Author: allen0997

The City and the Pillar ~ A Capsule Book Review

The City and the Pillar ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Jim Willard and Bob Ford are high school friends, growing up together in Richmond, Virginia, in the 1930s. Bob is one year older than Jim; when Bob graduates from high school, he and Jim spend the night together at the river in a falling-down “slave cabin.” During that one night before Bob goes off “to sea,” Jim and Bob do more than sleep. They have a never-to-be-forgotten (by Jim) and much-hoped-for (by Jim) sexual encounter. Of course, they are both “straight,” but that doesn’t keep them from commemorating their friendship with (then-taboo) homosexual sex. To Bob, their night of sexual adventuring has little or no meaning; to Jim it is of monumental significance.

After their one night together, Bob goes off on his seafaring adventures. For the next seven years or so, Jim carries around the memory of his night at the river with Bob. He believes, even though they both go their separate ways after high school, that he and Bob will get together again one day and will be together always. We, the reader, know this is never going to happen.

Jim has plenty of adventures while he is pining for Bob. He ends up in Hollywood, where he has a gay affair with a closeted gay movie star. (This is the most unrealistic part of the novel.) During World War II, he finds himself doing military duty but he never goes overseas and never sees any fighting. When he develops health problems, including rheumatoid arthritis, he is honorably discharged from the service.

Jim’s athleticism and masculinity, his “butchness,” are stressed throughout the novel. He is such a good tennis player that he makes his living for a time as a tennis instructor. Even though he is essentially “in love” with a man from his past, he is always masculine, never fitting into the stereotypes of gay men that were prevalent during the time this book was published (1947). He is not self-loathing because he is “different” and doesn’t destroy himself, either through drinking, pills, promiscuous sex, or self-pity. For that reason, The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal (1925-1912) is a groundbreaking novel because it is a positive portrayal of a proudly gay man, written at a time when such a thing hardly existed.

Copyright © 2019 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Where Angels Fear to Tread ~ A Capsule Book Review

Where Angels Fear to Tread ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) was one of the best and most readable English writers of the twentieth century. His first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, was published in 1905. It’s a story of a clash of cultures, in this case English and Italian. Stodgy, conventional, keeping-up-appearances, English middle-class morality goes head to head with emotional, hot-blooded Italian effusiveness. The English characters in Where Angels Fear to Tread are all fools who can’t see farther than the ends of their noses. The principal Italian character, Gino, is forgiving, kind and generous. Which would you rather be?

Lilia Herriton is an English widow, thirty-three years old. She lives with and is dominated by her late husband’s narrow-minded family in a small English town. She has a small daughter named Irma, who seems to prefer her grandmother and her aunt over her mother. When Lilia travels to Italy, she is captivated by its romance and beauty. Rebelling against the middle-class English morality to which she has long been captive, she meets, falls in love with, and marries a charming Italian fellow named Gino, ten years younger than she is. He has a handsome face and not much else in the way of prospects. When Lilia, early in her marriage, has a child, a boy, she dies in childbirth. Her first husband’s (the dead husband, if you will recall) family back in England believes they must go to Italy and “rescue” Lilia’s child and bring it back to England to give it a proper (English) upbringing.

Philip and Harriet Herriton, brother and sister of Lilia’s late husband, go to the little town of Monteriano, along with family friend, Caroline Abbott, ostensibly to get Lilia’s baby and bring it back to England. They fail to consider the father’s (Gino’s) feelings in the matter. Harriet is an unpleasant, bossy spinster who believes she can bully and bluff Gino into giving up the baby because it is the “right” thing to do. Philip is also of the same mind as Harriet, but when the trio arrives in Italy, Philip once again falls under Italy’s spell (partly as a result of the opera Lucia di Lammermoor) and is charmed by Gino into believing that he, Gino, is a loving and caring father and the baby is better off remaining where it is.

The Herritons don’t really give a hoot about Gino and Lilia’s baby. They want it only so they can assert their English superiority, keep up appearances, and make a point. They will do anything, including kidnapping, to get what they want. With pig-headed Harriet leading the way, they screw up monumentally, with tragic and unforeseen consequences.

Where Angels Fear to Tread was published when the author was only twenty-six. It is a meticulously written, intelligent English classic, accessible and easy to read, well worth another look. A faithful and memorable movie adaptation of the novel was made in 1991.

Copyright © 2019 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997