What do you think?
Rate this book
Haakon: A novel
Fictional Novel
296 pages, Hardcover
First published June 28, 1979
8 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 10, 2014
Zzzzzzzzz...oh, pardon me, I just dozed off again whilst trying to finish Haakon, by C. F. Griffith, published by Avon in 1978.
Haakon Hvitfelt, a 'beautiful Dane', returns from service in WW2 to his position as History professor at Columbia University. His longtime lover, a famous photographer Simon Somethingorother, has ceased to satisfy him, and indeed has become a bit of an embarrassment, as evidenced by constant use of the word 'faggish' to describe his attitudes and gestures. Haakon's a rich white boy with a self-absorbedly tortured past (had to care for his mean, dying mom), and his mopey, whiny internal monologue reflects this and pretty much only this.
There's a lot of sex in this book, much more than in the usual Avon fare. They use the word 'penis' and use the actual penises themselves on a fairly regular basis. Simon is delightfully slutty (another thing Haakon doesn't like). Haakon's sole sexual outlet is bj's~ he doesn't like to give or receive anything else, not even when he becomes a mentor and lover to dopey rough-trade Army buddy Dan. It's not until an annoyingly long interval of dating and doing women does he finally overcome this hangup. Unfortunately, Haakon is boring, and the sex is boring, and the relationships are boring, and the only good parts (Simon steals Dan away for a debauched evening at a 'fairy party') are glossed over in Hawk's droning, solipsistic narrative.
There's some stuff about photography and writing ground-breaking history books illuminating the nature of persecution, and Academic interdepartmental politics, and shopping for French bronzes, but ultimately it's impossible to care because our dashing hero is such a void, he sucks the entire book down with him.
Haakon Hvitfelt, a 'beautiful Dane', returns from service in WW2 to his position as History professor at Columbia University. His longtime lover, a famous photographer Simon Somethingorother, has ceased to satisfy him, and indeed has become a bit of an embarrassment, as evidenced by constant use of the word 'faggish' to describe his attitudes and gestures. Haakon's a rich white boy with a self-absorbedly tortured past (had to care for his mean, dying mom), and his mopey, whiny internal monologue reflects this and pretty much only this.
There's a lot of sex in this book, much more than in the usual Avon fare. They use the word 'penis' and use the actual penises themselves on a fairly regular basis. Simon is delightfully slutty (another thing Haakon doesn't like). Haakon's sole sexual outlet is bj's~ he doesn't like to give or receive anything else, not even when he becomes a mentor and lover to dopey rough-trade Army buddy Dan. It's not until an annoyingly long interval of dating and doing women does he finally overcome this hangup. Unfortunately, Haakon is boring, and the sex is boring, and the relationships are boring, and the only good parts (Simon steals Dan away for a debauched evening at a 'fairy party') are glossed over in Hawk's droning, solipsistic narrative.
There's some stuff about photography and writing ground-breaking history books illuminating the nature of persecution, and Academic interdepartmental politics, and shopping for French bronzes, but ultimately it's impossible to care because our dashing hero is such a void, he sucks the entire book down with him.
July 19, 2017
I read this for the first time many years ago, back in the eighties, when finding any kind of gay fiction in my city was like finding buried treasure. I've reread it a few times since then. Is it melodramatic? Yes. But it's a fascinating look into the Pre-Stonewall world and it's a book I will always have fond memories of. Well worth a read.
Read
July 19, 2017 I read this for the first time many years ago, back in the eighties, when finding any kind of gay fiction in my city was like finding buried treasure. I've reread it a few times since then. Is it melodramatic? Yes. But it's a fascinating look into the Pre-Stonewall world and it's a book I will always have fond memories of. Well worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews