Gale Wilhelm (1908–1991)

At first I didn't like this because it's pretty hard to understand starting in medias res, namedropping characters without introducing them, glamorous words from the 30s that I've never heard of like kelsomine and alpargatas and brush agent and lorgnette... But once I understood the writing wasn't bad it was just trying to be modernist I ended up really enjoying this. I really came to appreciate Gale's use of language, it's minimalist and feels sloppy but under the hood is very carefully calculated and crafted, I don't know how else she draws such beauty from such simple phrases. I found it very romantic (if a little melodramatic)! And an interesting portrait of a time period that I knew little about. The book isn't about being gay, it's just a story that happens to gay characters. I appreciated this, because modern queer literature so often devolves into polemics-- I don't even think this book had the word "gay" or "lesbian" in it! On that note, the book doesn't end with a heterosexual cop out, like most lez pulps do.I mean it's not your stock 'happy ending' but it does affirm the characters' homosexuality (or in one case bisexuality) without the usual moralizing.… (plus d'informations)

This isn’t a romance book at all! Nor is it very salacious. It’s not the pulpy lesbian romance I expected, I honestly just think it’s old and too modernist for me. Still, I am amazed that this was published in 1938!

Torchlight to Valhalla was very difficult for me to read for two reasons. Firstly, Wilhelm doesn’t use quotation marks for any of her dialogue, just like in We Too Are Drifting, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. Secondly, the subject matter was intensely relatable and tackled so well that it honestly brought up a bunch of really bad emotions. The story is about a lesbian and a man named Royal who is in love with her… having been in Morgen’s situation I did not enjoy reliving that. I respect Wilhelm for being able to capture such a specific, claustrophobic, uncomfortable situation so aptly though.

Toni, Morgen’s female love interest, only comes in in the last 30 pages, and I wasn’t really sure who she was or where she came from. The book kind of jumps abruptly to those two already having an established relationship, and there’s no build up, which is why I say it’s not an effective romance novel (perhaps it predicted the Uhaul Lesbian stereotype?). The scenes with Toni were certainly very romantic, with beautiful prose, but I wish she had been introduced at the start as a sort of foil to Royal.

This is a weird case where the characters are pretty well developed, but also don’t do much. Morgen is especially passive— she has next to no agency in the story as things just keep happening to her. More than anything, this was Royal’s story, and I honestly wasn’t terribly interested in his side of the tale. It’s also one of those books where everyone is an artist who doesn’t do much but lounge about and moan about their problems: Morgen’s a novelist, her father a painter, and Royal is a pianist. It can be fun and kind of voyeuristic to read about the lives of rich folks, but also kind of exhausting. As with the last Gale Wilhelm book, I learned a lot of new, glamorous words:

calyxes
wanderjahr
chablis
campanile
Karakul
… (plus d'informations)