Querelle (Jean Genet)

I actually read this book about 2-3 months ago and have been uninspired to write about it. I had seen the Fassbinder movie and thought it was intriguing but also kind of stupidly cryptic and eccentricly verbose, which I found difficult. The experience of reading the book left me feeling somewhat similarly, except that I now feel it is essentially not as cryptic as I thought it was. In fact, the theme of the book is something that now seems almost like a cliche in gay literature: I guess I would have to boil it down to the following: how sexual desire and "love" between men is invariably linked with competition, disdain, and ultimately, violence (in this case, homicide). But wait...that's maybe not the whole thing. there is also something about how homosexual desire is related to narcissism and possibly misogyny. Anyway, it's something that may have completely fascinated me before I read George Chauncey's "Gay New York," from which I learned all about the Pre-War history of the gay male in society- all about sailors and such. Still, I think these are valid themes to write about, and there certainly is some truth to them. And the prose is often very engaging and amusing in a sort of French way. The characters usually manage to be appealing at the same time as they are uninteresting stock characters. I kinda liked it.