Mainstream Books of Interest

[Blaise (imported)]

is particularly good to read. When I took a history of philosophy series (three courses) at university, our professor started the first lecture series with our reading Mary Renault's superb "The Last of the Wine." Renault was herself homosexual--I believe. She writes with great insight and empathy about Greek culture.

Reading "The Sun ALso Rises" is also an excellent experience. It deals directly with issues we explore here. The fact that a man unsure about his own sexualty wrote the story adds to the depth of feeling explored in the novel.

I'm one of those who lost his ability to enjoy most science fiction by reading a lot of it during his youth. However, I do realize that I endure a loss. Thanks for mentioning all of these works. I need to hit Barnes and Noble on payday.

[yankee masha (imported)]

Well thne you must have read Ursula Leguin's "The Left hand Of Darkness." it deasl with a planet where the population is neither male nor female but depending on who the sexual significant other is, during breeding times (called going into kemmer) adopts the opposite sex of the agressor. Really interesting and tis is the novel that woke me up to SF as being able to delve deeper into the nether reaches of human imagination. That and Philip Jose Farmer. I wa always astounded at their ability to strip their minds naked liek that.

The book and movie "Enemy Mine was somewhat like the idea of unisex creatures as described by Leguin, except Leguin still required two creatures to make a baby.

[Tomas (imported)]

John's a year younger than I am (b. 1947) so he's not really that "old." At least I don't think so.

Here's a quick bio: John Varley. (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart ... raphy.html) He's a rather private, reclusive individual, so there's not really all that much about him.

*shuffling off muttering* *Old, eh?* *mutter* *shuffle* *shuffle* *mutter*

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[Dave (imported)]

Believe it or not, I never read "The Sun Also Rises" although when I was a Junior in a Catholic high school I did ask the Nuns if I could do a book report on Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" ... brave of me, wasn't it since the entire book is a send-up of religion.

One thing I should point out is that R Danel Olivaw in Heinlein's "I Robot" is esentially a eunuch and yet seems to have feelings in the stories for the humans he investigates and protects. I always thought that strange.

Another strange and useless fact I just remembered is that the John Hurt character in "The Big Chill" has had his unit shot off and yet seems to have some sort of relationship with the Zoe character.

Dave

[yankee masha (imported)]

You're not old Tomas because I am six years older than you. I just thought Varley was older because he was published and established when I was so young that I thought he must be older. But there is nothing wrong with older as I can attest. Ahem.

But Heinlein's "Stranger" was a great book and I was enjoyhing it till the almost end when his girlfriend was specualting about him in her mind and wondered if he were gay because he hhadn't touched her. "She thought he was a real man..." and being gay I got mad and threw the book across the room then out the house and never finished it. Real man indeed. But I do know he was an excellent writer and later I found that dislike of gay men was a conditioned reflex. Hemingway satirized tehm also in Sun ALso Rises with distaste but doesn't really get exacerbatory which is interesting. It was one tool he used in the book to get a bitter reaction from his penected protagonist. it was interesting that his loss of penis did not change his conditioning about what a man should feel. I do believe that after adulthood, sexualityh is set as a mental condition and then loss of balls or cock or both changes nothing except the activity. If you were a "real man" before you remain one after even if you call yourself a eunuch. A man may cherish or reject his genitals but they are njot what really make him a man or a eunuch. It is his mental choice.

What I think Hemingway was really addressing at that time (the 1930's or 20's?) was the burden a man carried trying to live up to social expectations of what it was to be a man, and even though he lost his penis he still carried teh burden of what to do with them, even though he found a woman he loved who loved him. What else was interesing is he ended portraying Brett Ashley as over-valuing sex and penises and losing the real love he had to offer. And his machismo made him accept her choice. But Hemingway had a tendency to idealize women so he didn't have to deal with them realistically. He always called marlene Dietrich "Daughter" and she called him "Papa" even though they were the same age. And she was a major sex symbol then.

By the time Big Chill came aobut the side streets of sexual activity would have enabled a dickless man to have sex in other ways than sticking it in. It was more acceptable for her to stick it in him. Man-woman roles had loosened up.

My I do chat so, don't I?

[Tomas (imported)]

Hmmmm... In Stranger... the wonder at that was a reflection of a character's conditioning, YM, not necessarily RAH's.

In several of his books there are "gay" intimacies either directly stated or implied - for example, in which story I don't recall, Woodrow Wilson Smith (Lazarus Long) discusses trying a couple of homosexual encounters when he and one of his close buddies were young men, but it wasn't all that exciting for either one of 'em so they just washed their hands and went out to play ball afterwards. His usual view of homosexuality was fairly neutral, especially for a straight man from his era.

On the other hand, some of his characters are definately anti-gay and anti-eunuch in their worldview. One that stands out in this is Jubal Harshaw from Stranger (who is also the character I believe initially wondered about Mike's orientation, not Jill, Jill straightened Jubal (and Ben Caxton) out on that ... )

Oh! one more item: "I Robot" was by Issac Asimov, not Robert Heinlein, Dave. I met Issac once back in Eatontown, NJ, and was lucky enough to actually have one of his books in my car at the time and got him to sign it. A fascinating guy in person, and an incredibly agile and quick mind - even if he WAS afraid of flying ...

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[BossTamsin (imported)]

I'm fairly sure RAH had nothing against gays. Of course, it's hard to tell what his true opinions were, as opposed to the opinions in the worlds and characters he created.

I'm actually reading through as many of his books as I can get my hands on at the moment. A large number of his later works seem to have 'anything goes' atmospheres, where the sexes of the individuals involved are not as important as the feelings they have for each other. ("I Will Fear No Evil" is a good representation of this)

As for topic related stories, "Pornucopia" by Pires Anthony is fairly on-topic, although hard to find. It's about a guy who has his dick cut off, who then spends the rest of the book trying to get it back.

I'm sure there are others, but that's the only one I can call forth at this moment.

[yankee masha (imported)]

My reaction to that statement was when I was in my 20's. Since then I prefer honesty in ficitonal characters, and of course the character of Jill would have used such a statement. Since the feminists took over and stopped freedom of speech in publishing, and especially SF, I am more tolerant of all views being preserved in fiction.

Piers Anthony was great and prolific from the time he started with his Chthon series. he also had an interesting sexual imagination, stemming from being raised in a lonely situation by an introverted father. And of course he feminists hated his stuff because it was male oriented.

I don't want to get to sounding anti-whatever here, but as a writer I have watched them censoring and stopping and ruining writers they don't like. But that is another matter and not related to what we are discussing here.

I must say i wa not aware of Piers Anthony writing something called Pornucopia. I wonder if it's still available outside a library.

[Xan (imported)]

One of the most tense castration scenes is in Louis L'Amour's book The Walking Drum, which unlike his westerns takes place in the Middle Ages. The hero has searched for his father, and when he finds him he is put in the position where his father is a victum that he must casterate to save both their lives. L'Amour goes pretty far with the scene.

I only wish that he had a chance to finish what was to be a trilogy.

Another great book is Byzantine, and then there is also The Sarantine Mosaic by Guy Gavriel Kay which has eunuch characters.

Of course there is Anne Rice's Cry to Heaven as well.

[yankee masha (imported)]

L'Amour was fantastic at creating an intense man-on-man S/M scene in just a few short words. He used each word like a knife cut. Thanks for the reference. i will order it from the Library.

I don't like westerns so this would be an interesting change.

I can't read Anne Rice wither in her natural habitat or in her S/M world. She always overpolishes the apple. White leather whips, for the luvva Mike!