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The Christopher Street Reader
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428 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 21, 2024
Before anything else one needs to ask why should anyone read journalism from the first six years of Christopher Street's existence now that it is nearly 35 years since the Magazine ceased publishing? The answer is that, aside from a few gems (of which more later) the answer is that there is no reason. Most of what this anthology contains is of historic rather than literary interest but having said that I must insist the level of writing is incredibly high and for me at sixty+ a nostalgia inducing reminder of a lost era of print journalism when there were numerous monthly or weekly literary, political, arts magazines where it was perfectly normal for 5,000+ word articles to be published and read.
What you will find in these pages is a portrait of an attempt to forge a 'gay' identity. That so much of it seems idiotic, even to me, does not prove how wrong they were but the limitations of all journalism as signposts to the future. These pages do provide a partial portrait of those years, but it is of course a very narrow one. You only have to look at the writing on foreign cities to realise how narrow - the article on the London is a portrait of gay life as upper middle class, boarding school and country house living orientated that is cliched and risible. The piece on the gay challenge to the Catholic Church in the USA is simply embarrassing because its has nothing to do with the issues, or problems, we would expect. Reading other articles which describes being homosexual as something you are born as but being gay as something you decide to be is fascinating if only because the authors fail to see how such ideas make the use of the terms 'gay' retrospectively for everyone from Caravaggio to Whitman utterly impossible.
But there is much that is excellent and stands the test of time; works by Edmund White and Holleran; Simon Karlinsky on the persecution of the Russian poet Gennady Trifonov and his short, but brilliant, account of the life and artistic accomplishments of Sergei Diaghilev and, most importantly of all Dennis Altman's interview with Gore Vidal. Back in these days Vidal was notorious for refusing to accept that there was such a things as homosexual identity and he insisted homosexual should only be used as an adjective not a noun. How absurd he sounded back then and how wise he sounds now (please see footnote *1 below).
This anthology has good things in it but I can't imagine anyone reading it for pleasure or even enlightenment. Journalism rarely ages well and although this is finely written journalism it is also hopelessly out of date. As a resource for study it is marvellous but otherwise give it a miss.
*1 I can easily imagine that sentence being misunderstood and causing offence but it is part of a much larger commitment to systemic change and also the recognition that the gay identity claimed as unique was the result of very specific circumstances. Anyone interested in longer explanations send me message.
What you will find in these pages is a portrait of an attempt to forge a 'gay' identity. That so much of it seems idiotic, even to me, does not prove how wrong they were but the limitations of all journalism as signposts to the future. These pages do provide a partial portrait of those years, but it is of course a very narrow one. You only have to look at the writing on foreign cities to realise how narrow - the article on the London is a portrait of gay life as upper middle class, boarding school and country house living orientated that is cliched and risible. The piece on the gay challenge to the Catholic Church in the USA is simply embarrassing because its has nothing to do with the issues, or problems, we would expect. Reading other articles which describes being homosexual as something you are born as but being gay as something you decide to be is fascinating if only because the authors fail to see how such ideas make the use of the terms 'gay' retrospectively for everyone from Caravaggio to Whitman utterly impossible.
But there is much that is excellent and stands the test of time; works by Edmund White and Holleran; Simon Karlinsky on the persecution of the Russian poet Gennady Trifonov and his short, but brilliant, account of the life and artistic accomplishments of Sergei Diaghilev and, most importantly of all Dennis Altman's interview with Gore Vidal. Back in these days Vidal was notorious for refusing to accept that there was such a things as homosexual identity and he insisted homosexual should only be used as an adjective not a noun. How absurd he sounded back then and how wise he sounds now (please see footnote *1 below).
This anthology has good things in it but I can't imagine anyone reading it for pleasure or even enlightenment. Journalism rarely ages well and although this is finely written journalism it is also hopelessly out of date. As a resource for study it is marvellous but otherwise give it a miss.
*1 I can easily imagine that sentence being misunderstood and causing offence but it is part of a much larger commitment to systemic change and also the recognition that the gay identity claimed as unique was the result of very specific circumstances. Anyone interested in longer explanations send me message.
August 10, 2025
I enjoyed browsing in this collection of stories from the pages of the Christopher Street magazine. Focusing on the sixties through the eighties this collection is both informative and entertaining.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews