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Title: Becoming a Man : Half a Life Story by Paul Monette ISBN: 0-06-250724-9 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 11 June, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.53 (40 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Brilliantly Written but Disingenuous
Comment: Born in 1945 to a small-town, middle-class New England family, Paul Monette--like most Americans of the era--was spoon-fed a negative knee-jerk re homosexuality. When he himself began to realize that his own sexuality was at odds with society's dictums he entered two decades of struggle: first a struggle to at least give the appearance of conformity, then a struggle to step beyond the status quo itself. And BECOMING A MAN is a very powerful testament of that struggle, of the price paid, of the self-destructive behavior that the false conformity of "being in the closet" inevitably produces.
It is extremely difficult to read BECOMING A MAN without sharing the sense of fury and bitterness that Monette felt when he contemplates his life, and if ever there were an argument in favor of sexual honesty, this is it: the language, an artful mix of the literary and the hardbitten, is remarkable, and Monette pulls no punches when it comes to detailing the fear that drove him. Truly, the book deserves every accolade heaped upon it.
All the same, it is a remarkably disingenuous memoir. Even as Monette displays a justifiable loathing for the social institutions that buried him alive for some three decades, he tends to disregard a basic point: he was in many ways a remarkably privileged individual who actually fed upon those same institutions, having a host of opportunities that few people--gay or straight--ever have. It was his own determination to place social advantage above personal integrity that led to his decision to remain in the closet in the first place.
True, Monette (who died of AIDS not long after this book was published) was born and came of age in an era that had little tolerance for anything beyond the status quo. But Monette presents being in the closet as something forced upon him by external forces--and this is not strictly true. There was a choice, and bitter though it was for him and the many others who made it, being in the closet was actually the path of least resistance at the time. To pretend that it was otherwise does a tremendous disservice to those of his generation who found the courage to select an even more difficult road of sexual honesty.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Rating: 5
Summary: Compelling
Comment: In Becoming a Man, activist/writer Paul Monette reflects on his growing-up years prior to the AIDS crisis in the 80s. One of the book's strong points which several critics have noted(and I would have to agree about) is how well it portrays Monette's personal experience yet is still reflective of the lives of the gay men of his generation. The writing in this book is at times both beautifully and disturbingly evocative and filled with powerful images. Some readers may be put-off by Monette's scathing attacks on the straight world in general and the Vatican in particular, but it is the overwhelming emotion he puts into his work that makes Becoming a Man so compelling. This is not to say the book is perfect. Monette's "tortured artist" portrayal gets tiresome at times, as does the self-indulgence(he could have spared us the line " 'Paul is perfect' was slumming.") Nevertheless, the passionate soul-baring and consistenly excellent prose makes this one of Monette's strongest works and an essential read in gay literature.
Rating: 1
Summary: Boring
Comment: In one word - boring. I stuck with this book and found the outcome uninteresting.
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Title: Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir by Paul Monette ISBN: 0156005816 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise by Paul Monette ISBN: 0156002027 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 15 April, 1995 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Afterlife by Paul Monette ISBN: 0758201885 Publisher: Kensington Pub Corp Pub. Date: July, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Gender Outlaw : On Men, Women and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein ISBN: 0679757015 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 25 April, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title:Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer's End ASIN: 6305269408 Publisher: First Run Features Pub. Date: 11 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $20.95 |
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