 |
 |
photography | personal essays | fiction | dispatches | poetry | opinions | the regulars | about us | personals | horoscopes | advice |  |
||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|
|
Tóibín’s work is not defined by long departed laureates, or by his or his characters’ sexual orientation. He is a master at evoking carnal desire, and he recently met with Hooksexup to talk about sexual frustration, online dating, and the most repressed author in literary history. — John Freeman In your novel The Story of Night [1997], the protagonist is not only consumed with sex, but repeatedly described in search of and having it. Do you think some of your readers will be surprised about the lack of sex in this novel? I met a guy in Dublin who read Blackwater Lightship and he said, "I really liked it, but there wasn't enough dick in it." And I said, "Wait till the next one; there's not going to be any dick in it." How important do you think the issue of James’ sexuality is to his writing? There is a big movement in the academy to queer Henry James — to say all the work is really about his homosexuality. And my reaction to that is no, it’s not — he actually concealed it. It’s not in the books. It’s a pre-Wilde identity, that is: while he was aware that he preferred blokes, he never created an identity around it. He managed to abate it and avoid it. The Master invents a few scenes, based on fact, where this happens and he abstains. Even though there is no sex, they are still pretty tense scenes. I love the business of restraining yourself in a novel. I’ve written sex, and the right and freedom to do that is important, and it’s a hard-won right. But the not doing it now can oddly be more powerful dramatically. So that the creaking of the floor as [James’ friend] gets into his bed… James is thinking, "What’s he doing? What’s he wearing now?" I think this could mean more just now than himself and another guy busily buggering each other, much as I know I would enjoy writing that. Can you relate to James as a writer and as a man? I happen to be the second boy in a family of five. I happen to have an older, very athletic brother. I happen to be The Wimp. I wanted to be a girl, basically. I wanted to stay in and look out the window, be with my mother. That family dynamic of being that boy really affects you. Your main interest is to get away from the whole lot. To find a space where they can’t come in and wreck your solitude. James was a friend of future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. In the book, there’s a lot of sexual tension between the two. Do you really think they had a relationship? In 1865, Henry James went to North Conway to stay with his cousins, and Oliver Wendell Holmes came with him, and there was for a first night only one bed. There is a letter from James to Holmes saying, "There will only be one bed," and also saying, "I don’t mind if you don’t." I have no idea what happened, and I don’t want to make too much of it, but any gay man knows — in any year — lying in bed with another man at that age is hard! You’re in your twenties; you get into bed with another bloke. You have no idea what you’re going to do. And you’re not naked, but nearly naked, and he is, too. Lying there, really excited, and really worried and really full of wonder: what’s going to happen? Is he asleep? Is he awake? Is he going to move again? If he is asleep, is he going to sleep all night and I’m going to lie here all night? There’s also a little homage to James in that scene, is there not? Yeah, when he spends the night with Oliver Wendell Holmes, I wanted to describe the morning after — you know how hard it is to describe the next day after a night like that, where you feel all raw and funny. It’s pleasant, but you’re tired. So I went back to James to see if there was any episode where somebody had gone to bed with somebody, and actually he did — it’s in The Wings of the Dove. Densher and Kate Coy actually go to bed. And in describing the morning after there’s a wonderful, wonderful line that I immediately stole: “He felt like he’d been dipped in something.” Besides lines like this, what makes James an important novelist? The reason James is important in the history of the novel is he invented the idea of a single consciousness. And this is done with great concentration. Very quickly in those books, you become that protagonist. And you think James could do this because he was a bachelor — always alone? He used whatever identities he wasn’t using in life. He spilt them on his novels. His not having a partner or a single identity set him free — it gave him free empathy. I read Portrait of a Lady when I was 18. I found it very powerful — and it’s hard to tell why a book hits you at a certain age like that. I suppose one of the reasons why is I was a really innocent kid from a provincial town and the idea that there were people like this never struck me before. I suppose I was like Isabel — the heroine, she came from Albany to Europe — and I in a way came from my small town into his book. Given his isolation and restraint, can you imagine James living today? I think the internet has changed everything. When my book The Story of the Night came out, I did a festival in a town in the West of Ireland. And I read from the book. Later that night, I was in the hotel where I was staying and this guy came up to me, a bit older than me, and said, "You know, I read the book eight times. I have never read anything like it. I want to ask you something. What have I done? What did I do in a previous life to deserve being here in this town as a gay man?" What did you tell him? I said to him "Go! Leave!" He couldn’t go because of family circumstances. But in the subsequent seven years, all he needs is a computer and he’s connected. Irish guys love gaydar and gay.com because you discover there is a guy on the next street in your town! I know a lot of people say this cyber stuff leads to real disappointment, but it also leads to men’s self-knowledge. n°
©2004 hooksexup.com.
|
|
||||||||||
| featured personal | |||||||||||
|
|||||||||||