Corporal In Charge

by Jack Fritscher

Fritscher, Jack

Genres: Gay Erotica, Gay

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Nicolas Chinardet · Rating 1 out of 5]

Corporal in Charge doesn’t quite know what it is supposed to be. The title and design of the book indicate a collection of erotic writings but that would a misunderstanding.

The first half of the book is indeed a series of short pieces of fiction that purport to be sexually arousing but that, in my view, singularly fail in that aim. They are in fact vignettes without real narrative, featuring escapees of Tom of Finland drawings dressed in some uniform or other, unreal with their bulging muscles and crotches.

Most of it is also just talk; fantasies within a supposed fantasy: the narrators describe a number of possible situations but it is rare that something actually happens in the "stories." As a result the reader is left cold and wondering when the action will finally begin.

The second part of the book is no more erotic than the first though it keeps up with the sexual content. It is a series of what could possibly be called essays; ill-structured ramblings built on circular sentences that add up to very little, sprinkled with faintly ridiculous and often meaningless portemanteaux. Those pontifications, pseudo-intellectual in nature, invite an intellectual scrutiny that they certainly cannot sustain.

Here the language, although still plagued by a carefree and perplexing use of capitalisation, assumes elements of a camp whimsicality which doesn't quite fit the matters discussed.

The overall tone is one of machismo and dominance, imbued with internalised homophobia, an unpleasant sense of male supremacy (“homomasculinity”) and the dregs of what we'd now call toxic masculinity. It seems therefore ironic that the author should have such issues with dominating and mastering his own medium.

Other problematic and rather distasteful elements in the book include the use of scenes of actual historical torture in the context of a discussion of watersports (Wet Dreams and Golden Showers) and this passage from By Blonds Obsessed (unsurprisingly a rambling essay(?) about the author's obsession with blonds):

"The dark future, geneticists predict, holds a new evolving human face and colouring; a honey-brown complexion with almond eyes and high cheekbones and slender nose. There will be no more blonds.
Blonds are atavistic, ancient barbarian, pure-Druid past. That's why we hold them so dear. They are the golden symbol of what was once so fair and pure and clean and holy and noble. That's all disappearing now on oily tarmacs of dark-skinned terrorism. Blondness is a gene as recessive as virtue.
We hold blond and value them because they are an endangered species. There will come a time when there will be no more blond men. My God! No more blond men. That's a world I don't want to live in." (p. 130)

Ultimately the book is both pretentious and annoying since it singularly fails to bring either titillation or enlightenment of any kind to the reader.

[Alaska · Rating 1 out of 5]

Have to run the plot through audit. Then audit the beats. Then audit the entire book 10 times. That's what authors do.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read this cover to cover yet but it's the kind of thing that you dip into. In fact it's so evocative that it's hard to read more than a short piece at one time. Some erotic fiction and some pieces that are more like short essays, but always hard-hitting and usually about sex. They date back to the pre-AIDS era so they're good for some gay nostalgia too.

[Anwen Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a world away from M/M romance. There's some heavy stuff here and it's not for everybody but for me it was very interesting to read erotic gay stories from the male point of view from the time just before AIDS.