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HIGH GEAR/JULY 1978

CHANGING A WORLD WE NEVER MADE

By George Brown

What happens when a gay person openly challenges the heterosexual system, when he says, "I am a homosexual and I am also a person of value. I

want to contribute what I can to making things better for gay people, to changing the way people view homosexuality"? In Daniel Curzon's latest novel,' AMONG THE CARNIVORES, Jock Jones, aged twenty-six, a Ph.D., says a fascimile of this when he applies for a job in the English Department of California State University. Fresno. Surprsingly, he is accepted into the faculty and is even able to teach his own course in gay studies. But his problems aren't over. Jock (born Joachim), a sensitive yet rugged individual who is literally a vegetarian, is surrounded by a pack of carnivores. These meat-eaters are mostly academicians, who should know better. And some of them being homosexuals themselves, mostly closet bisexuals, they should certainly know better; but they are --homosexuals who haven't accepted themselves and who do not respect the homosexual part of them. Have they already been warped beyond repair by a hostile society? At any rate, they proceed to devour Jock. Jock fights valiantly against this in-

stitution of higher learning which is society in microcosm. What, we must ask, are the rest of us gay people doing? Are we fighting too, or do we lack Jock's weapons? For Jock is intelligent, nice-looking, apparently virile and sexy, and not without charm.

Daniel Curzon, whose previous books include SOMETHING YOU DO IN THE DARK and the recent and excellent THE REVOLT OF THE PERVERTS, is certainly a writer to be reckoned with. He is sincere, creative and powerful. In fact he is essentially the Jock of this at least semiautobiographical novel. Curzon recently taught at California State University, Fresno, but when he was a decade older than Jock (I can't imagine his being there now), and if he didn't teach a gay studies course, he did edit the journal, GAY LITERATURE, which eminated from the university. This novel was surely written after the carnivores had chased him away. You see, they didn't actually devour this robust man, for he survived to write this potent novel.

I would call the novel satire except that at times it becomes too intensely realistic for satire, especially when we view Jock's

inner longings and frustrations. Yet some of the characters and situations are too bizarre, too exaggerated, for complete realism. The characterization of Jock's aged mother in a nursing home is so exaggerated and one-dimensional, such a

stereotype of the ignorant mother, that it is difficult to accept. Many gay people, perhaps even the majority, have mothers who are supportive (at least they don't reject their offspring), but this mother is little more than a rancid vegetable. An example of a highly exaggerated episode that qualifies as satire is Jock's sudden discovery, just before taping a television segment, that he has gonorrhea. During the taping he elaborates about his venereal disease. In this novel Curzon seems to emphasize all the negative aspects of gay life and then say, "Here we are. We have nothing to hide. Take us as we are."

Curzon's use of symbolism amid his satire and realism is interesting. Of course, the fact that Jock is a vegetarian is symbolic and needless to say, so is his name. Midway in the book he takes a literal trip to Death Valley during a period when figuratively he is in the valley of psychological death, and during this drive he outstrips his ad-

versaries by criticizing himself. Then there is a graphic scene on a toilet stool when Jock breaks through his constipation, this also being a symbolic constipation, result of a hostile environment. Is this realism and satire combined into one?

Regardless of whether the writing is realistic, satiristic, or even allegorical, or a mixture of all three, CARNIVORES is largely an effective novel. However, it loses its effectiveness when it becomes too angry and blasphemous. Curzon spends much time in an attack on religion, numbering as part of the carnivores a group of clergymen who attack Jock after he has provoked them into it by giving a vulgar rendition, on the aforementioned television stint, of the life of Christ in which he links Christ to Sodom rather than to Nazareth. Prior to this he has given a shockingly gross account of The Last Supper, in one of the interludes he intersperses throughout the plot. Yes, the larger part of organized religion is the enemy of the homosexual, but Curzon fails to show that there are "religious" people and then there are true Christians.

Most of all, why does he find it necessary to vilify Christ, who taught love and compassion and

for it was devoured by carnivores, a lart part of them church people, similar to those who attacked Jock? (Many vile things have been done in the name of Christ, Mr. Curzon, but what did He Himself do that was vile? Anita Bryant and her pack are not following in His footsteps. No, I don't think you are the atheist you label yourself. You are basically an intensely spiritual, albeit also intensely physical, person who is extremely angry with God and Christ because of what you, and we, have suffered. You were once very religious, I think. You might even have studied to become a priest. You are a zealous priest now in your writing, working for beneficial change.)

Curzon deals with various issues of gay life in general. Promiscuity is one. Should there be heterosexual standards for homosexuals, especially in view of the knowledge that many heterosexuals don't follow their own standards? What do we do with this sexual need that rages through us like a prairie fire? -certainly just as it does with heterosexuals. But society has outlawed us to begin with. As pariahs should we try to follow

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JULY 29

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