays, they could even marry each other and people would not even dare frown. Homosexuality is now accepted here in the Philippines and I am glad that times have changed: people no longer see it as a disease or aberration.
The revealing chapter for me really is the one of Thomas Mann. I read his masterpiece "The Magic Mountain" four years ago and that was the time I was recuperating at home after my left knee got operated. I did like that book and it did not occur to me that Mann was a homesexual and his Wiki entry was silent on his sexual preference. Toibin, however, in this book quoted some critics' analysis of Mann's long novel and his characters. They could tell exactly who among Mann's acquaintances or lovers were Mann's inspirations for his famour characters. Boy oh boy, even at the age of 70+, Mann could still take fancy at some young teenager waiters and he would talk endlessly about the boys beauty.
James Baldwin and his seminal work "Giovanni's Room." I read the book during my first year here in Goodreads and I did enjoy reading it. I read in Baldwin's Wiki entries that he was black and gay and it surprised me because the gay novelette has no black characters. The two lovers are both white and they are in Paris and the room is their love nest. For me, the book is courageous because at the time of its publication, people still looked down on gay people even in Europe. However, what suprised me a bit was Baldwin's political interest and his associations with Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and other black personages in the US.
Pedro Almodovar, the film director also dabbled in writing. When struck me while reading the chapter about his gay life was that part that when he was a young man, he preferred attending the latin mass, enjoyed playing religious songs and had no qualms getting up on stage and perform. He was fascinated about becoming a priest as a way probably to "hide" his being gay. He thought that by being religious (he even contemplated on becoming a priest) people would spare him from ridicule even if most of his friends are gay. That part just reminded me of somebody haha!
Very revealing book about these authors who I did not know were gay or openly gay or openly had boyfriends or lovers. There are some others, poets Thom Gunn and Mark Doty or the lesbian Elizabeth Bishop but I don't know them so I just browsed those chapters.
Bravo, Colm Toibin. Nice brave book!
It never fails to amuse me how the background of the author influences his works. That's why I argue with a friend who does not appreciate fiction works. Novels or short stories may be considered as fiction but they can sometimes be truer than non-fiction. Why? Because the author can "hide" from the label (fiction = untrue). People think that what the author is telling is wholly a figment of his/her imagination. However, how can an author transmit the exact emotion of the story to its target readers if he/she has not experienced the story in the first place?
This book is about the gay lives of Oscar Wilde, Thomas Mann, James Baldwin, Pedro Almodovar and a few others whose works I am not familiar with. However, for this four? I read their chapters with gusto. Prior to this, I had read Wilde's "Dorian Gray", "De Profundis", "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" and "The Happy Prince and Other Stories." His gayness is of course revealed in "De Profundis" as he lamented on what happened to his love affair with Bosie, their scandal that lead to Wilde's incarceration. This is the title story of the book: "Love in the Dark Time." Indeed, had they became lovers nowadays, they could even marry each other and people would not even dare frown. Homosexuality is now accepted here in the Philippines and I am glad that times have changed: people no longer see it as a disease or aberration.
The revealing chapter for me really is the one of Thomas Mann. I read his masterpiece "The Magic Mountain" four years ago and that was the time I was recuperating at home after my left knee got operated. I did like that book and it did not occur to me that Mann was a homesexual and his Wiki entry was silent on his sexual preference. Toibin, however, in this book quoted some critics' analysis of Mann's long novel and his characters. They could tell exactly who among Mann's acquaintances or lovers were Mann's inspirations for his famour characters. Boy oh boy, even at the age of 70+, Mann could still take fancy at some young teenager waiters and he would talk endlessly about the boys beauty.
James Baldwin and his seminal work "Giovanni's Room." I read the book during my first year here in Goodreads and I did enjoy reading it. I read in Baldwin's Wiki entries that he was black and gay and it surprised me because the gay novelette has no black characters. The two lovers are both white and they are in Paris and the room is their love nest. For me, the book is courageous because at the time of its publication, people still looked down on gay people even in Europe. However, what suprised me a bit was Baldwin's political interest and his associations with Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and other black personages in the US.
Pedro Almodovar, the film director also dabbled in writing. When struck me while reading the chapter about his gay life was that part that when he was a young man, he preferred attending the latin mass, enjoyed playing religious songs and had no qualms getting up on stage and perform. He was fascinated about becoming a priest as a way probably to "hide" his being gay. He thought that by being religious (he even contemplated on becoming a priest) people would spare him from ridicule even if most of his friends are gay. That part just reminded me of somebody haha!
Very revealing book about these authors who I did not know were gay or openly gay or openly had boyfriends or lovers. There are some others, poets Thom Gunn and Mark Doty or the lesbian Elizabeth Bishop but I don't know them so I just browsed those chapters.
Bravo, Colm Toibin. Nice brave book!
November 2, 2022
This is a collection of essays about gay writers and artists. Found the Thomas Mann article very interesting (although sad). Toibin went on to write the wonderful biographical novel, The Magician, and his affinity for Thomas Mann is apparent.
However, in some sections the author was actually interacting with his subjects, and I found these parts less interesting. Distance is perspective.
However, in some sections the author was actually interacting with his subjects, and I found these parts less interesting. Distance is perspective.
January 13, 2010
Colm Tóibín, May His Tribe Increase!
This review is from: Love in a Dark Time: And Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature (Hardcover)
Once captured by the liquid, informed prose of Colm Tóibín it is difficult to ignore anything this brilliant writer has written. Still under the spell of 'The Master' and having just sadly finished 'The Story of the Night' (that novel could have been extended another 300 pages!), it seemed only appropriate to read an investigative work, just to see how this man's mind absorbs and dissects the world of reality instead the one of fiction.
Happily LOVE IN A DARK TIME is as fascinating a read as his novels. Tóibín searches the lives of many writers and artists asking how did/does their sexuality inform what they create. After a few historic references regarding the gay aspects of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Melville, Joyce, Lorca, Yeats, Kafka, Proust, Gide et at, he analyses biographies (example: Lionel Trilling's bio of EM Forster) that appear unaware of the subject's sexual proclivities! That thrusts us into the exploration of history before the term 'homosexual' was created, regards the aspects of 'the gay being', and proceeds to introduce postulates as to how the works created by nine particular people were deeply influenced by their sexuality, occult or accepted.
What then follows is a richly detailed and elegant series of essays on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Roger Casement (of The Black Diaries), Thomas Mann, Francis Bacon (the painter), Elizabeth Bishop, James Baldwin, Thom Gunn, Pedro Almodovar, and Mark Doty. In each essay Tóibín takes a new stance of investigation, finding incidents or traits in the lives of those discussed that allow 'stories' to develop naturally.
For those who have read 'The Master' (Tóibín's own "biography" of Henry James) this series of highly researched essays will come as no surprise. Tóibín's mind is rich with a plethora of books read and a penetrating mind that examines art from a vantage peculiar to a man that has arrived at the top of the heap in the field of literature. For enjoyable and informative reading, LOVE IN DARK TIME is a pearl. And reading Tóibín's older works only serves to whet the appetite for his next opus. Highly Recommended.
Grady Harp
This review is from: Love in a Dark Time: And Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature (Hardcover)
Once captured by the liquid, informed prose of Colm Tóibín it is difficult to ignore anything this brilliant writer has written. Still under the spell of 'The Master' and having just sadly finished 'The Story of the Night' (that novel could have been extended another 300 pages!), it seemed only appropriate to read an investigative work, just to see how this man's mind absorbs and dissects the world of reality instead the one of fiction.
Happily LOVE IN A DARK TIME is as fascinating a read as his novels. Tóibín searches the lives of many writers and artists asking how did/does their sexuality inform what they create. After a few historic references regarding the gay aspects of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Melville, Joyce, Lorca, Yeats, Kafka, Proust, Gide et at, he analyses biographies (example: Lionel Trilling's bio of EM Forster) that appear unaware of the subject's sexual proclivities! That thrusts us into the exploration of history before the term 'homosexual' was created, regards the aspects of 'the gay being', and proceeds to introduce postulates as to how the works created by nine particular people were deeply influenced by their sexuality, occult or accepted.
What then follows is a richly detailed and elegant series of essays on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Roger Casement (of The Black Diaries), Thomas Mann, Francis Bacon (the painter), Elizabeth Bishop, James Baldwin, Thom Gunn, Pedro Almodovar, and Mark Doty. In each essay Tóibín takes a new stance of investigation, finding incidents or traits in the lives of those discussed that allow 'stories' to develop naturally.
For those who have read 'The Master' (Tóibín's own "biography" of Henry James) this series of highly researched essays will come as no surprise. Tóibín's mind is rich with a plethora of books read and a penetrating mind that examines art from a vantage peculiar to a man that has arrived at the top of the heap in the field of literature. For enjoyable and informative reading, LOVE IN DARK TIME is a pearl. And reading Tóibín's older works only serves to whet the appetite for his next opus. Highly Recommended.
Grady Harp
August 20, 2008
More of a series of profiles and reviews of gay male and female authors than a cohesive study of gay literature, this collection of essays is still a nice work of queer canon formation. Sure, Wilde, Mann, and Baldwin are already at the forefront of this canon, but Tóibín (is it fun typing out that name precisely with those finicky diacriticals? it is not) also includes such figures as Elizabeth Bishop, Francis Bacon, Thom Gunn, and Pedro Almodóvar in his study. His point is to call attention to certain writers and artists because they were homosexual, but not necessarily to dwell on their homosexuality. In other words, it's about finding and naming gay heroes, an interesting project for a writer who never wrote about homosexuality in general or his own in specific until he had ten books under his belt.
As I said it's not a very rich critical or theoretical work. Definitely the most enlightening thing I came across was his defense of the love between Wilde and Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, who everyone understands as having ruined the great Irish writer with his selfishness and cruelty. Why did Wilde put up with it? Tóibín writes:
"In most societies, most gay people go through adolescence believing that the fulfillment of physical desire would not be matched by emotional attachment. For straight people, the eventual matching of the two is part of the deal, a happy aspect of normality. But if this occurs for gay people, it is capable of taking on an extraordinarily powerful emotional force, and the resulting attachment, even if the physical part fizzles out, or even if the relationship makes no sense to the outside world, is likely to be fierce and enduring. [. . .] This, more likely, was the stamp and seal of the love between Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas."
It almost made me not loathe the boy. Almost.
As I said it's not a very rich critical or theoretical work. Definitely the most enlightening thing I came across was his defense of the love between Wilde and Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, who everyone understands as having ruined the great Irish writer with his selfishness and cruelty. Why did Wilde put up with it? Tóibín writes:
"In most societies, most gay people go through adolescence believing that the fulfillment of physical desire would not be matched by emotional attachment. For straight people, the eventual matching of the two is part of the deal, a happy aspect of normality. But if this occurs for gay people, it is capable of taking on an extraordinarily powerful emotional force, and the resulting attachment, even if the physical part fizzles out, or even if the relationship makes no sense to the outside world, is likely to be fierce and enduring. [. . .] This, more likely, was the stamp and seal of the love between Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas."
It almost made me not loathe the boy. Almost.
July 24, 2019
A dull and uninspiring book. Toibin is a fine novelist, but a less than average critic of poetry. The official blurb says that this book helped Toibin to face his sexuality. Unfortunately, it did not help him to understand Thom Gunn or Mark Doty.
July 19, 2018
Este libro en sí es una recopilación de ensayos en la cual el autor de manera analítica nos muestra como algunos artistas y escritores famosos del siglo XIX y XX afrontaron su homosexualidad y como esta se vio reflejada en sus obras, y es muy interesante la manera en que no lo muestra, como fue que en cada época algunos lo ocultaron y otros simplemente eran abiertamente gay pero con las consecuencias de ser discriminados por ciertas personas de la sociedad, además de todos los prejuicios por los que pasaron de parte de la religión, la ley, etcétera a pesar de ser personas influyentes. Podría decirse que estos ensayos nos lo muestran de manera un poco biográfica y como s que van relacionando sus preferencias sexuales con ya sean pinturas, novelas, poemas, etcétera. Por otra parte también nos dan un pequeño atisbo de cómo algunos fueron encarcelados y otros ahorcados por sus preferencias debido a terceras personas, me ha gustado mucho como el autor fue escribiendo de cada uno de ellos dándonos un panorama amplio de la época en la que vivieron y como es que ellos trataron y como la homosexualidad era vista en aquellas épocas.
August 6, 2018
This book I will recommend till my last breath.❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
July 1, 2025
última lectura de Junio del orgullo. Son ensayos suficientemente interesantes... más que eso no sé qué comentar
March 22, 2025
'People can tolerate two homosexuals they see leaving together, but if the next day they are smiling, holding hands and tenderly embracing one another, then they can't be forgiven. It is not the departure for pleasure that is intolerable, it is the waking up happy.' - Woods.
January 4, 2022
El primero del 2022. Un recorrido a diversos autores y personajes trascendentes. Las otras vidas dentro y fuera del armario o cómo sobrevivir marica ante la oscura realidad
February 19, 2016
If I had an accurate idea of what “Love in a Dark Time” would contain I would not have picked it up. The premise was intriguing, it is subtitled “Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodovar”, but this book is not really about that at all. The text contains a series of book and literary reviews that Colm Toibin wrote over a period of years, and he has now cobbled them into a collection. The fact that the subjects are gay, or most of them are, is really not the point. The title is misleading and anyone picking this text up for a social examination of prominent gay people will be sorely disappointed.
The essays in the book are unrelated, and Toibin has not even bothered to go back and revise them to create some kind of coherent thread that might link them. Especially unforgivable in this text is the book review about biographies of Thomas Mann which is clearly just plopped down to take up space. Also pointless is the essay on Almodovar, which again shares nothing with the collection’s supposed premise.
Now, if you don’t pick this book up under false pretenses, there are some good things to be had from it. The essay on Oscar Wilde has a lovely structure and gives a decent account of Wilde’s work and personal life. The essay on James Baldwin also stands out as one of the best, and most enlightening, in the book. It has something to say. I also appreciated the chapter on the poet Thom Gunn, who I had never heard of. I investigated his poetry as a result of this reading.
If you have a copy of “Love in a Dark Time” and are determined to read it I suggest reading one essay and then putting the book down. Go read another book, and then come back to this one and read another essay, and so on until done. Its faults will be less annoying if consumed in that manner. Colm Toibin is obviously a talented writer, I just wish he (or his editors) had more respect for the readers of this book and had put in some more effort to make it live up to its potential.
The essays in the book are unrelated, and Toibin has not even bothered to go back and revise them to create some kind of coherent thread that might link them. Especially unforgivable in this text is the book review about biographies of Thomas Mann which is clearly just plopped down to take up space. Also pointless is the essay on Almodovar, which again shares nothing with the collection’s supposed premise.
Now, if you don’t pick this book up under false pretenses, there are some good things to be had from it. The essay on Oscar Wilde has a lovely structure and gives a decent account of Wilde’s work and personal life. The essay on James Baldwin also stands out as one of the best, and most enlightening, in the book. It has something to say. I also appreciated the chapter on the poet Thom Gunn, who I had never heard of. I investigated his poetry as a result of this reading.
If you have a copy of “Love in a Dark Time” and are determined to read it I suggest reading one essay and then putting the book down. Go read another book, and then come back to this one and read another essay, and so on until done. Its faults will be less annoying if consumed in that manner. Colm Toibin is obviously a talented writer, I just wish he (or his editors) had more respect for the readers of this book and had put in some more effort to make it live up to its potential.
March 6, 2014
Colm Tóibín uses silky-smooth language that lifts all the efforts of reading off the shoulders of his readers. He writes with a clarity and simplicity that illuminate the complexities of the subject matter. I loved this book. Tóibín takes us through the lives of a number of gay writers, poets, artists and a film-maker, teasing apart what may have made each of them tick and how their homosexuality may or may not have shaped how they wrote or created. There are very different gay lives examined here. The exuberance of Wilde is contrasted with the control of Thomas Mann, the quirkiness of Almodóvar with the conformism of Henry James. We are reminded that there are as many ways of being gay as there are of being a writer and that, up until very recently, each gay person had to discover for him/herself what being gay was all about. During the long period of Western culture where homosexuality was abhorred, repressed and criminally punishable each gay person had to reinvent the wheel for themselves — there was no transmission of gay culture from one generation to the next, no ready-made templates to fall into nor role models such as exist today. Tóibín's sketches are fond, detailed and memorable. His description of a Madrid party at which Almodóvar was the star will stay with me forever.
January 28, 2013
a collection of essays on gay writers (and Almodovar). Pity only one woman is included. Some of the essays were a bit too literal-scholarly for my humble brain, but most made interesting reading. The angle from which he views the writers is very interesting though and the introduction is highly interesting in this respect. in summary - i am happy to have read this book, some was above my understanding as said, but still, I have a new "to read" list now, he made me want to read some of those writers, whom i didn't know as yet (especially the poets.....)
October 18, 2021
Chismes disfrazados de ensayo.
June 24, 2023
‘Being gay seemed to come second in their public lives, either by choice or necessity. But in their private lives, in their own spirit, the laws of desire changed everything for them and made all the difference.’
Colm Tóibín is a fine writer, and in this elegant, intelligent collection of essays, he salvages a history of homosexual experience by exploring the lives and legacies of an eclectic group of gay writers and artists from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th.
Crucial to this endeavour is analysing how sexuality can shape one’s art. The list of lives under survey includes only one woman (Elizabeth Bishop) and I wish there’d been more, but Tóibín’s careful analysis of his subjects is extremely compelling. This book proved to be be an illuminating introduction to icons I knew very little about (Roger Casement and Francis Bacon, among others) while offering further insights on those who are not strictly covered in this book (like Walt Whitman and Frank Kafka). And this tidbits of trivia never cease to amaze: for instance, I never knew that Henry James refused to sign the clemency petition for Oscar Wilde; or that the art collector Douglas Cooper, who came to loathe the painter Francis Bacon, held on to the modernist furniture that Bacon had once designed merely to poke fun at him; or even how Thomas Mann avoided publicly denouncing the Nazis for as long as he could because of his complicated yearning for his homeland.
I confess I gravitated more towards the writers in this book (like Wilde and Mann, whose lives seemed imbued with a haunting sense of tragedy) rather than the poets and artists (many of whose work I was not familiar with). And it was curious to note that the essays about the writers long dead or more distanced in time moved me more than those in which Tóibín was able to meet and interview the subjects. But overall I found this book highly thought-provoking and deeply perceptive—especially when we pause to consider how our understanding of sexuality has transformed over time, and what this means for the future.
Colm Tóibín is a fine writer, and in this elegant, intelligent collection of essays, he salvages a history of homosexual experience by exploring the lives and legacies of an eclectic group of gay writers and artists from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th.
Crucial to this endeavour is analysing how sexuality can shape one’s art. The list of lives under survey includes only one woman (Elizabeth Bishop) and I wish there’d been more, but Tóibín’s careful analysis of his subjects is extremely compelling. This book proved to be be an illuminating introduction to icons I knew very little about (Roger Casement and Francis Bacon, among others) while offering further insights on those who are not strictly covered in this book (like Walt Whitman and Frank Kafka). And this tidbits of trivia never cease to amaze: for instance, I never knew that Henry James refused to sign the clemency petition for Oscar Wilde; or that the art collector Douglas Cooper, who came to loathe the painter Francis Bacon, held on to the modernist furniture that Bacon had once designed merely to poke fun at him; or even how Thomas Mann avoided publicly denouncing the Nazis for as long as he could because of his complicated yearning for his homeland.
I confess I gravitated more towards the writers in this book (like Wilde and Mann, whose lives seemed imbued with a haunting sense of tragedy) rather than the poets and artists (many of whose work I was not familiar with). And it was curious to note that the essays about the writers long dead or more distanced in time moved me more than those in which Tóibín was able to meet and interview the subjects. But overall I found this book highly thought-provoking and deeply perceptive—especially when we pause to consider how our understanding of sexuality has transformed over time, and what this means for the future.
April 6, 2022
i admit i picked up this book with the purely gossipy motive to find out who among my favorite authors was gay. ultimately, i was disappointed.
for one thing, this book is less comprehensive than i would have hoped, and is more of a selective examination of those gay authors the writer found most interesting. unfortunately, the figures that the author chose to write about are almost all boring to me. while i liked the chapter on baldwin, most of the other chapters simply recounted sordid details in the lives of people i do not care about. there was a completely unnecessary chapter on oscar wilde, who everyone already knows everything about. the best chapter in my opinion was the very first, which essentially rapid-fire listed a bunch of authors who were allegedly gay (which i liked for obvious gossipy reasons).
secondly, the author seemed to be singularly focused on those 'tragic' gays that the media so adores. (i will not stand for his disparaging remarks on Maurice's happy ending!) just because you, colm toibin, are sad, does not mean everyone has to be.
there also were some clear oversights like how bram stoker was mentioned in the wilde chapter, but the fact that stoker was also probably gay was overlooked (i was WAITING for a chapter on stoker considering the author's clear bias towards irish authors, but alas.)
altogether fine? but frustrating because it did not do what i wanted it to do. 2.5 stars.
for one thing, this book is less comprehensive than i would have hoped, and is more of a selective examination of those gay authors the writer found most interesting. unfortunately, the figures that the author chose to write about are almost all boring to me. while i liked the chapter on baldwin, most of the other chapters simply recounted sordid details in the lives of people i do not care about. there was a completely unnecessary chapter on oscar wilde, who everyone already knows everything about. the best chapter in my opinion was the very first, which essentially rapid-fire listed a bunch of authors who were allegedly gay (which i liked for obvious gossipy reasons).
secondly, the author seemed to be singularly focused on those 'tragic' gays that the media so adores. (i will not stand for his disparaging remarks on Maurice's happy ending!) just because you, colm toibin, are sad, does not mean everyone has to be.
there also were some clear oversights like how bram stoker was mentioned in the wilde chapter, but the fact that stoker was also probably gay was overlooked (i was WAITING for a chapter on stoker considering the author's clear bias towards irish authors, but alas.)
altogether fine? but frustrating because it did not do what i wanted it to do. 2.5 stars.
April 2, 2025
Es un sí.
Una recopilación fascinante de historias y biografías de artistas gays, que explora cómo enfrentaron y vivieron su sexualidad a lo largo de sus vidas. Algunas experiencias fueron positivas, mientras que otras estuvieron marcadas por grandes desafíos.
Este libro me permitió descubrir artistas queer que desconocía y me inspiró a buscar más lecturas sobre ellos. Una obra que definitivamente recomiendo.
Una recopilación fascinante de historias y biografías de artistas gays, que explora cómo enfrentaron y vivieron su sexualidad a lo largo de sus vidas. Algunas experiencias fueron positivas, mientras que otras estuvieron marcadas por grandes desafíos.
Este libro me permitió descubrir artistas queer que desconocía y me inspiró a buscar más lecturas sobre ellos. Una obra que definitivamente recomiendo.
December 6, 2022
I thought I would enjoy this book as the topic interests me. Unfortunately I found the writing too dry and I didn't enjoy it very much.
February 10, 2023
This book was so slow and very dry. I did not enjoy it at all
May 4, 2024
He may be a better essayist!
April 24, 2025
Genre un strong 3.5
Plus il se rapproche de ses contemporains plus on diverge vers un ton plus personnel qu'académique mais c'est pas nécessairement un désastre
Plus il se rapproche de ses contemporains plus on diverge vers un ton plus personnel qu'académique mais c'est pas nécessairement un désastre
June 25, 2025
3.5, in realtà... [Anche se una domanda sul senso di inserire Almodóvar mi si è presentata...]
June 11, 2016
This is more of a 1.5 for me on merit, but I can't find it in me to round up. I purchased this book quite some time ago, and it's been sitting in one of my bookshelves next to another book about homophobia. I recently picked up the book again and noted the author; I've not read Brooklyn or Nora Webster, though I wouldn't be against it. If anything, I kind of assumed the popularity of those books would lift my opinions about this book. They didn't.
There are really two premises for this book. The first premise is related to "the exploration of gay lives and literature", which, having read the introduction, I figured would mean looking at gay authors in history. There is a very strong Irish twist in there, which then led me to thinking the book was about Irish gay authors. The first two sections, on Oscar Wilde and Roger Casement (loosely an author), fit the mold. But Thomas Mann does not, and most of the other have no significant history (or history at all) in Ireland.
So then my thought was that Ireland was clearly a theme for Toibin, who is perhaps merging his own influences. About midway through the book, I tried to check myself into expecting that each chapter would elaborate on the homosexual nature of each author. But it makes sense that there really wouldn't be that much, because of course we're talking about "love in a dark time", so people were, in general, more inhibited about their sexuality. Why would the book need to be so specific about the homosexuality of the authors? Wouldn't it be enough to just study the authors themselves in the context of this book? So I settled myself.
Except that some of the entries in the book are not authors. Francis Bacon is an artist, though there is quite a lot quotations from an extensive interview. Pedro Almodovar is... a close friend of Toibin's apparently, and a film maker. It's one of the more bizarre entries in the book; I really have no idea what it's doing there. The chapter on Mark Doty makes no sense to me whatsoever. Many of the chapters contain some biographical information, but it's not consistent, and in the case of Doty, there's absolutely none. So are they all authors? No. Artists? Sure. But literature? Not so much.
Which leads me to the second premise of the book. I have no idea what that premise is. And hence my rating. The last chapter goes back to Ireland. In twelve pages, Toibin seems to be explaining and analyzing where Ireland's strong sense of Catholicism came from. There is then a very threadbare connection to... Catholic priests abusing young boys. I just can't.
There are really two premises for this book. The first premise is related to "the exploration of gay lives and literature", which, having read the introduction, I figured would mean looking at gay authors in history. There is a very strong Irish twist in there, which then led me to thinking the book was about Irish gay authors. The first two sections, on Oscar Wilde and Roger Casement (loosely an author), fit the mold. But Thomas Mann does not, and most of the other have no significant history (or history at all) in Ireland.
So then my thought was that Ireland was clearly a theme for Toibin, who is perhaps merging his own influences. About midway through the book, I tried to check myself into expecting that each chapter would elaborate on the homosexual nature of each author. But it makes sense that there really wouldn't be that much, because of course we're talking about "love in a dark time", so people were, in general, more inhibited about their sexuality. Why would the book need to be so specific about the homosexuality of the authors? Wouldn't it be enough to just study the authors themselves in the context of this book? So I settled myself.
Except that some of the entries in the book are not authors. Francis Bacon is an artist, though there is quite a lot quotations from an extensive interview. Pedro Almodovar is... a close friend of Toibin's apparently, and a film maker. It's one of the more bizarre entries in the book; I really have no idea what it's doing there. The chapter on Mark Doty makes no sense to me whatsoever. Many of the chapters contain some biographical information, but it's not consistent, and in the case of Doty, there's absolutely none. So are they all authors? No. Artists? Sure. But literature? Not so much.
Which leads me to the second premise of the book. I have no idea what that premise is. And hence my rating. The last chapter goes back to Ireland. In twelve pages, Toibin seems to be explaining and analyzing where Ireland's strong sense of Catholicism came from. There is then a very threadbare connection to... Catholic priests abusing young boys. I just can't.
August 5, 2025
Depending on your interest, parts of this book can be fascinating. It is a loosely assembled collection of essays about gay writers, told in chronological order, beginning with the life of Oscar Wilde. However, it is not a cohesive study about gay lives, as the title proclaims.
I really liked the introductory chapter. I studied German literature at a very psychology-oriented university, with a German department that loved Kafka. Still, I have NEVER heard it mentioned before that Kafka might have been gay. OMG! That was a new insight. I liked the idea that Tóibín focuses on writers who tick off more than one minority group: gay and Irish (in a British context), gay and Jewish, gay and black. He doesn’t follow that idea through, though. Also, I wondered why he didn't include Henry James or Franz Kafka - it might have been more interesting than some of the later chapters in this book.
Tóibín is always most convincing when he writes about Irish subjects. I extremely enjoyed reading the chapters about Oscar Wilde and Roger Casement. With patent insight, he also briefly mentions other Irish writers, such as WB Yeats, Samuel Beckett, or Roddy Doyle. The chapter about Thomas Mann didn’t tell me anything new, and I thought it was too crammed, with a lot of information about the entire Mann family squeezed into twenty pages. Overall, the book is probably more enjoyable when you have some previous knowledge about its subjects.
However, as you read on, the chapters become thinner and less conclusive, and the book struck me as too disjointed. Three writers in there I had never heard of (Bishop, Gunn, Doty), and I can’t say that Tóibín has piqued my interest. With some chapters, I didn’t even know what was Tóibín’s point (Aldomóvar, Bishop).
So, all in all, this was a very mixed bag with some very ingenious writing, but which also wears a bit thin in places.
I really liked the introductory chapter. I studied German literature at a very psychology-oriented university, with a German department that loved Kafka. Still, I have NEVER heard it mentioned before that Kafka might have been gay. OMG! That was a new insight. I liked the idea that Tóibín focuses on writers who tick off more than one minority group: gay and Irish (in a British context), gay and Jewish, gay and black. He doesn’t follow that idea through, though. Also, I wondered why he didn't include Henry James or Franz Kafka - it might have been more interesting than some of the later chapters in this book.
Tóibín is always most convincing when he writes about Irish subjects. I extremely enjoyed reading the chapters about Oscar Wilde and Roger Casement. With patent insight, he also briefly mentions other Irish writers, such as WB Yeats, Samuel Beckett, or Roddy Doyle. The chapter about Thomas Mann didn’t tell me anything new, and I thought it was too crammed, with a lot of information about the entire Mann family squeezed into twenty pages. Overall, the book is probably more enjoyable when you have some previous knowledge about its subjects.
However, as you read on, the chapters become thinner and less conclusive, and the book struck me as too disjointed. Three writers in there I had never heard of (Bishop, Gunn, Doty), and I can’t say that Tóibín has piqued my interest. With some chapters, I didn’t even know what was Tóibín’s point (Aldomóvar, Bishop).
So, all in all, this was a very mixed bag with some very ingenious writing, but which also wears a bit thin in places.
July 9, 2014
I'm marking this book as "read," when I've actually only gotten through the first chapter. And wept the whole time I read it. Perhaps I'm more emotionally stimulated than usual (PMS? the moon? solar flares? who can say...), or perhaps my awareness of human and civil rights is heightened due to the appeal-happy people in my home state making things miserable for the rest of us... or SCOTUS letting EVERYONE down and thrusting red matter into the universe, a la Romulans, to create a scary black hole of gravitational mystery into which all of our rights of the last millennium will vanish...
But I will keep reading this book, bit by bit, word by word, throughout the rest of my life. Long after I've finished the first read, I will calmly flip back to the first page and start it over again.
It's everything I wish we would've talked about in English class but never did... and I always felt like it was missing. Now I know it was.
It is my history, your history, our history.
But I will keep reading this book, bit by bit, word by word, throughout the rest of my life. Long after I've finished the first read, I will calmly flip back to the first page and start it over again.
It's everything I wish we would've talked about in English class but never did... and I always felt like it was missing. Now I know it was.
It is my history, your history, our history.
May 4, 2022
Una suerte de ensayos/recopilatorio sobre la influencia homosexual en el ámbito literario a lo largo de la historia. Si bien es cierto que el contenido es interesante por las inferencias históricas y las historias personales, no deja de centrar su mirada en la composición literaria y en las variaciones de la prosa/verso, que es de lo que trata también la obra.
El ritmo de la escritura es interesante, ameno, ligero así como las opiniones del autor que se van entretejiendo en las narrativas de una forma sutil. Sus raíces irlandesas y su propia vivencia de la homosexualidad en un entorno primariamente religioso y contrario a su modo de vivir, la otorga una perspectiva crítica, mordaz y muy refrescante.
El ritmo de la escritura es interesante, ameno, ligero así como las opiniones del autor que se van entretejiendo en las narrativas de una forma sutil. Sus raíces irlandesas y su propia vivencia de la homosexualidad en un entorno primariamente religioso y contrario a su modo de vivir, la otorga una perspectiva crítica, mordaz y muy refrescante.
January 17, 2009
Personal selection of essays probably an outgrowth of his work as a reviewer for The London Review of Books. All the subjects were gay. Only one was female. They were artists, poets and writers. They lived, even the most recent, in circumstances much less progressive than now. Some of the articles are very 'scholarly' and dry. The best give a sense of the person's personal life but too much of the book is critique of the person's oeuvre.
December 31, 2013
This was written by Colm Toibin. For me, nothing else needs be said. I have never disliked (never not loved) any of his books. These 11 essays on Thomas Mann, Francis Bacon, Roger Casement, James Baldwin, etc. were all fascinating. Even those people I didn't start out interested in intrigued me as Toibin started his explorations. Not short biographies but rather essays on a particular aspect of each life that interested Toibin.
July 25, 2007
I really liked this book because it showed where gay writers were coming from. It never occured to me that sexuality would ever come through in a novel unless it was deliberate. It also opened me up to some contemporary writers and creative thinkers to look up in the future
October 26, 2025
You go, girl. The essays on Baldwin and Wilde are exceptional.
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