Spent 2 nights reading "To Know …" and re-reading "Peculiar Chris". Basically impressed with them.
I actually thought PC was better in terms of writing style but TK was better in terms of exploration of a wide variety of themes. I probably preferred TK at this point in time cos it speaks more to me in my current state in life than PC. But i will also point out that PC spoke to me when i first read it in my early 20s.
I noticed that this is a case of book-inspires-play-insprires-book scenario, which is quite rare, i think. And it was quite annoying to read TK cos i know the background of how it started since it was splashed in the gay sites. And separating autobiography from fiction became quite tiring, thou i realise that i shd not have focussed on that but taken the book on its own. Nevetheless, it is my view that trying to find the points of intersection wasnt detracting from the book’s value but adding to its personal communication to me. I mean, you know who some of the characters are based on and you start looking for ‘accurate’ representation of those people and start wondering why certain bits are representative of that person while others are not. You start reading into the motives behind the authorial decisions and discretions and it adds an element of mystery to the book, no?
PC was about a coming-of-age story and i was in my early 20s when i read it. Hence, i could clearly relate to it then, thou the experiences of relationship etc was foreign to me. It was about understanding the self in relation to specific markers of identity. TK explores that further, in the context of identity in a national fight for rights, a significant change in the understanding of HIV, migration, multiple modes of relationships, ‘middle age’ etc. Quite a bit of these, i can relate to.
I tend to think that one often reads a book or watches a movie to see if they can imagine themselves in one of the characters in that medium. Usually, one prefers to see if one can identify with the lead, but as we boys learnt with SATC, it can be any of the other characters (hardly any of the guys i know identify with Carrie, most choosing Samantha instead). I think with its plethora of experiences, most guys can identify with bits of the characters like Ben or Peter. That aside, we can also identify others in our life with some of the characters, like Julian, Iggy,Rob or Holly.
While i was slightly annoyed with certain predictabilities of the novel (when Ben first read some profile, did it already not foreshadow that it would have been penned by the guy he would fall for?), i acknowldege that it is precisely these which made it familiar and comforting. And the drama can be a lil tiring at times (guy with HIV, father with Parkinsons etc), i guess we all need a lil crisis to bring out the hero in us.
2 passages i like:
"Like many other gay men, both Rob and I went through our own manic clubbing phases in our younger days, but we’d grown out of them by the time we met around the age of thirty. When you start out as a clubber, everything’s new, and you display yourself on podiums and make a twat of yourself; after a while you learn to stick to the dance floor but move with dwindling enthusiasm as the years go by; then you stand on the sides, wondering how come the people around you seem to be getting younger all the time; and eventually you ask yourself why you’re there, and stop going altogether. It’s like a series of mini rites of passage, only some gay men are slower in progressing through them than others.’ - pg 162
"’Never mind your funeral,’ he responded, looking at me soberly. ‘Whose name are you going to say when you’re dying?’"
My mother, equally sceptical about gay relationships, added, ‘Or who is going to call out your name before they die?’" - pg 228
Of course there are lots more bits i really like, but these 2 stand out for obvious reasons.
Of cos, all said and done, i look forward to reading more novels and watching more plays of this quality, but i guess both are hard to top.