Love in a Dark Time: And Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature in Queereaders

Jan 13, 2010 Grady rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Colm Tóibín, May His Tribe Increase!

This review is from: Love in a Dark Time: And Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature (Hardcover)
Once captured by the liquid, informed prose of Colm Tóibín it is difficult to ignore anything this brilliant writer has written. Still under the spell of 'The Master' and having just sadly finished 'The Story of the Night' (that novel could have been extended another 300 pages!), it seemed only appropriate to read an investigative work, just to see how this Colm Tóibín, May His Tribe Increase!

This review is from: Love in a Dark Time: And Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature (Hardcover)
Once captured by the liquid, informed prose of Colm Tóibín it is difficult to ignore anything this brilliant writer has written. Still under the spell of 'The Master' and having just sadly finished 'The Story of the Night' (that novel could have been extended another 300 pages!), it seemed only appropriate to read an investigative work, just to see how this man's mind absorbs and dissects the world of reality instead the one of fiction.

Happily LOVE IN A DARK TIME is as fascinating a read as his novels. Tóibín searches the lives of many writers and artists asking how did/does their sexuality inform what they create. After a few historic references regarding the gay aspects of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Melville, Joyce, Lorca, Yeats, Kafka, Proust, Gide et at, he analyses biographies (example: Lionel Trilling's bio of EM Forster) that appear unaware of the subject's sexual proclivities! That thrusts us into the exploration of history before the term 'homosexual' was created, regards the aspects of 'the gay being', and proceeds to introduce postulates as to how the works created by nine particular people were deeply influenced by their sexuality, occult or accepted.

What then follows is a richly detailed and elegant series of essays on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Roger Casement (of The Black Diaries), Thomas Mann, Francis Bacon (the painter), Elizabeth Bishop, James Baldwin, Thom Gunn, Pedro Almodovar, and Mark Doty. In each essay Tóibín takes a new stance of investigation, finding incidents or traits in the lives of those discussed that allow 'stories' to develop naturally.

For those who have read 'The Master' (Tóibín's own "biography" of Henry James) this series of highly researched essays will come as no surprise. Tóibín's mind is rich with a plethora of books read and a penetrating mind that examines art from a vantage peculiar to a man that has arrived at the top of the heap in the field of literature. For enjoyable and informative reading, LOVE IN DARK TIME is a pearl. And reading Tóibín's older works only serves to whet the appetite for his next opus. Highly Recommended.

Grady Harp ...more

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Dec 31, 2013 Jerry Delaney rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was written by Colm Toibin. For me, nothing else needs be said. I have never disliked (never not loved) any of his books. These 11 essays on Thomas Mann, Francis Bacon, Roger Casement, James Baldwin, etc. were all fascinating. Even those people I didn't start out interested in intrigued me as Toibin started his explorations. Not short biographies but rather essays on a particular aspect of each life that interested Toibin. ...more

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