A review by adambwriter
Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet
3.0
Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet
Final Verdict: 3.0 out of 4.0
YTD: 25
Plot/Story:
3 – Plot/Story is interesting & believable.
Our Lady of the Flowers is existentialism for gay French drag queens. Seriously. The story is narrated by one of its characters, who is retelling the story of his life from prison, except that he is creating the characters and situations in his head (for the most part), and then transplanting personalities he meets in prison to recreate people from his own life. The reader doesn’t really know who the narrator is, except that he’s interacted with these less-than-laudable characters in incredibly intimate ways and possibly his connection to those people is what landed him behind bars. There is a very real pain and longing in this narrator, which comes across in the way he tells his story and by his choice of characters (recreating his mother, for instance, or retelling the story of his first “love”). It was difficult for me to understand the purpose, though, other than a stark portrait of the life of French homosexuals in the 1940s which aided the narrator in adding a certain “spice” to his dull time in prison – much of what he is writing seems to be for his own purpose, to entertain him and to “assist” him. Jean-Paul Sartre called this an “epic of masturbation” for good reason. It is, of course, also about transgression as means to freedom and trans-valuation of morals as means for expression.
Read the full review at www.roofbeamreader.net
Final Verdict: 3.0 out of 4.0
YTD: 25
Plot/Story:
3 – Plot/Story is interesting & believable.
Our Lady of the Flowers is existentialism for gay French drag queens. Seriously. The story is narrated by one of its characters, who is retelling the story of his life from prison, except that he is creating the characters and situations in his head (for the most part), and then transplanting personalities he meets in prison to recreate people from his own life. The reader doesn’t really know who the narrator is, except that he’s interacted with these less-than-laudable characters in incredibly intimate ways and possibly his connection to those people is what landed him behind bars. There is a very real pain and longing in this narrator, which comes across in the way he tells his story and by his choice of characters (recreating his mother, for instance, or retelling the story of his first “love”). It was difficult for me to understand the purpose, though, other than a stark portrait of the life of French homosexuals in the 1940s which aided the narrator in adding a certain “spice” to his dull time in prison – much of what he is writing seems to be for his own purpose, to entertain him and to “assist” him. Jean-Paul Sartre called this an “epic of masturbation” for good reason. It is, of course, also about transgression as means to freedom and trans-valuation of morals as means for expression.
Read the full review at www.roofbeamreader.net