HIGH GEAR/JUNE, 1978

NOTES ON RECENT READINGS:

By Mitchell Menegu

"Love knows no conventions. Anything can happen, so that in a way, a terrible, terrible way, there are no impossibilities:" so writes Nigel, a not-quite-angelic, not-quite-demonic,

not-quite-

human character in Iris Murdoch's novel "Bruno's Dream" in a letter in which he announces and simultaneously renounces his love for Danby, an unremitting heterosexual, who, Nigel recognizes, if his love had been proclaimed earlier, "would have had to act a hateful part."

IRIS MURDOCH I want to share the pleasure that I have been led to by friends who urged me to read Iris Mur. doch by conveying, in turn, my enthusiasm for her writing to readers of High Gear. The passage just quoted from "Bruno's Dream" is the only element of homoerotic love in that novel, but it reveals in context the understanding Murdoch has of the workings of human desires and needs, workings which she presents at once sympathetically and ironically. She uses that understanding in presenting a pair of gay lovers, Simon and Axel, in another novel, "A Slightly Honourable Defeat."

Simon and Axel's relationship is only one of several in the quadrille of love affairs and seeming love affairs in the novel, but it is, I think, the best portrayal of gay love that I have found. Murdoch shows us the folly and the profundity, the passion and the pain, and the pettiness and deep truths of Simon and Axel's interactions as they are tested by contacts with other people, particularly with Julius King, the fascinating. deplorable, manipulative center of the novel's plot.

It is not a plot that immediately grips the reader and not want to misrepresent Murdoch's method of work. It will. appeal to readers who delight in the comedy of manners of Jane Austen and the novel of ideas "Point Counter Point." It demands the reader's attention to detail. Still, when I reached the middle of the book, I could not bear to set it aside. I turned the pages with enthusiasm: sometimes gasping with shock or surprise, but always with delight." "A Slightly Honourable Defeat" is a novel that serious readers must not miss. It tells much about love and sex even though there are no sex scenes

like Aldous Huxley's

in it.

For readers who want the

titillation that sex scenes can of-

fer, can recommend, if with considerably less enthusiasm, two paperback originals that recently took from my bookcase. They are "The Butterscotch Prince" by Richard Hall (Pyramid Books, 1975) and "Coming Out" by Wallace Hamilton (Signet, 1977). Both are very much Manhattan gay.novels.

RICHARD HALL

"The Butterscotch Prince" is a story of detection involving Cordell McGreevy's search, when he becomes convinced that the police could not care less about the death of a black gay man, for the murder of Ellison Greer, his dark-skinned double, whom he had met at a

porn flick, had sex with once and loved without sex forever after. Cord's search leads him into the high and low gay life of New York City. The main clue is a sex. toy of which, I confess, I didn't quite understand the operation. But that isn't necessary. Cord gets into some kinky scenes, notably one involving a tray full of raw liver, some S and M action, and some fairly hot, if less imaginative, sexual encounters. before discovering the truth and, as a bonus, finding true love. Hall has produced a potboiler that should provide pleasurable reading while lying in the sun. It may be embarrassing to have to jump up to

answer the phone after reading some passages. WALLACE HAMILTON

"Coming Out" is far from a major work of literature, but it is a creditable book. For some readers the frequent sex scenes will be enough to recommend the novel. They are generally effectively written erotica, but one criticism that I have with the novel as a whole is that Hamilton seems to have devised turns of the plot at times solely to give occasion for a variety of types of sexual experiences rather than to present situations inevitable for the nature of his central characters. If I find fault with Hamilton for exploring the same variety of gay sexual experiences that I merely noted in Hall's book, it is because "Coming Out" is in many ways a serious presentation of some aspects of gay life.

The main character is Roger Thornton, a forty-seven year-old, newly divorced professional man, who, dissatisfied with his string of successes with women in singles bars, allows himself to be seduced by Michael, a twenty-one year-old art student and then falls in love with the younger man; his love is returned. Roger and Michael's love is threatened by demands from Roger's past, namely the lack of understanding of his ex-wife and the importance to him of not

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losing the love of his two daughters, especially of Cindy, the older one. There is pressure

also from problems that arise in his relationship with his business partner of many years. One of the elements of the novel that I especially admire is Hamilton's having presented Roger as a man with a full life to which he feels committed in addition to his involvement with Michael.

The plot centers on Roger's doubts about the rightness of his feelings for Michael and on the effect of three female characters in resolving his feelings. These are his daughter Cindy and a well-presented lesbian couple, Grace, the daughter of Roger's childhood girl friend in Indianapolis, and Jan, to whom Grace has fled from her husband, taking her baby daughter along. Another complication is Lola, the flamboyant drag queen who had been one of Michael's roommates and whom Michael fears Roger will find attractive. Like "The Butterscotch Prince," "Coming Out" presents the New York of ultra-elegant uptown bars and back rooms in Greenwich Village specialty bars, from penthouses to SoHo lofts. I also liked Hamilton's presentation of the sexual desirability of an older man. It is an effective antidote to the overexposure of the glorification of youth in porn magazines.

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