Teleny or the Reverse of the Medal
How fun, a gay pornographic novel from 1893. And previously unknown to me! I read the Wikisource version which has a serviceable epub.
A lot of the book is not good. Chapters 2-5 are a series of misogynistic heterosexual porn vignettes, increasingly violent. I was not here for them. Some of the writing is good but it is far too rapey for me to enjoy. These chapters are skippable.
Chapter 1 sets up a gay love story. Chapter 8 brings it to its tragic conclusion. The plot is quite solid for a pornographic novel, the story is interesting. Also the book portrays a quite modern conception of homosexuality, particularly for 1893. The narrator asserts that homosexuality is in his nature, and that while that may be shameful it is also who he is and he is harming no one. And then he has a true passionate love affair with Teleny. It's early gay pride literature.
In fact, had our union been blessed by the Church, it could not have been a closer one. Let the moralist after that explain to me the harm we did, or the law-giver that would apply to us the penalty inflicted to the worst of criminals, the wrong we did to society.
Chapters 6 and 7 are the erotic prize, particularly chapter 6. That's the consummation of the love between the two men and it is delicious and quite hot. Chapter 7 is a bit sillier, a big homosexual orgy, but that kind of writing has a long heterosexual history and it's good fun to read my version.
The prose in this book is very finely styled. Decadent and Victorian and full of archaic expressions like "unwilling contractions of the sphincter brandle the phallus". It's quite fun reading those in genuine prose, not as a parody.
Fascinating book. If you're a student of early gay literature or Victorian porn, I recommend it. But maybe just skip chapters 2-5.
Bonus: some quotes that struck me as a very modern statement of gay liberation.
Still I had thought that on the morrow—the intoxication passed—you would have shuddered at the thought of having a man for a lover?"
"Why? Had I committed a crime against nature when my own nature found peace and happiness thereby? If I was thus, surely it was the fault of my blood, not myself. Who had planted nettles in my garden? Not I. They had grown there unawares, from my very childhood. I began to feel their carnal stings long before I could understand what conclusion they imported. When I had tried to bridle my lust, was it my fault if the scale of reason was far too light to balance that of sensuality? Was I to blame if I could not argue down my raging motion? Fate, Iago-like, had clearly shewed me that if I would damn myself, I could do so in a more delicate way than drowning. I yielded to my destiny, and encompassed my joy.
...
In fact, had our union been blessed by the Church, it could not have been a closer one. Let the moralist after that explain to me the harm we did, or the law-giver that would apply to us the penalty inflicted to the worst of criminals, the wrong we did to society.
...
I was not the only member of our cankered society who loved in the Socratic fashion, and that men of the highest intelligence, of the kindest heart, and of the purest aesthetic feelings, were—like myself—sodomists.