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Of sex and politics...
Nov. 13th, 2005 04:20 pmThe NDP conference started very late, so I took a little walk through the Village while I waited for it to start.
Maybe it was just the breeze and the smell of autumn that made me happy, but it was the first time in years I've walked through the Village and felt it as a place of liberation -- as one of those Temples to Freedom I longed for growing up in a small town.
I finished Famous Last Words finally. I remained wonderful right until (and including) the end.
The unlikable main character, Hugh Selwyn Mauberly, got me thinking about sex and politics.
There's a very minor sub-theme in the novel about sexuality and fascism. Mauberly is queer -- we're never sure if he's bi or gay -- but like Michelangelo or Plato, he seems to idealize sexless love as somehow better, more aesthetic, and remains a virgin, apparently, until his death.
But his sexuality doesn't go away. He always talks about his fascism in terms that are undeniably homoerotic. Because he doesn't express his desire to have a powerful man on top of him in the bedroom, Findley seems to be saying, it comes out in his politics instead.
I've long suspected that football (American football for my international friends) is just one long exercise in sublimated homoerotic desire. A form of exorcism, to make the self-repression easier. Maybe certain forms of political belief are as well...?
Maybe it was just the breeze and the smell of autumn that made me happy, but it was the first time in years I've walked through the Village and felt it as a place of liberation -- as one of those Temples to Freedom I longed for growing up in a small town.
I finished Famous Last Words finally. I remained wonderful right until (and including) the end.
The unlikable main character, Hugh Selwyn Mauberly, got me thinking about sex and politics.
There's a very minor sub-theme in the novel about sexuality and fascism. Mauberly is queer -- we're never sure if he's bi or gay -- but like Michelangelo or Plato, he seems to idealize sexless love as somehow better, more aesthetic, and remains a virgin, apparently, until his death.
But his sexuality doesn't go away. He always talks about his fascism in terms that are undeniably homoerotic. Because he doesn't express his desire to have a powerful man on top of him in the bedroom, Findley seems to be saying, it comes out in his politics instead.
I've long suspected that football (American football for my international friends) is just one long exercise in sublimated homoerotic desire. A form of exorcism, to make the self-repression easier. Maybe certain forms of political belief are as well...?
