Faggots

I tried this novel 10 years ago and put it down after 25 pages. Too choppy, too crazy I thought. Picked it up again and was hooked for some reason. I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of pleasure, sex, etc lately... so the novel worked into that train of thought.First, this book is insane. You will not make it through unless you embrace the insanity at least a little. It’s not like other novels. You have to allow yourself to go back to the 70s gay world, orgies, and most of all Kramer’s idiosyncratic angry interpretation of that era. After a while his attitude starts to rub off on you. You begin to think in short staccato, angry sentences. You begin to think it’s ok to curse and refer to genital body parts every sentence. It’s a little fun actually.Imagine a sexual act so depraved you don’t want to think it. It’s in Kramer. After a while I started to wonder if this book is really satire or if it’s just Kramer having fun describing zany 70s porn scenes. A guy being lifted off the ground and spraying on the wall while being done from behind by a giant black guy. Another guy cleaning it off the wall frantically. Seems more like entertainment than satire, but I guess the line is fine.I liked it enough to start Kramer’s “The American People”. One thing you learn from him is that anger can be a constructive force. I can see this in his writing alone. It’s like “get the words out, say f*** if you have to multiple times for effect, then keep going...”. Interesting technique for sure... his books are not so much stories as harrowing experiences you come out of a little different for having read.

I initially found it difficult to get into this book. The writing is style is very wordy and convoluted and the cast of characters quickly became confusing. I persevered and am reading it in dribs and drabs in between other books. It seems to get les wordy as it progresses and easier to keep track of who is who. It is a glimpse into a world that no longer exists. A time capsule of gay life in NY in all of its glory. Parts of it made me laugh out loud.

There was a point where I wanted to start reading classic gay literature. I remember seeing Larry Kramer's FAGGOTS on the shelf at a local Borders, but decided to get it another time. I have read his fantastic play THE NORMAL HEART years ago, just when I came out and wanted to explore gay themed writings. I finally bought FAGGOTS a weeks ago on amazon. All I have to say is WOW!!!! This is not just a "walk in the park" kind of read. This is a book which really slaps you in the face. Larry Kramer does NOT (and he really doesn't) hold back ANYTHING in the lives of gay men. The focus of the book is Fred Lemish, a 39-year old man who is looking for love. However, there were more obstacles in the world of gay men than he should have known.The issue of sex is very very exploitive. From outdoor sex, to leather, to raunch, to pig-sex, to groups, and also an explisive orgy scene. (And just you wait until the climax of the novel!!) But what Kramer shows is how obsessed sex is with gay men. Many scenes take place in gay clubs, which many sexual activities occur.I did not mind the many characters in the book. Even though Kramer makes Fred Lemish the hero, we also observe many others in the gay lifestyle. At first is may seen complicated. BUT as the novel progresses I was able to follow and know the characters in the book.The nover was written in 1978, just before the AIDS crisis began. HOWEVER, after I read this book, I thought--Could this REALLY happen today?? I felt it still does.Kramer handles the themes very well in the novel. How love is handled, how the way characters are drawn, and how the gay lifestyle IS. This is a truthful and serious work. In a few years I would most likely pick this book up again.I highly recommend Larry Kramer's FAGGOTS. It is definitely a book to be read and talked about.

The telling of a close knit group of friends in a time before AIDS Epidemic hit in New York City. Larry Kramer introduces individuals who relate to each us of as if we were intimate pals or lovers. The characters stories intertwine with relationships including sexual escapades and cheap tricks in a dark place we all desire if we were lucky enough to get caught with pants pulled down. I read reviews that some people thought Larry Kramer sold out because he was honest in his storytelling which was a brave act. Nothing in life is guaranteed but he wrote this a few years prior to the AIDS Crisis hit in full force. We remember what the good old days were even if we weren't born prior. You connect with some characters as a few others you become disgusted. Kramer writes honestly. A true documentation of that generation.

Depressing. As depressing as "Boys in the Band"? Not sure, but certainly presents some of the worst of the characters of gay/queer men. A period piece? Sure, but not sure if the same is still going on in various dungeons, parties, woods. The entire book is about a bunch or gang of 'queens', and I don't hang out with queens. As I was watching the movie, 'Boys in the Band', at the age of 23, I found myself cringing and tearing up saying to myself: "Is this what I have to look forward to?" Total depressive thought. This book is certainly a diatribe of Kramer talking like he really likes talking to himself and being the center of attention, so characteristic of so many 'queens' then and today. If you're just starting to face your own form of queerness, this isn't the book to read. Like "Boys in the Band", these characters are self-hating men. The ending itself leaves no sense of hope for Lemish, the main character. Like the addict, he will continue the pattern of discontent till he really hits rock bottom. Then, hopefully someone will be around to help him off the ground.

Because of its frank description of gay sex it probably would be impossible for it to reach a straight audience. Funny and moving. A classic of gay lit.

The content is for me, not the writing style. It is a perverse walk down memory lane that I especially love and loathe in equal measure. This book gives me something to pause over, a different feeling triggered so quickly.

Un classico !

For those who are looking for a funny book to read lightly and to laugh about the hypocrisy and the identity crisis a lot of gay men faced at that time this book is good. Other than that I would not recommend it owing to the the very superficial tone of the book, which promises to leave a mark but end up just scratching a scab.

What a great book! It had me hooked form the start, there was laughter and tears to be had in every chapter.

I have to start by stating that I didn't finish this novel, but that what I read I enjoyed immensely. The reason I didn't finish was that it is far too American for me - all the popular culture references are American, particularly New Yorky, as well as belonging to the late seventies - not a world I know or recognise, but also one I wasn't particularly invited to enter. Therefore, it's a great time capsule, and, I imagine, beautifully captures a pre AIDS heaven for gay men in seventies America, a time when to be gay was fabulously dangerously exciting. Oh how times have changed! I loved what I read, and would recommend it to you darlings, but there was too much I just didn't get. But if you like to be completely shocked - and I was, sexually excited - and I was, and overwhelmed, which I ultimately was, it's the novel for you. I just never did have enough stamina!