BOOKS

DU PUR AMOUR by Marcel Jouhandeau. Gallimard, Paris, Fr. 950.

In the history of literature certain books are held by common consent to represent milestones on the road of the spiritual ascent of man.

Naturally, because the spiritual ascent of man has been-up to nowrelated solely to man considered as a thoroughly heterosexual being, those books have never delved into the spiritual aspects of homosexual love.

But life evolves, the conscience of mankind develops, and the awareness of new truths permeates the mind of

man.

It is thus that we have learned that man as a thoroughly heterosexual being is an exception to the general rule of nature which makes of man a fundamentally bisexual being. Such being the case, it was to be expected that sooner or later we should have greeted the appearnce of a literary work celebrating the transcedence of the spiritual over the physical in a purely homosexual relationship.

Such a book has been written, was published a year or so ago by Gallimard of Paris, and is slowly but assuredly claiming a place for itself among the immortal literary creations of the race. The book of which I write is Du Pur Amour by Marcel Jouhandeau.

It may seem quite far-fetched for me to state that the impact of Du Pur Amour on the conscience of modern man will be just as great as the impact that La Vita Nuova of Dante had on the conscience of medieval man.

And, yet, I maintain that it will be just as great because this book proves that homosexual love does offer the opportunity of a transformation of the physical contact of two human beings into a soul-ennobling experience. As a matter of fact, no book has ever been written that is so outspoken on the details of physical contacts between two human beings as Du Pur Amour; and, yet, no book has ever been written that can portray such a rapture of soul as that which it describes as being born from these very same contacts.

For well nigh fifty years Marcel Jouhandeau has lived a double life, personally, and artistically. Personally, because he was, and still is, married, while living his real love life in the shadow of lies, guilt, fears, and remorse. Artistically, because he has written an entire library of books concerned with the chronicle of his life and the life of those who touched its orbit, without ever hinting at the duality of his personality.

But now,

Marcel Jouhandeau, a pillar of the Nouvelle Revue Francaise, one of the very, very great writers of modern France, has told us the truth, and the truth is that all his life he had been seeking after God, but had never found Him, and only now, in the love of a twenty-year-old boy, he has finally found Him.

This miracle could happen, and did happen, because God is not there, enshrined in a chapel by the wayside, or on an altar in Saint Peter's, but abides in the deepest recesses of the self, only revealing Himself to us

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