The Book Awards Reading List progresses onward -- as of tonight, I can cross another title off the ever-expanding collection of Canadian and Commonwealth titles on the docket. Quite the all-consuming project, not gonna lie. Of course, as with most major literary book awards, readers are bound to stumble across portrayals of queer people. We appear in both main roles and supporting appearances in the novels of both straight and queer writers alike. In this instance, the latest book scratched from the list dredges up some disconcerting depictions of bi-identified people, and the nature of their sexual preferences. The reason I mention this tonight stems from the fact the novel in question appeared on the shortlist for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, the most prestigious Commonwealth fiction award in the literary world. Its purse totals a staggering £50,000 (or approximately $100,000 Canadian), and guaranteed inflation for sales throughout Commonwealth countries. So, um, its kind of important.
And here we are with troublesome portrayals of both bi men and women in a text to make the final round of judging.
The Book:
Damon Galgut's In A Strange Room
(Emblem; McClelland & Stewart)
If ever a reader needed a reason to never travel again, this book provides three. One young man (who shares the same name as the author) embarks on three journeys across the globe, sharing his Spartan traveling arrangements with a host of different characters. Galgut establishes a dark tone to the open road, one structured around transience, the overwhelming reliance on strangers, and the constant oppression of death in unfamiliar surroundings.
Mmm, cheery content, I know. We are in the territory of book awards, now. The writer with the most scars wins.
Each of the three journeys do not always end in enlightenment as most other travel narratives do. We are treated to a surreal, often disturbing odyssey spanning the whole of Africa, and parts of Greece and India over the course of the three novellas. In fact, the young man often finds himself further alienated from reality after spending months in the hot distance from his home in South Africa. However, the road draws him into numerous entanglements with bi characters I found problematic for a number of reasons.
One: The Follower
Our Narrator meets a brooding, long-haired German (named Reiner) in Greece which leads to a later trip through Africa on foot. Sexual tension abounds. Through a side comment, the reader discovers the Narrator is having gent problems, though sexual politics are never discussed. The German increases his overbearing, self-masochistic road behaviours as their trek progresses, causing both men to fall out with one another (as in, the Narrator leaves our German companion stranded in the mountains somewhere).
Reiner, for all intensive purposes, is a bi man. His motivation to explore Greece is based on his decaying relationship with a woman back in Germany. Funny enough, our Narrator is there because of boy troubles. On more than one occasion, Reiner attempts to seduce the Narrator (which the Narrator is receptive to, though scared as hell of). When the passes fail, Reiner sleeps with a female escort in a tepid sauna.... and then tries to seduce the Narrator again. Wait, what? Reiner explains his indiscriminate sexual appetites as a necessary release form for his, um, stress release.
Did I also mention this dude brushes his long, flowing hair for half an hour each morning, and possesses all financial power over the Narrator?
Reiner is a strange combination of oppressive meets preening narcissist, and the Narrator's abandonment of this dude feels oh-so-right in the end. Hmm, troubled representation, indeed. Reiner is often presented as an over-sexed, self-absorbed man who desires at all costs to subjugate all that is the Narrator. When evidence of his bisexuality surfaces, the tale begins to spin against Reiner, and Galgut takes great patience tallying the increasing number of injustices imposed on the Narrator once the two men leave the comforts of city life for the rigours of the road. And his status as a bi-leaning man is a central part of this new depiction.
Three: The Guardian
The Narrator returns to India with a close friend, Anna, who ends up being a whole bucketful of horrible. In fact, the disgust coaxed out of the reader would cause that bucket to overflow in crashing waves at times.
To take stock:
- Anna is in a relationship with a woman back home in South Africa.
- After a couple days on the road, Anna admits she wants to be in a relationship with a man.
- Anna and her partner have been together for eight years.
- Anna offers to sleep with the Narrator. He declines, disgusted.
- Anna meets a Frenchman named Jean, who she obsesses over and wants to run away with and have lots of babies with.
- We discover Anna is bipolar with a generous helping of psychosis to balance things out.
- Anna swallows 200 tranquilizers and 50 sleeping pills when the Narrator is out of their hotel room. In a suicide note, she breaks up with her partner.
- The Narrator, with the help of three strangers at their hotel, pulls Anna back from the grave.
- The Narrator discovers the motivation behind Anna's vacation was her bid for an unmonitored suicide. She was fine with her friend incurring the blame for her death.
- Anna rants at them and belittles the group from her hospital beds for their efforts to help her.
- The Narrator calls Anna's partner and has to admit to all that's transpired, including Anna's affair with the Frenchman. Anna's partner knew an affair with a man was coming, and decides to stick with the delirious, suicidal Anna anyway.
....... *Sigh* When the novella ended, I had no remorse for this woman. None. She was horrible from start to finish. Her sexuality is framed as a conscious, superficial choice, especially when the Narrator addresses Anna's initial motivation to date a woman. Odd, I never thought of an eight-year relationship counting as a fling. Oh, I guess that's what it's called when it's same-sex. Silly me.
**
Oh, literature. Oh, Man Booker Prize. Oh, Damon Galgut. I think the bi kids out there deserve a whole lot better than monstrous stereotypes in award-nominated, literary fiction.