3,5⭐

I'm always a little surprised Jean Genet isn't discussed more often these days. This was my first time reading one of his books from start to finish (I've read parts of all of them). While it's a difficult read at times (sometimes I wonder if the translation makes it worse), I'm amazed at how contemporary a lot of it feels - especially his vivid descriptions of what was, essentially, drag culture in the 1930s(ish). The language is digressive, transgressive, convoluted, evocative, often funny, often moving. This description of Darling tells us all we need to know: "There was in his supple bearing the weighty magnificence of the barbarian who tramples choice furs beneath his muddy boots." As do these, about Divine/the narrator: "I was his at once, as if ... he had discharged through my mouth straight to my heart" and "Divine knotted, garroted arteries."
Sartre's introduction (again, over my head in a lot of places) made me see parallels between what Genet does in Our Lady of the Flowers and what we do in contemporary fanfic (create stories to feed our own id, essentially). While I don't profess to follow all of Genet's more abstract passages, I still feel the life and liberation in his subversive, upside down view of the world.
No rating, because the idea of me rating works by someone like Genet or Baldwin seems absurd.

I have a reading project. I want to read one book by every author in The a Rough a Guide to Cult a fiction. This is the only reason I persisted with this book. Without a doubt the biggest pile of crap I have ever read in my life. even worse than Beautiful Losers and Blood and Guts in High School combined. I would give it zero if that were possible.

Charming and sweet in it's own sad way.

It's been weeks now, and I've been trying to figure out something, anything to say about this novel. Oh, I liked it—very much so, as my rating surely indicates—but I keep circling around and around it, desperately searching for the detail upon which to structure and make sense of my reactions. I have to admit I still haven't found it, though there's plenty that could be rhapsodized over—the cruel beauty, the unexpected possibility of transcendence, the influential, still-avant garde style. But no, I just keep returning to a single thought:

This novel just doesn't give a damn about me.

Honestly, I can't think of another text that is so completely disregards the reader—Genet makes no concessions, doesn't even pretend to create some kind of connection between character and reader; everything is on Genet's terms, and the reader can accept that or simply fuck off. Oh, I can certainly pretend that being gay offers me some kind of "in," but that just as quickly unmasks me for what I am, a bourgeois queer as far removed from Genet's world as anything else. I can observe, I can try to keep up; I certainly can't relate.

And that's kind of the wonder and power of it: six decades on, and Genet still resists assimilation into contemporary gay culture—he'd undoubtedly mock post-Stonewall living as scathingly as he does polite French society in the first half of the 20th century. He still remains the perpetual brooding outsider. And frankly, I don't think he'd have it any other way.

"I was his at once, as if (who said that?) he had discharged through my mouth straight into my heart."

One day I will have the right words to say about this book; that day is not today. I am not a professional reviewer. But I pick up this book every year and read it. I cry to it. I laugh to it. I dream about it. When I write, I think about Divine and Darling in their garret. When I am in church, and I pray, I pray thinking about how God is shown in this book.
I do not know how to give this book to people. I do not know how to sell it to someone. Is it erotic? Yes. Is it pornographic? Maybe. Is it beautiful? Yes. Is it disgusting? Yes. This book has no chapters. Almost no breaks. It is 250 pages of solid text, used by Genet in prison to masturbate with. It is a triumph of catharsis, an exploration into the very nature of art and why we need it.
This book has climbed inside of me.