MARCH 1981 HIGH GEAR Page 9 →
Interview with Margaret Yourcenar
BRUGES, BELGIUM (IGNA) A female French writer who is an American citizen and whose fiction has dealt largely with male homosexual characters has been elected to the French Academy, the highest literary honor in France.
Now 77, Marguerite Yourcenar, although long respected as a serious writer, is the first woman ever to become one of the "Immortals" in the 300-year-old history of the Academy.
Election to the 40-member body is political as well as literary. Lobbying is intense. Seats become vacant only upon the death of a member.
According to an interview by Deborah Trustman in The New York Times, Ms. Yourcenar has become more public since the death last year of her longtime companion, Grace Frick, who lived with her for 40 years and was her friend, translator, and buffer state.
"Because I lived with a woman for 40 years, people assume I'm a lesbian," Mrs. Yourcenar said, neither confirming nor denying the suggestion.
Born in Brussels in 1903, Yourcenar grew up in a comfortable family. She never attended school, but was precocious and read classic literature at 10. Her French father paid for the publication of her first book when she was 18, a book of poetry.
Her first novel, Alexis, was published in 1929, with other works following: ficton, essays and poetry
Yourcenar's protagonists are usually men, quite frequently homosexual men. Coupe de Grace, for example, her 1939 novel, is based on the true story of a Prussian officer who killed the woman who loved him; he
was in love with her brother. The theme explored is how can people tell when they are telling the truth and when they are deluding themselves.
Her novel, The Abyss uses Zeno, a character modeled on the Renaissance scholar Eramus as well as on DaVinci, to investigate the theme of the search for "exactitude" in a complex world.
The hero tends toward homosexual love.
The author's best known book is The Memoirs of Hadrian, which explores the love story of the Roman Emperor Hadrian and Antinous, his youthful lover. The tale deals with the sacrificial suicide of the younger man for the older.
A poetry book (Fires) examines carnal passions of all kinds, including Saphho's love for a young boy who is "nothing more than a stand-in" for the girl who
has abandoned her.
Yourcenar is noted for her sensuous, rhythmical prase; the clear beauty of her writing illuminates the difficulty of some of her thought. Her major translator has been Grace Frick, her companion, but it is generally agreed that Frick's translations, though scrupulously accurate, are somewhat stiff.
Her new translator, Dori Katz, a professor of French in Hartford, Connecticut, is working on more sensitive translations.
Like Mary Renault, Yourcenar uses historical settings for her books. She says that she cannot write about things that are too close. She needs distance in
order to arrange and comprehend her subjects.
Yourcenar has lived in the United States since 1940, when Grace Frick, an American born in
Nebraska, invited her to come to escape the Nazis.
In 1951, the year The Memoirs of Hadrian was published and sold extremely well, the author and Frick bought a house in Northeast Harbor, Maine, which they called "Petite Plaisance."
In 1968, Grace Frick contracted Hodgkin's disease, a progressively debilitating
disease.
Gay expo
goes over
LOS ANGELES -As a result of the succes of the three-day Gay and Lesbian Lifestyle Expo held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, promoters have announced plans to organize a repeat engagement next year.
Graphic Industries, Inc., a Los Angeles based firm, has also considered scheduling similar events in other cities throughout the country.
The exposition, attended by over 35,000 between December 12th & 14th, displayed a variety of products available to gays; products ranging from automobiles to foreign travel, to vitamins. manufactured by both major concerns such as Datsun and Miller Beer and local Los Angeles businesses.
3
Exposition patrons visited over 300 product-filled booths and attended seminars on topics of while listening to nearly continuinterest to the gay community, ous music performed by the likes of Sylvester and Thelma Houston.
The ADVOCATE Show
--
New York NY "The ADVOCATE Show," the first national art show of both lesbian and gay male artists has been announced by the Hibbs Gallery in New York City. The show will present the work of over thirty-five artists and photographers who have been featured in the "Portfolio" section of The ADVOCATE, the national gay newsmagazine. The exhibition will run from March 5 through March 28, 1981.
According to the director of the Hibbs Gallery, David Logan Morrow, "The ADVOCATE Show" will be of historical significance. Says Morrow, "I'm proud to say that this is the first show we know of to present a truly national representation of both lesbian and gay male artists. That's of course, a reflection of the quality job done by The ADVOCATE'S "Portfolio" section around which the show has been organized. Another important first for the show is that, through publishing a catalog, it will be the first gay art show documented for history."
In its title, the exhibit recognizes the support given the gay arts community by The ADVO
CATE through its "Pogiolo
tion. A regular feature of The ADVOCATE since early 1975 "Portfolio" has showcased the work of well over 100 gay artists and photographers. Many of these gay artists received their first national exposure through The ADVOCATE, while for others with already established reputations, "Portfolio" offered an opportunity to present work with gay themes not able to be exhibited elsewhere. Commented ADVOCATE editor, Robert McQueen, "Portfolio" was established out of our strong commitment to support the gay arts community and it has remained one of the most popular features in the publication according to reader survey responses.
Sponsor of the show, The Hibbs Gallery in New York City has the stated purpose of promoting appreciation of contemporary visual arts with particular emphasis on work done by gay men and women. By policy, it accepts work by gay artists without regard for subject matter, medium or style. In an environment where gay artists still struggle with intense censorship And isolation, the gallery creates
network of communication betwen collectors. Those as
sectet
critics and artists.
"The ADVOCATE Show" will open with a reception at the Hibbs Gallery on Thursday, March 5, 1981 between 7 and 10 P.M. and will run through March 28. The Hibbs Gallery is located at 225 West 28th Street, New York NY 10001. Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays from 2 to 7 p.m. Limited quantities of the show catalog may be obtained for $4 each from the Hibbs Gallery in person or by mail. Among the artists and photographers that will be represented in "The ADVOCATE Show" are the following:
Kevin Adams, Victor Arimondi, Robert Brokl, Hilton Brown, Tee A. Corrine, Adam Craig, Robert Crowl, Betsy Damon, Sandra Desando, Dennis Forbes, Robert Gable, Gamar, Robert Giard, Barry Gross, Harmony Hammond, David Hockney, Michael Kennedy, Michael Koslow, Bettye Lane, George Platt Lynes, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marjori, Len Paoletti, Gordon Pollack, Robert Quigley, Kas Sable, John Shown, Lee Snider, Sheila Sulliyevan, Marjorie Trenk, Arthur Tress wend Jan Ren
nem owl grit blot save no
about
Speaking of her own feelings for the first time to the press, the author says, "I know death intimately. Grace Frick was sick for years. When someone is so ill and suffering so much agony, you want her to die. When she died, I was desolate. I planted trees on her grave -because she hated flowers. Her death is always with me, but it is becoming transformed into something
else. I took friends to visit her
grave, and we found ourselves laughing. I am beginning to think that life and death are all a game, a terrible game for us, because we are the players."
Yourcenar is a respected writer because she is unafraid to deal with bleak themes and the complexity of life. She has recently completed a new novel, set in Holland, and plans a third volume of her memoirs.
Notable quote
From a NEW YORK TIMES editorial entitled "Rev. Falwell's Innocence" (printed February 4, 1981):
"But nothing in the script or scripture required Federal District Judge James Turk of Lynchburg, Va., to join the cast, even temporarily. He issued an interim order forbidding Penthouse to distribute its March issue over the weekend, until he could examine the evangelist's complaint more closely. Why was there the slightest doubt on Judge Turk's part? Surely he knows the Supreme Court has held that even the purported national security secrets in the Pentagon Papers did not justify prior restraint.....
"Mr. Falwell may be able to prove his charge of shoddy journalism -the breach of a promise not to sell the interview to a skin magazine such as Playboy or Penthouse -and win damages. Meanwhile there's earthly reward enough to go around. The television preacher has won a national media megaphone over which to proclaim his innocence, while Mr. Guccione has attracted peerless publicity. This leaves the judiciary, and the Constitution, as the only losers. Some play. Some moral."
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