El mundo de la novela nace fuera de París (aunque en París) y también más allá del mundo (aunque casi siempre detrás del mundo) pese a que la obra no trata elementos fantásticos. Pero lo que escribe Genet tampoco es realista, porque a cada paso en la muerte o en el crimen, en la desviación o el amor que de la desviación brota, existe una semilla como materia divina que nos obliga a contemplar un paraíso o un infierno.

I understand that this work may not to be to everyone's liking. Some may find the subject matter and descriptions difficult to get around. However I, like many reviewers, would say this is a masterpiece. The prose is beautiful and like no other. The story is part dream, part autobiography, part social statement, and part fantasy. All are mingled together in this wonderful melange. If you appreciate great writings and great writers do not miss this work. ( )

"Poetry is willful. It is not an abandonment, a free and gratuitous entry by the senses; it is not to be confused with sensuality, but rather, opposing it, it was born, for example, on Saturdays, when, to clean the rooms, housewives put the red velvet chairs, gilded mirrors, and mahogany tables outside, in the nearby meadow."

Jean Genet wrote Our Lady of Flowers whilst in prison. This is an author's personal masturbatory material — shockingly voyeuristic and kinky. A self-objectification for pleasure against a place of biting boredom and limited freedom. More than its acts of perversity and explicit eroticism — a hundred words in place of the word 'penis' and farts appearing oddly ("But only the odor of my own farts delights me, and those of the handsomest boy repel me.") —it tells a story amidst its disjointed stream of thoughts. Exclusively homosexual, this book refreshingly spurs the male gaze onto different variants of men. Genet's set of characters, fashioned from his abyssal imagination opposite the four walls of his cell where he makes them wear the clothes and personalities he wants, wanders in a world of pimps and criminals. They blend themselves then create a murky intersection of Genet and his characters; Genet is his characters; these characters are Genet: "[...] the story of Divine, whom I knew only slightly, the story of Our Lady of the Flowers, and, never fear, my own story."

His words harden, but in rare moments they unexpectedly soften. And when they do, Our Lady of the Flowers touches the underground tunnel of vulnerable existence ("She will go on living only to hasten toward Death." and "I wanted to swallow myself by opening my mouth very wide and turning it over my head so that it would take in my whole body, and then the Universe, until all that would remain of me would be a ball of eaten thing which little by little would be annihilated: that is how I see the end of the world."). It can be devastating and painful too. This is very different than most and I might as well say, perhaps, groundbreaking with its structure and content. But I don't think I would have appreciated it better if I did not read Sartre's brilliant introduction. His deep insight about the book's significance and the linear sentiments in its non-linearity makes it shine into another kind of light. But this is not something I would say I find totally stimulating and arousing nor can I say this has moved and seduced me.

Stumbling upon it in a list of books Susan Sontag recommended I can't help but wonder if I dealt with it as best as I could without the preconceived notions I shaped for myself after merely reading the synopsis. A more piercing question, did John Waters sculpt his own notorious Divine from Genet's?

"I let myself drift, as to the depth of an ocean, to the depths of dismal neighborhood of hard and opaque but rather light houses, to the inner gaze of memory, for the matter of memory is porous." ( )

This edition worth having for Sartre's lengthy, thoughtful and moving introduction ( )

Current book for one of the book clubs that I plan to start attending later this month (Book Rebel Reading Club www.myspace.com/bookrebelreading.