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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
“Now of all the bonds between homosexual friends, none was greater than that between the friends that danced together.”
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
- I have never really read a book quite like this
- Simultaneously a celebration of life and a warning of focusing on the wrong way to go about seeking love and validation in life
- Sad to think about how these characters were like the generation of men who were later taken by AIDs
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
An alternately hilarious and bleak depiction of a strain of gay male life in 70s New York. The characters are fun and the prose is quite gorgeous but the overall impression for me was of a sort of hopelessness that comes with living in an intensely homophobic society. Malone is unable to let go of his heteronormative expectations and the nomadic, fast-paced lifestyle he falls into with Sutherland in New York isn't enough to convince him there is more to a moral life. It's kind of ingenious put that way actually: the belief that gayness is inherently immoral and lesser than straightness leads Malone into mortal turpitude. Some of it is questionable (take a shot every time there's a weird statement about Black or Puerto Rican men) and I came to find the constant hagiography of Malone a bit repetitive, but I really enjoyed reading it.
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was simply too bleak for me. It was a fascinating read and I’m glad I read it for the history and perspective of it, but wow I absolutely did not walk away from his book feeling good in any manner. The hollow fatalistic perspective of the lives presented here was almost numbing by the end of it. And perhaps that was the goal, making the reader experience the repetitive futile life of circuit gays in the 70s
"So you did what I said a novel should do, for it can’t be anything more. And now that you’ve done that, you have to go on."
I want to say first and foremost that I thought there was too much racism (avert and casual) and racial fetishization in this novel and would be curious to know if other recent readers experienced something similar.
For me, it was wholly unanticipated and deeply disappointing. It's especially a shame for an author who accomplished such decadent prose as Holleran did with this, his 1978 debut novel. This unfortunate dynamic primarily played out through the lens of the character Sutherland, but in the narration as well and made the read a bit of a slog overall.
And so was the entire experience with Dancer from the Dance, enchantment and disenchantment, hand-in-hand.
At times, the book made me want to pack everything up, right now and move to NYC, it made me never want to step foot in that city again.
Throughout, it was so cutting with its painful, brutal honesty. So seamless with its quick humor and wit.
The characters were at once vapid and vibrant. It is beautifully-written (though often too repetitive).
But Malone enamored me, as he did everyone else. ("Malone is all of them, all of those boys, those summers, the smell of grass when it's cut in August, the heat of a summer day...")
Dancer from the Dance occupies an important place in history in the post-Stonewall literature era and captures an important moment in time (pre-AIDS pandemic). I am glad to have made time for it, to have learned from it. That said, just because it represents those things, doesn't make it infallible. There was much to revere, but unfortunately, too many moments that dragged it down.
I want to say first and foremost that I thought there was too much racism (avert and casual) and racial fetishization in this novel and would be curious to know if other recent readers experienced something similar.
For me, it was wholly unanticipated and deeply disappointing. It's especially a shame for an author who accomplished such decadent prose as Holleran did with this, his 1978 debut novel. This unfortunate dynamic primarily played out through the lens of the character Sutherland, but in the narration as well and made the read a bit of a slog overall.
And so was the entire experience with Dancer from the Dance, enchantment and disenchantment, hand-in-hand.
At times, the book made me want to pack everything up, right now and move to NYC, it made me never want to step foot in that city again.
Throughout, it was so cutting with its painful, brutal honesty. So seamless with its quick humor and wit.
The characters were at once vapid and vibrant. It is beautifully-written (though often too repetitive).
But Malone enamored me, as he did everyone else. ("Malone is all of them, all of those boys, those summers, the smell of grass when it's cut in August, the heat of a summer day...")
Dancer from the Dance occupies an important place in history in the post-Stonewall literature era and captures an important moment in time (pre-AIDS pandemic). I am glad to have made time for it, to have learned from it. That said, just because it represents those things, doesn't make it infallible. There was much to revere, but unfortunately, too many moments that dragged it down.
medium-paced
This is written with such a sadness, a longing. I was really attached at first. Then it felt like that writing and the story weren’t always connecting. I didn’t understand the sense of sadness during moments i felt should have been a tad bit happier. Maybe the ability to look back and remember the good is always overshadowed by the bad that eventually falls.