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orestesfasting's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Perhaps there is more to be said for this book being one of the first coming out novels, but I’ve read enough similar that it really hasn’t left much of a trace in my memory. Allegedly iconic in the UK, I can’t help but feel that Vidal’s The City and the Pillar does the same a million times better. There is no real sense of pathos, just that this is a homosexual novel, which isn’t enough when there are now so many.
holmesstorybooks's review against another edition
3.5
a breeze to read but read a bit like young adult (which makes sense) but i don't love YA so. <3
sirlancereads's review against another edition
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
A beautiful portrait of what it was like to grow up gay in the 1950s and his own struggles with his sexuality and particularly the lengths in which the narrarator will go to conceal or even attempt to undo his own homosexuality.
mandraluhana's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
lestada's review against another edition
4.0
“I felt as though I were a dancer not up to his role but inspired by the expectation everywhere in the darkness around me. Or I felt like someone in history, a queen on her way to the scaffold determined to suppress her usual quips, to give the spectators the high deeds they wanted to see.”
Here lies the narrator at his young age, imbibed by his own curiosity, wanting to see the length of his desire, to witness how much would this desire dictate his journey. The controversy and the blatant scenes of immorality splattered this book, and yet there’s no way for me to put this down. Edmund White, I hear you — loud and clear.
Here lies the narrator at his young age, imbibed by his own curiosity, wanting to see the length of his desire, to witness how much would this desire dictate his journey. The controversy and the blatant scenes of immorality splattered this book, and yet there’s no way for me to put this down. Edmund White, I hear you — loud and clear.
rpenzias's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of the greatest books I've read with a gay protagonist, and one of the most compelling biographies I have ever read. I particularly loved the way that White was able to weave together the various pieces of his life into one fascinating, clear story with a strong message. This is an excellent work, and I would highly recommend it.
kinbote4zembla's review against another edition
4.0
A Boy's Own Story is very elegant. The writing is beautiful -- sumptuous, even -- and the narrator/protagonist is very well drawn. It reads less as a novel and, in the same vein as Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House or Alice Munro's Who Do You Think You Are?, more as a series of interconnected stories, all revolving around a single character. Moving, seemingly at random, through the unnamed narrator's adolescence, we witness many of this young man's formative experiences.
Sexual, spiritual, social, and psychological lenses frame his development. His homosexuality is set against the puritanism and heteronormativism of his mother and father, who seek to blame each other for his deviance. His sister works with him to mould his personality so that he may become popular in school, where he is an outcast. The homophobia of the '50s in the midwestern United States leads him to seek out Buddhism, which suggests that all desire should be purged and, with this purging, offers an opportunity to fix himself.
The individual chapters can, at times, seem rather disjointed. And the final chapter attempts to contrive neat little endings for several ancillary characters. The disparity between its brusque, hurried endings and its desire to wrap things up makes for an uneasy read. I was never sure if I was meant to accept the constantly shifting attentions of this young man's life as a natural representation of the shuffle of adolescence, the constant sense of discovery, or if I should be waiting for these characters to reappear and affect the narrative.
There are some interesting discussions of masculinity, particularly in the way that White places the narrator's developing identity against his father's established one. As the embodiment of all thing traditional and extreme -- he is mostly silent, private, he does not discuss feelings, he has no male friends, he is physically intimidating, he drinks, he womanizes --, his father functions as the yardstick against which the narrator is measured. They are great foils.
(I do, perhaps, wish that something had happened, here. There isn't any sort of pay-off to this novel-long tension between the boy and his father, not even obliquely. Hm.)
There is a very odd revelation, early on, about the narrator wanting to have sex with his father. This Freudian embellishment is honestly a tad hackneyed. In a novel of subtlety, it seems hyperbolic.
This novel lacks a certain depth, though. It very deftly depicts the experience of its character and excels at creating an impression of a specific time and place. But it isn't incredibly complex. So, this book is very solid in its conventionality, and White's frank and honest depiction of adolescent never feels exploitative or manipulative.
From a quick Google search, I have discovered that this book is the first in a series and I shall certainly be reading the others.
4 Tubs of Vaseline out of 5
Sexual, spiritual, social, and psychological lenses frame his development. His homosexuality is set against the puritanism and heteronormativism of his mother and father, who seek to blame each other for his deviance. His sister works with him to mould his personality so that he may become popular in school, where he is an outcast. The homophobia of the '50s in the midwestern United States leads him to seek out Buddhism, which suggests that all desire should be purged and, with this purging, offers an opportunity to fix himself.
The individual chapters can, at times, seem rather disjointed. And the final chapter attempts to contrive neat little endings for several ancillary characters. The disparity between its brusque, hurried endings and its desire to wrap things up makes for an uneasy read. I was never sure if I was meant to accept the constantly shifting attentions of this young man's life as a natural representation of the shuffle of adolescence, the constant sense of discovery, or if I should be waiting for these characters to reappear and affect the narrative.
There are some interesting discussions of masculinity, particularly in the way that White places the narrator's developing identity against his father's established one. As the embodiment of all thing traditional and extreme -- he is mostly silent, private, he does not discuss feelings, he has no male friends, he is physically intimidating, he drinks, he womanizes --, his father functions as the yardstick against which the narrator is measured. They are great foils.
(I do, perhaps, wish that something had happened, here. There isn't any sort of pay-off to this novel-long tension between the boy and his father, not even obliquely. Hm.)
There is a very odd revelation, early on, about the narrator wanting to have sex with his father. This Freudian embellishment is honestly a tad hackneyed. In a novel of subtlety, it seems hyperbolic.
This novel lacks a certain depth, though. It very deftly depicts the experience of its character and excels at creating an impression of a specific time and place. But it isn't incredibly complex. So, this book is very solid in its conventionality, and White's frank and honest depiction of adolescent never feels exploitative or manipulative.
From a quick Google search, I have discovered that this book is the first in a series and I shall certainly be reading the others.
4 Tubs of Vaseline out of 5