curious book that these "dissident Love" by Boris Arnold, published in 1956. The introduction should be good news:
First, a basic truth - seemed like our big Colette - a truth that, unlike Ms. Peloux mother Honey, there is no need to repeat: "I like men! ...
And as soon as he can remember, I always loved from the very moment when I was in a hundred places to imagine the pleasures he was and will always be able to taste through them. (P. 9).
The tone is set. It is a vision uninhibited, almost slight, homosexuality given to us to read this novel in which one can think he has a background autobiographical.
After a few chapters on his first love, his initiation, and then entered the gay world of Paris before the war (it includes a time he was born around 1918), we enter quickly into the book's central theme: the love of the hero, Maurice Maurel, the "I" throughout the story, with beautiful blond and Germans during the Occupation. This forms the central narrative frame. That we do not think that at this point, the tone has to do more dramatic! There is always a little levity this switch, which combines sometimes more serious when he tells his failures, often an awkwardness a little cruel, or irrational love for Marc.
Written 10 years after the end of the war, he has no regrets, admitting, in the only passage where he tries to justify in the name of the search for love: "My crime - if crime there was - was expiated and beyond "(p. 189). On occasion, it is cruel and ironic, but without bitterness vis-à-vis all those who took advantage of his good relations with the Germans or French that he has all these puzzles, in cahoots with the Germans just before the situation becomes damaging for them.
I questioned the motivation of the author. Did he justify himself? I do not think so, because its book does not present itself as a plea. Did he testify? Perhaps, but who could it be interested in these years, still so close to war, know that homosexuals French had liked the Germans. This theme also has done little recipe because only one other book addresses this theme, as fictionalized like this: The inverted world, Andre the Dognon. Since, this topic has not been a more comprehensive study, although it was marginally raised in stories of homosexuality. Ultimately, I think we should see in this book that the desire for a homosexual about his life, of his love, just to make the reader share his "four lovers, four loves four joys, sorrows four, all different, precious, regretted and, ultimately, all wonderful complements to each other." (P. 183). His loves have brought to the Germans. Why not? They could just as well have him go to workers, citizens, the Spaniards, who knows what else. At a time when Genet instituted his desire, which was the occasion to Nazi soldiers, and as a subversion that Sartre raised a statue politics, loves Boris Arnold for the Germans have almost an air of provocation as they seem so that natural and devoid of any ulterior political thought.
Behind the pseudonym Boris Henry Arnold hides Pérol, a Lyonnais employee Prefecture, became a bookseller. Belonging to the first circle of Arcadia, so will the delegate Lyon. Two chapters of his book have appeared in pre-publication in the December 1954 and February 1955 the journal of Arcadia. His book will then be widely advertised until his release in April 1956. There will be a review of Marc Daniel in No. of October 1956 (pp. 62-64). The article is generally complimentary, noting that This is a book that does not take itself seriously. Marc Daniel certainly seems a little embarrassed to a certain lack of virility. It is true that Boris Arnold sometimes shows a little "crazy" in its style or its references. Found in the writings of Mark Daniel's obsession with beginnings of Arcadia presentable for homosexuality, a homophily, which would stand out culture "crazy." Apart from this drawback, it highlights the serene vision of homosexuality, where love between men does not end in suicide, murder, deprivation, etc.. It is true that as such the book installment from the sordid and tragic vision of homosexuality yet very present at the time (see Jean-Paul Marcel Guersant), where sin and repentance are ubiquitous. It opens a path toward a "normalization" of homosexuality. As such, the book is worth reading. To end the criticism of Mark Daniel, loves with the occupant are rapidly processed, probably does not represent a "problem" for him.
The book, however, was prohibited on the grounds that it was "extremely dangerous nature." Those who think he was too raw or too direct in his account, they undeceived. If there is no mystery to the carnal aspect of all relationships, the story remains very allusive. Why, more than others, this book has suffered the wrath of the censor? Is it because it deals with relations with the Germans, without showing a lot of remorse? I think not. Political correctness had not yet struck. I rather think it is this painting of a serene homosexuality which has frightened the censor. Proof, if any, that his optimism was premature when he spoke of "people happily increasingly rare delight to imagine that we are monsters" (p. 22).
Finally these few notes I gleaned this sentence in the book, whose tone exemplifies the spirit.
"The next morning when I awoke in the bed and into the arms of Cllr Karl Hohlbein, I wondered why the Germans insisted on him so unpleasant by the war when they could provide so much joy in making love? " (P. 62).
Description of structure
Boris Arnold
Loves dissenting
Paris, Prima Union, 1956, in-8 (190 x 140 mm), 219 - [2] pp.
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