Paul Golding (1) (1959–)
Autore di The Abomination
Per altri autori con il nome Paul Golding, vedi la pagina di disambiguazione.
Opere di Paul Golding
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1959-05-28
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- UK
- Luogo di residenza
- London, England, UK
Utenti
Recensioni
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Statistiche
- Opere
- 2
- Utenti
- 233
- Popolarità
- #96,932
- Voto
- 3.4
- Recensioni
- 3
- ISBN
- 33
- Lingue
- 4
The book is divided into four parts, Parts One and Five cover Moore's contemporary life in London, Part Two describes his early youth, Part Three his time at Prep School, and Part Four his time at public school. Part 2 is about double the length of Part 1, and Part 4 is about double the length of Part 3. The middle three parts length is mainly determined by incredibly detailed descriptions.
Part 1 evokes a vivid description of the London gay scene in the 1980s in about fifty pages, which is continued in another fifty odd pages in Part 5. This part of the novel describes the apparently unfulfilled life of James Moore, his inability to build a lasting relationship with a gay partner, and his substitute affection, and love for a rent boy.
Part 2 describes his early youth; this part is quite boring; The slow-paced Part 3 is dominated by the development of a homoerotic relation between James, aged nine, and one of the teachers, Mr Wolfe. This pedophile relation is exposed and means returning trouble to Mr Wolfe, and James as he moves on to public school. The overall impression is that James liked Mr Wolfe's attention and the sexual relationship.
This is in stark contrast with James' experiences at public school, where he is raped and forced into a repeated, involuntary sexual relationship with Dr Fox. James disgust is reflected in the utterly disgusting way the sexual acts are described, from explicit details to Dr Fox' lack of hygiene, and James subsequent gagging. In both Part 3 and 4, James is plagued by fear of discovery, and toward the end of Part 4 he becomes the victim of blackmail.
Part 4 is quite uneventful; the most remarkable seems the fact that James relation with Dr Fox develops from disgust to a kind of Platonic friendship, in which Dr Fox takes James out to fine dining restaurants, showering money. Clearly, out of the demise of the blackmail scam, adolescent James emerges with an air that sex and money are intricately linked, and Dr Fox takes him out to expensive restaurants, see and be seen, although little attention is paid to this aspect.
From references to popular culture and history (e.g. Spain under Franco, or the film Death in Venice), and by deduction, the reader can establish that James was born in the late 1950s, went through school in the 1960s and 1970s, and emerged on the gay scene in London in the early 80s.
It has been suggested, and the structure of the book surely contributes to that, that the novel poses that James' school experiences form the basis and cause for his unfulfilled adult life. However, throughout the novel, apart from the initial violence and smelliness of Dr Fox, James seems to enjoy his school boy experiences. There is never a particular hint that young James either regrets his youth or his adult life, with any serious doubt. On the contrary, the novel seems to suggest that his coming of age, if not typical, is not entirely unexpected either.
The abomination of the title is not felt by James; and in as far as the reader feels abominated, it seems less with the content of the novel, than its form. The novel would be a whole lot more readable, if it had been 200 - 300 pages shorter; the enormously detailed descriptions are numbing; however, the novel is obviously very well-written, and despite the baroque style, the beauty of the language is quite compelling to keep on reading. Some details are absolutely gorgeous, such as James seeing "nest of swollen up, dead house mice" in a pile of tea bags in the headmaster's litter box.… (altro)