Justin Torres
Auteur de Vie animale
A propos de l'auteur
Crédit image: Justin Torres at the 2012 National Book Festival By Slowking4 - Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21582169
Œuvres de Justin Torres
Reverting to a Wild State {story} 6 exemplaires
Oeuvres associées
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Date de naissance
- 1980
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- USA
- Lieu de naissance
- Baldwinsville, New York
- Lieux de résidence
- Los Angeles, California, USA
- Études
- Iowa Writers' Workshop (MFA)
- Professions
- Assistant Professor, UCLA
- Prix et distinctions
- National Book Foundation, 5 Under 35 Honoree (2012)
- Agent
- Jin Auh (The Wylie Agency)
Membres
Critiques
Love the structure—short chapters that almost stand alone but also create an ongoing narrative. It’s structurally delightful, though the narrative is often bleak. It seems like there is a gap where the story takes a turn, everything changes very very fast. The end is scary and beautifully written and does no consoling at all—it’s terrific. But it feels like something is missing in the preceding chapters?
Clearly inspired by [b:Kiss of the Spider Woman|588242|Kiss of the Spider Woman|Manuel Puig|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403179094l/588242._SY75_.jpg|765288] (1976) by Manuel Puig, I enjoyed this novel’s recreation of the tender, caring bond that develops between two rather different men in Puig’s novel as they pass the time in a small cell-like space (literally a cell in Puig, figuratively here) talking, imagining life through the lens of film, and through being their true selves countering a dominant ideology that pathologizes queerness.
Juan, an elder man on his deathbed, wants his young visitor to take up the work of recording queer history and identity begun in a lengthy old research report in his possession, which was co-opted and misused for their own purposes by straight male doctors decades ago. Reflecting this erasure, the volumes themselves are mostly blacked out and images of its pages are printed here in the style of creating found poetry, which is not usually something I have much interest in but it works quite well in this context. And as Juan fades into delirium near the end of the novel, reality is further erased until the arrival of the ultimate “blackout”, if I may.
There is not so much a plot though as a rich and complex characterization of these two men and the bond that was created between them over only eighteen days they shared being forced into a mental institution prior to the younger’s suicide attempt and subsequent departure, that then survived a decade of no contact, and which is now revived and developed after the unnamed narrator has tracked down the dying Juan in his small, dark room.
Through the skillful dialogue that is most of the book, Torres shows these two men sharing their lives with each other and in their relationship demonstrating the love of neighbor that should be striven for even as we often come up short.
4.5… (plus d'informations)
Juan, an elder man on his deathbed, wants his young visitor to take up the work of recording queer history and identity begun in a lengthy old research report in his possession, which was co-opted and misused for their own purposes by straight male doctors decades ago. Reflecting this erasure, the volumes themselves are mostly blacked out and images of its pages are printed here in the style of creating found poetry, which is not usually something I have much interest in but it works quite well in this context. And as Juan fades into delirium near the end of the novel, reality is further erased until the arrival of the ultimate “blackout”, if I may.
There is not so much a plot though as a rich and complex characterization of these two men and the bond that was created between them over only eighteen days they shared being forced into a mental institution prior to the younger’s suicide attempt and subsequent departure, that then survived a decade of no contact, and which is now revived and developed after the unnamed narrator has tracked down the dying Juan in his small, dark room.
Juan was dying, but only in the light, and only in the body. In the dark, his voice filled the room, sharper and more alive than I.
Through the skillful dialogue that is most of the book, Torres shows these two men sharing their lives with each other and in their relationship demonstrating the love of neighbor that should be striven for even as we often come up short.
4.5… (plus d'informations)
One of the most creative books I have read in some time. The central figures are the narrator and an elderly gentleman he lives with. Both are homosexual and the book focuses on a period when this lifestyle was totally underground. Torres is a wonderful writer engaging the reader in his episodic writing style with many visual aids. The two recall many books and movies that profoundly affected them. As a heterosexual reader I was thoroughly taken by the characters and story in this book.
Listes
Short and Sweet (1)
"We" narration (1)
Prix et récompenses
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Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 4
- Aussi par
- 5
- Membres
- 1,525
- Popularité
- #16,866
- Évaluation
- 3.6
- Critiques
- 78
- ISBN
- 35
- Langues
- 6
- Favoris
- 2
A queer historical fiction, liked it better than I thought I would.
Juan on his deathbed attempts to pass on decades old 'homosexual' research that he may have lived.
The deathbed scenes held me rapt, the history less so.