out prejudice, since fuller explanation could only be made outside the confines of this article, it seems to me that here homosexuals and homosexuality have much to contribute. The theme of male love has been increasingly accepted in modern fiction and M. Sartre himself in Les chemins de la liberte used Daniel, a homosexual, as a key figure in the discovery of the meaning of freedom in the modern world. While some regard this introduction of social problems to fiction as a contamination of literature, others, and more, have seen in it a welcome contribution to the understanding of the human condition. In the present age, under threat of the bomb, or, alternatively, of mindless regimentation, it has become of supreme importance to comprehend the essence of man, to experience what it means to be one, unique. This entails throwing overboard many comfortable assumptions and facing the itchy facts of existence. This is not an attempt to tickle jaded palates, although it is often used, by the second and thirdrate, as an excuse for presenting a juicy though half understood slice of life. It is also confused at times with a pseudo-scientific concern for clinical detail which is not organic to the understanding of the whole. But the evocation of kinship does not depend wholly on the mass of detail, though this may serve an important purpose, it arises rather from the recognition, suddenly, of Gide's "capability," which is invoked by the creation of a believable world even if it is a nightmare one. This suspension of disbelief is the miracle of literature and it is my claim that even in an expurgated. watered-down English version Genet achieves this and it should be recognized, not deplored.

I regret that I am not able to cite chapter and verse, but I read these works in the purified official French version, some years ago, on the other

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side of the world, and do not have them by me now, nor is it likely that I should be able to import them openly into this salaciously Puritan country. I agree with M. Sartre that many of the incidents are from a fantasy world, that the real events are refined and heightened in the way memory has, by the combination of the real and the unreal, and finally that there is scarcely more than one character, that of the author himself, projected, fragmented, transmogrified, even transfigured. But this is surely the deepest achievement of the novels, to release the multitudinous faces that all men have, but seldom use publicly and never allow themselves to see. Without following the extremes of the philosopher's reasoning, surely it is possible to see here the man who sits outside the world, who shows for a hollow sham all the rules of decorum and good conduct. Am I a thief, then a thief I will be, more than a thief. I will steal even your image of the thief and put in its place my own. I will even teach you to feel thief, because you find the thief inside your own soul. Am I perverted, then I will turn perversion upsidedown. In this way he levels a monstrous finger of accusation and points at the moral man, saying, I will show you your accusations for what they are, that they are against your own self-see if you do not follow me to the end, compelled to admit that within yourself you are capable of this life. In this there is no doubt an histrionic element, but who has not wanted at some time to scream in the streets, see me, see what I am, watch what I do and deny, if you dare, your own brotherhood.

In reading I was compelled to admit the force, the truth, the ultimate sincerity of the writing. It has been said that the field of the novel is to express the whole being of a man. and when the author drags forth from his mind the essence of the life he has

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