GRGR Finale Re: Homophobia in GR?

[davemarc]

For what it's worth, when I read GR back in the '80s, I perceived its
portrayal of homosexuality to be faintly negative, in a puritanical sense.
Or, to put it another way, I would have been just as quick to think of GR as
being positive about homosexuality as I would have been to think of Bosch's
mid-panel The Garden of Earthly Delights as being positive about sex toys.

Projecting backward to the time of GR's publication, I would imagine that
many, many fairminded readers perceived the book's homosexuality in the same
way.  I would imagine that back then, anything short of a pronounced and
unmistakeable gay-positive literary knock-on-the-head would have been
perceived as such by a vast majority of readers ranging from anti-gay bigots
to pro-gay chauvinists, though as far as freedom of expression issues are
concerned the book is a significant blast at literary silence regarding
varied sexualities.

Personally, I doubt that TP intended to condemn homosexuality.  For me,
sexuality in general doesn't look so great in GR.  Yet since I've been on
this mailing list, I've seen that others seem to have found it much more
titillating, and perhaps more "positive," than I have.  That's fascinated me
and actually taught me quite a lot.  As far as I can tell, it's very much a
matter of taste and TP's ambiguity, which seems to get disproportionately
little consideration in this forum.  Considering TP's explicit embrace of
Surrealism and some of the interminable polar literary disputes here, it's
clear to me that ambiguity is a very, very significant aesthetic tool for
TP, and that much trouble may arise when it's ignored.  You know, it's that
"nailing jello to the wall," as Paul so sagely put it.

nanny d.