What does your bookcase say about you?

It was yet another dull day at work so I was browsing the New York Times and found this article which amused me. In a piece entitled "It’s Not You, It’s Your Books" in which Rachel Donadio writes about our reactions to the bookshelf choices of our new lovers and how their favourite authors can end up being a dealbreaker:

“I did have to break up with one guy because he was very keen on Ayn Rand,” said Laura Miller, a book critic for Salon. ““He was sweet and incredibly decent despite all the grandiosely heartless ‘philosophy’ he espoused, but it wasn’t even the ideology that did it. I just thought Rand was a hilariously bad writer, and past a certain point I couldn’t hide my amusement.”

You know, I do this all the time and, although I'm all for cultural diversity and I'm perfectly willing to overlook that someone doesn't know who Carson McCullers is, or has never read a book by E L Doctorow, I have to agree with Ms Miller for breaking up with someone just because they like Ayn Rand. It's quite right and quite proper! Although I'd like to think that I would've already recognised the tell-tale signs of self-absorbed melodrama and fascist tendencies without having to peruse their bookshelf.

Illustation: "Bookshelf" painting in acrylic by Jessica Gregory

Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City

My current reading material is 28 Barbary Lane by Armistead Maupin. It's a compilation of the first three Tales of the City books, including the original, More Tales of the City and Further Tales of the City. I'd picked it up a few months ago in a charity shop for £1.99. I figured I'd read it then sell it on eBay or something once I'd finished. The thing is, I'd never gotten around to reading it.

Anyway, on Saturday my iPod and Nintendo DS both ran out of battery juice on the way to work in the morning which left me with nothing to amuse myself with on the train journey home. I usually have a few books left at work for these occasions so I picked up 28 Barbary Lane to pass the time that evening. Well, wouldn't you know it, I'm hooked on this book! I've seen the TV adaptions so I already know the stories and what happens and so on, but I still gasp at the dramas and revelations or laugh out loud at the funny bits.

It's one of those books that is so good, that you never want it to end. As a result, I'm reading it as slowly as I can, you know, to really draw out the pleasure and savour it chapter by chapter, but it's not working. It's so damn good that I find myself racing through it. Some critics say that Maupin merely writes soap opera, but even so, it's terrific stuff.

Armistead Maupin was in Manchester last week, doing some book signings. I missed out as I hadn't noticed the adverts and it was completely sold out by the time I did notice the signing. Never mind, I don't know what I would've said to him though a picture of us pretending to know each other would've been a cool illustration for this post. By the way, Mr Maupin definitely knows his audience. He also managed to squeeze in a book signing session in our gay sex shop in the Village. Plus ça change.

Edmund White’s elegiac “The Farewell Symphony”

I’ve just finished reading Edmund White’s “The Farewell Symphony”, the third in his trilogy of autobiographical novels, beginning with “A Boys Own Story” and “The Beautiful Room is Empty.” The novel covers a long period in his life, much longer than the period in his first two autobiographical novels. As White describes it: ”I thought that never had a group been placed on such a rapid cycle, oppressed in the 50’s, freed in the 60’s, exalted in the 70’s and wiped out in the 80’s.” Published ten years ago, White describes this autobiographical element of the novel in his introduction:

”The Farewell Symphony” is an autobiographical novel. Although its action parallels many of the events in my life, it is not a literal transcription of my experience. The characters are stylized versions, often composites, of people I knew in those years. Sometimes I have used Proust’s method of merging or mitosis, i.e. condensing two people into one or distributing the traits of one person over two or more characters. These changes have been made to protect the privacy of people living – and mostly dead – but also to give a coherent shape to so many destinies.

This is true, but White ended up leaving so many clues about many of the famous characters that it’s not too much of a stretch to guess who the thinly disguised actors, writers, artists and theatre people really are. You know, at times, it often comes across a bit like a gossipy roman à clef even though, towards the end, White seems to give up the pretence altogether and introduces characters such as Tennessee Williams and Michel Foucault with little regard to their privacy.

That’s not meant as a negative criticism, it just reflects the lack of consistency with this autobiographical novel. At times, the writing is beautiful, other times it’s like reading a diary of his endless sexual conquests. I dunno, I think it’s much more fun to have sex yourself than read about someone else’s experiences. It’s much more interesting when he deals with his feelings and relationships, instead of detailed descriptions of his tricks and street pick ups.

If you’re wondering about the title, White explains this towards the end of the novel: ”I kept thinking of Haydn’s The Farewell Symphony. In the last movement more and more of the musicians get up to leave the stage, blowing out their candles as they go. In the end just one violinist is still playing.”

That’s a very romantic image, but White got it wrong. Well, I don’t know whether White got it wrong or just amended it for dramatic reasons, but in Haydn’s symphony, it was scored that two violinists were left on stage at the end, not one. Thinking about it, White ends up alone at the end of the novel, with all his friends and lovers dead of AIDS, so I guess White’s mistaken description of the solo violinist is more appropriate after all.