Eighty-Sixed

[ceebeegee]

Just finished reading Eighty-Sixed by David Feinberg. Umm...meh. It's funny at times but I was so not drawn in by the main character--I get tired very quickly of people who make a fetish of uninvolvement. It wouldn't kill you to express your unpopular opinion on something, or take a stand, or be vulnerable. The guy was just so emotionally remote. (I also hated Macon Dead in Song of Solomon for the same reason.) That's a tough thing to pull off even in a novel (though easier than a movie)--Christopher Isherwood did it but that's because he focused on the freaks around him instead of himself. Sad to say, I don't think BJ is an interesting enough character to anchor a novel. And the obsession with sex in the first part of the novel really left me cold. Hey, we all think about sex--but to that extent? Dude, pick up a newspaper. Write a poem. Volunteer somewhere. Do something with your life. I just...I have nothing in common with someone who constantly thinks about sex like that, who cares sososososo much about scoring. It just seems pathetic. Perhaps if Feinberg had conflated the sex with a personal celebration of the freedom of coming out, and being able to do this openly, it would've worked better for me. I think the novel works best as a period piece--the AIDS situation has changed so much since the mid-'80s, it's useful to go back in time, as it were, to remember what it was like when Rock Hudson had just died and we all woke up, and the patients all died so quickly.