4
It begins with a house, or rather the building of a house. In Chicago, in the year 1885, a meticulously design of almost cathedral like intent, although not in the sense of the house being dedicated to a God, more a notion of God like modernity, which instantly dates the bricks and mortar. A hundred year gap exists between the building of the house and the death of the big screen American actor and general heart throb Rock Hudson. A man whose passing, and the circumstances of his death, was something that marked a seismic cultural shift as this stars passing as narrated by the entangled mainstream media and red top sensational reporting brought the secret loves and ways closer to that gaurded mainstream. The topic of the disease which affected a generation and which continues to blight the lives of millions world wide was suddenly finding its way into common discourse. AIDS was like no disease which had gone before as it crept its way about the world, generating a hysteria that was so lop sided in its ability to distort the narrative of its progress through a maze of hysteria, misunderstanding and out right hostility. The sex lives of gay men felt itself under a lens of public scrutiny and unearned morally pernicous dread and finger waveing as hundreds of thosaands died. the loss of fathers,brothers sons and lovers would be felt on a scale not usually found outside of warfare.
Skillfully, Neil Bartlett moves through time, never making the very modern mistake of projecting prgressiveness where none existed. Almost a hundred years of being a difficult time to be gay, with no end to the persecution for most of that time. Sadly, it was not even considered marginilization, just the way of the world, with such persecution accepted as the norm and harsh penalties for any who dared to seek a love for themselves. His writing proves a compelling yet lyrical witness to events, delicately composed, but manfully so. Sometimes the only weapon we have is to speak truth to power and roll with the punches as best we can. We turned the other cheek and got punched there as well.But as I said, its skillfully done. To the point where I found myself wondering if the central character was the most reliable of witnesses, was he a truthful or fanciful narrator?
imagine, in this world as you move through it today, not daring to show public displays of affection for those we love, for those we even liked. Some of the events in the narrative feel cloaked in a weary objectivity, a tale told in front of a flickering gas jet, with the decadent charm of the 1880s giving way tonother century of persecution, of a struggle for civility and tolerance where none existed.
Mr Page exists in a wonderfully constructed self isolation, heating his home to a comfortable ambience that is no less a barless prison for him,In his isolation he builds a wall to protect himself, a smartly dressed castaway in an archipelego of secrets, a whimsical Crusoe. Fear of discovery moves him to recet almost unscalable defenses about himself, not wishing to become "that man in the university" or "those two navy boys", he self imposes a scolds bridle about his head and his heart. Its bitterly composed, a poetry of dread.,
Threads are woven across the decades, not so much a pattern as a familiar sense of societal ennui, of the lethargy brought on by sustained ignorance and why love may not be enough to beat it.
