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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: June, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75
Rating: 5
Summary: Magnificent and moving
Comment: This books represents one of the finest collections of essays I have ever read. Incredibly moving and filled with the intense passion of a man dying and yet gripped by life, this book has blown me away every time I've read it -- and that's been several times. I'm not sure which essay I like best but at the moment "My Priests" stands out, as it certainly ties in to certain news regarding the Catholic clergy. I wonder what Paul Monette would have had to say about it. Absolutely a must read for anyone with a feeling heart.
Rating: 5
Summary: An advocate and critic of humanity.
Comment: I recall reading this book during my brief and traumatic service in the Israeli army. In the week it took me to finish it, I was as if transported to another sphere of existence - one in which humanity reigns triumphant. As with his two other autobiographical novels, the reader gains a intimate glimpse of his thoughts and experiences. Undoubtedly, Paul Monette goes to great lengths to condemn the corruption of today's world, but side by side his essays are interwoven with instances of sheer beauty. I think his capacity to love, both his friends and his longtime (or short-time) companions is truly inspirational.
Rating: 4
Summary: Easily Monette's best book
Comment: "Last Watch of the Night" gets unjustly forgotten in the light of Monette's more famous "Borrowed Time" and "Becoming a Man," but this collection of essays is a better book than either of them. This is what should have been up for the National Book Award, not "Becoming a Man."
The flaws in the book: some of the essays, especially near the end, seem to drift, and are not particularly engaging. These include the soporific "Sleeping Under a Tree." Also, Monette's observations about graves of famous people in "3275" are not even close to as important and insightful as his look at his lovers' and friends' plots.
However, the majority of the book shines true. Alternately bitter, angry, hopeful, and amazed, Monette's words have tremendous emotional force. He is at his best in "The Politics of Silence" and "My Priests," sometimes combining all these emotions in a single paragraph. He sees the dying all around, but can still find glimmers of hope in the conduct of those fighting AIDS. His depictions of the "last watch of the night," where he cares for his sick lover, are heart-breaking.
Although Monette does tend to go off on rages or streaks of uncontained sentimentality, something which marred some otherwise stellar poetry in his book "Love Alone," most often he controls his use of language to the extent where he is able to use forceful emotional passages without drowning his readers. He does this especially well in his essay about his lover's dog, "Puck."
"Last Watch of the Night" stands with his volume of poetry, "Love Alone" and non-fiction, "Borrowed Time," as essential texts of both Paul Monette and the AIDS crisis.
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Title: Becoming a Man : Half a Life Story by Paul Monette ISBN: 0062507249 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: June, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir by Paul Monette ISBN: 0156005816 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: June, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll (Stonewall Inn Editions) by Paul Monette ISBN: 0312015151 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: February, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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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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Title: Love Alone by Paul Monette ISBN: 0312026021 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: November, 1988 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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