Literature, perhaps, is left I mean, novels. The novels of recent years, and the lists recently published in Arcadie spotlight both the famous names of certain of these writers, and the number of works published. Can they present a truer picture of masculine and feminine homophilia'

It is not my intention here to do a "literary criticsm", nor to review all the books published.

It would be pretentious on my part to suggest that I now know this problem thoroughly, even after all that I have heard and all the Jetters I have read from thousands of homosexuals. I still have much to hear, to see, to meditate on

Let us not ignore that most of these writers are reporting a single casc, their hero's, and that one cannot draw general laws on the nature or the behavior of homosexuals from their work. The psychoiogical case they describe is similar to the single clinical case that philosophers, sexologists, or psychiatrists study.

Let me say again, there are few books which spell out the life of adult homosexuals. Literary production is almost solely concerned with the loves of adolescence.

The best known, because the best. the most poignant, as it is also the most classic both in its style and its psychology, is and will remain the marvelous novel by Roger Peyrefitte, Special Friendships (Les Amities particulieres). A hundred and twenty thousand copies have been sold in France It is translated into almost all foreign languages. Who can say how many millions of people have read this narrative? And, more important, who can say how they look upon these special friendships? Those a son of theirs might have, for example?

It should be emphasized that Abbe Draison said in his famous book, which is so often quoted here, that he wants to see all educators. whether lay or clerical. attentively reading this excellent study of the lives of adolescents.

The entire literature of adolescence, with very few exceptions, is pertinent here; pertinent as a point of departure for any who want to understand the homosexual problem.

I think of Que Passe le vent d'avril (Let the April wind Blow) by Jean Busson; Maurice Pons' Metrabate, Corps Interdits (Forbidden Bodies) by Maurice Perisset; The City and the Pillar (Un garcon pres de la riviere) by Gore Vidal, On ne brule pas l'eau (Water) Doesn't Burn) by Madeleine Sabine; Nicolas Struwe by Lucien Farre, and many others.

These authors tell us of the amorous friendships of young adolescents quite simply, just as they exist, commonplace, moving, serious, often pure, sometimes tragic.

mattachine REVIEW

So, I say, the literature of adolescence must simply be read. It ought not to inspire disgust or condemnation.

Moreover, many readers see themselves in such a hero, whose special friendships they, too, have lived.

I cannot say the same thing of Eric Jourdan's novel, Les mauvais anges (Wicked Angels), which is at the bounds of believability. I know that adolescents can experience furiously sensual loves like these, yet I believe that the homosexual friendships of adolescents are almost always very different from heterosexual relations between adolescents.

Few books recount the love between an adolescent and an adult That is all to the good. What I wrote last month about pederasty applies here. It would not be understood.

There remains another sort of book, about the love of two adul! homophiles.

Readers say. over and over, "The hero always kills himself. Do homosexuals always kill themselves? Why, I know

One of the best books written in praise of the friendship of two men is unquestionably the captivating and disturbing novel by Walter Baxter, Look Down in Mercy (Le chemin des hommes seuls). A solid book, the action of which unrolls during the war, it lets us participate in the terrifying, heroic and amorous adventure of an officer and his orderly Theirs is a very solid friendship, compounded of faith. renunciation, sacrifice and charity.

It is unique

On the other hand we have the novels which describe almost impossible love affairs, or rather weird ones, like the works of Andre du Dognon. Yet, who has not been moved in L'homme-orchestre by the account of the death of Albert, in a sanatorium bed, his hand in that of the one he loved so much? That epitomizes all human separation; no longer is there any question either of homosexuality or heterosexuality, of marriage consecrated by law or sacrament; there is only the love that brought two persons together over a long period of years, whose carnal and wordly bonds are on the point of being dissolved.

Face to face with what is only human, as I have written previously, face to face with love. who has the right to smile, to condemn, tu wound?

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Need I bring up Julien Green's The Transgressor (Le malfaiteur)? I do not understand The title, first off, is difficult to accept . how a man, or an author, who calls himself a "transgressor" can continue to practice the way of life he condemns Alternatively, I don't find him having the courage to kill himself Ought he not try to improve himself, then? Or recognize, simply, that he is not a