Auzy > Recent Status Updates

"a mass rally of corpses who were all there by prearrangement, whose only action was the production of that horrible putrid smell"

more & more bodies come

Protagonist recalls the death of maternal grandma who died last winter

Gwangju Uprising was a 1980 pro-democracy protest in South Korea that was brutally crushed by military tanks and troops, leaving hundreds of civilians dead.

The story starts with the aftermath, opening in a temporary mortuary set up where lines of mutilated civilian bodies lie in wooden boxes, waiting for families to identify them.

The boy - Narrator/Reader
Eun-sook
Seon-ju
Jin-su
^ Volunteers for the mortuary

Hella leaves him to return to America. Back alone, David packs his bags. He stares into a mirror, strips away his denial, and confronts his own culpability in destroying Giovanni and Hella. David tears up an unopened letter from Jacques (Giovanni's official execution date). A sudden gust of wind blows the torn blue paper fragments back into his path, symbolizing that he cannot run away from his past or his guilt.

To escape the Paris' scandal, David and Hella move to the South of France. Jacques stays behind in the city, follows the trial closely, and sends David updates regarding Giovanni's condition and the legal proceedings.

David’s guilt and suppressed desires lead him to a gay bar in Nice, where Hella catches him with a sailor. He cheated on her once again & she mentioned that she might have known for a long time.

David abandons Giovanni & commits to Hella, sending a destitute Giovanni into a destructive downward spiral. Desperate for money and work after turning to Jacques and ending up on the streets, Giovanni begs his former employer Guillaume for his job back. When Guillaume exploits and rejects him, a desperate Giovanni snaps and strangles him to death with a dressing gown sash.

G said they should end their fight. They drink in a civilised manner.

D asks G what he'll do & he said that he'll hang with J, and that J has become fond of him. D says to be careful - ironic, even G says he D should have given him that advice when they first met.

"his body was burned into my mind, into my dreams"
"One day I'll weep for this. One of these days I'll start to cry."

"You are the one who keeps talking about what I want. But I have only been talking about who I want." -G /
"But I'm a man, a man! What do you think can happen between us?" - D /
"You know very well, what can happen between us. It is for that reason you are leaving me." - G

"You want to be clean."
"You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink of love."
- G to D

"What kind of life can two men have together, anyway?"
- D

"Something had broken in me to make me so cold and so perfectly still and far away."

-

"You are not leaving me for her,"
"You are leaving me for some other reason. You lie so much, you have come to believe all your own lies. But I, I have senses. You are not leaving me for a woman. If you were really in love iris this little girl, you would not have had to be so cruel to me."
"You love your purity,"
- G to D

"Why have you gone away from me?"

"I have never reached you,"
"I am nothing to you, nothing, and you bring me fever but no delight."

"If you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came I wanted to die, I have told you many times. It is cruel to have made me want to live only to make my death more bloody."
- G to D

"I felt nothing for Giovanni. I felt terror and pity and a rising lust."

D&H run into J&G in a bookstore. To protect his facade, D immediately introduces G to H. He later covers up the truth by telling her that G was simply a "roommate". J informs D that G has been in absolute squalor, & suggests that the 4 of them grab a drink together. H says she's unwell & D said he would join them later on.

D says they should get out of Paris.

D went to G's the following evening. G sat up & cried.

Hella reveals that her time alone in Spain left her feeling lonely and directionless. She concludes that a woman needs to attach herself to a man to realize her full identity, leading her to accept David's proposal so they can start a family.

David writes back to his father, saying he will get married to Hella + to send money.

It's been 3 days, David had not mentioned Giovanni.

Hella & Giovanni met by accident.

Hella wrote to David, informing him of when she'll be back. He did not tell Giovanni, and met her at the station. He hoped he would feel something when he saw her but nothing.

"I loved her as much as ever and I still did not know how much that was."

But when he embraced her, "with Hella in the circle of my arms, that my arms were home and I was welcoming her back there"

G puts all his energy into fixing the room, growing more dependent on D. A heated argument about their finances, D suggests leaving Paris. D makes comments about G’s room, G senses D’s unhappiness and asks if he has heard from H. D says he has not heard from H, but will be returning. They embrace each other, D points out that they are only delaying the inevitable.

"ask to be forgiven-if I could name and face my crime, if there were anything, or anybody, anywhere, with the power to forgive."

"the end of innocence is also the end of guilt"

"I do not think that I will ever love anyone like that again."

"He was fond of saying that, since to be in prison was simply not to live, the death penalty was the only merciful verdict any jury could deliver" - man D met at a party of J's

David came home to find Giovanni already back when he should be at work. Giovanni was fired & humiliated by Guillaume (he was in a really bad mood). Agitated, he striked Guillaume. Giovanni told David what had happened and:

"If you (David) were not here, this would be the end of Giovanni"
"You are not going to leave me, are you?"
"I do not what I would do if you left me."
- G to D
^ Though G knows that D is engaged

"I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it."

"I had thought of suicide when I was much younger, as, possibly, we all have, but then it would have been for revenge, it would have been my way of informing the world how awfully it had made me suffer."

"I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine."

D experiences internal conflict regarding his identity & relationship with G. D collects a letter from his father (to come home), & Hella saying she'll be back, giving D a mix of fear & relief. It gives him an out of his r/s. D saw a sailor, who gave him a cold look, heightening D's self-loathing.

Desperate for a distraction & proof that he can still be a normal man, D runs into an acquaintance, Sue & they have sex.

"But if I were still able to feel affection and if he had seen it in my eyes, it would not have helped, for affection, for the boys I was doomed to look at, was vastly more frightening than lust."

Affection for men threatens to break his defenses, expose his internalized homophobia, and strip the "immaculate manhood" he tries to maintain. Admitting affection = accepting a truth that he is terrified to face.

David is in love with Giovanni. D practically lived with G, and eventually told him about Hella. Guillaume doesn't like David, and so he tries to wait for Giovanni to end work as inconspicuously as possible when hanging around the bar.

It seemed to be that Hella was returning from Spain soon. G was suggesting that Hella is weird and might have someone else. D denies. G doesn't understand Americans.

"Not all my memorizing had prepared me for the metamorphosis which my memorizing had helped to bring about."

Back to reality, an old lady comes by to take note of inventory as D is renting a room in South France and is scheduled to leave the following morning. She inspects the rooms and questions about his lifestyle. Before leaving, she drops traditional wisdom on him, urging D to stop wandering, find a good woman, start a family, and pray. Her presence fills D with immense guilt and a desperate desire for forgiveness.

G & D ate. G told D the story of how he became Guillaume's barman. They met at a theatre, and was asked out. G had not intended on showing up, but he was hungry. Eventually G realised that Guillaume owns a bar and he managed to get a job under him. G is not interested in Guillaume.

D said he had to go but G WAS FLIRTING, they went back to G's place and 😩
"soon it was too late to do anything but moan"

"And if you think of them as dirty, then they WILL be dirty-they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty, you can give each other something which will make both of you better-forever-if you will NOT be ashamed, if you will only NOT play it safe." - J to D

The bar closed at 5am, they locked up and G brought Guillaume, J & D to a market restaurant in Les Halles for breakfast.

J speaks to D about writing to Hella, implying that his writing to her is a facade, that D is a straight man with a traditional future.

"love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?" -J

Unnamed "It" warns D about G.

Jacques approaches D & says that everyone in the bar noticed that D & G hit it off.

D could not bring up Hella (she's still in Spain)

D & G are flirting.

"And when you have waited/-has it made you sure?" - G

D realises that when G was called upon (G is still working), they were being watched. D became afraid once again.

It was David's 2nd year in Paris. He was on the verge of eviction, which drove him to ask Jacques for money. David dislikes Jacques, but knows he can exploit Jacques’s attraction to him to secure a loan.

Given his good mood, they visited the bar that Jacques like (Gay bar) owned by J's acquaintance, Guillaume. There was a new barman, Giovanni.

G & D chat.

Protagonist - David
Aunt Ellen (Father's sister, deceased)
Mother (Deceased when David was 5)

Aunt Ellen came into the picture after Mother died. Father & Aunt Ellen did not get along. She would scold the Father over his drunkenness & women.

David got into a car accident while drunk. He & Father are quite disconnected.

He moved from America to France after "cleaning his act" and having joined the army.

Protagonist & Joey were around the same age, in Brooklyn. At Joey's, they horsed around and in the middle of the night, an act of love between them.

"I was suddenly afraid"

He washed up and made an excuse to leave. He didn't see Joey until accidentally, and made up a story about seeing a girl.

In school, he befriended bullies and made Joey miserable

Protagonist's mom 💀, Dad remarried