BlueWizard there's a thread about At Swim, Two Boys?? How did I miss that? I'll have to seek it out! (Newcomer promise me you'll press on through the first 50 or so pages, because it gets so much better after that, I know the first pages are tough to get through.)
BTW, mornin' everyone. It's a beautiful, sunny day in NYC, not too hot and not too cool. Perfect weather. Why can't it be like this year round?
Oh and Steve, never apologize for being "windy", not when you've got such valued, intelligent insight into something we can all relate to.
I don't know what it is about Bare that really speaks to me, a straight woman, it's hard for me to put my finger on it. I think it's the universality of feeling unheard, misunderstood, passed by. And who can't relate to some form of heartbreak?
It also sheds light for me, on a classmate of mine from high school who threw himself in front of a train the summer between our junior and senior years based mostly on the internal precipice he kept falling over as he struggled to fit in. Even the 11 year difference in people's tolerance between now and then is huge. I know my very Catholic high school had an anonymous after school program for gay youth, but it was just mocked and derided at every turn with other kids trying to figure out where/when they met just to harass them. It just wasn't an environment that screamed acceptance.
A decade later and I can see the ways in which it feels different and more free, but still not quite there. I think it's shows lik Bare (and Rent before it) that with their very presence will hopefully help pave the way for it to be even more commonplace another decade from now.
ETA: 13, welcome to the Bawl Like Babies club. We'll be holding our support meetings every other Friday. I pretty much bawled the last 15-20 pages of that book. Much like I bawl the last 15-20 minutes of Bare!
"Too young to hold on and too old to just break free and run" - Jeff Buckley
Updated On: 9/1/04 at 09:41 AM