Re: 9 stories-eskimos

Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Fri, 30 Oct 1998 10:40:41 +1100

> You know, I might be a total imbecile, but I *completely* missed the 
> fact that Franklin's friend (I don't have the book with me at the 
> moment) is gay, the first couple of times I read it.

Hey, no shame there! For me it was also one of those fifth-read/Cliff notes
footnote type details too (I didn't even get the gay subtext in `A
Streetcar Named Desire' - then again in the 50's you had to be pretty coy
about it). I sometimes wonder - e.g. in the case of Franny's alleged
pregnancy - whether JDS intends to put these intimations in or not, but in
this case I do think it was on purpose.

>  Maybe Franklin is gay 
> himself.  Whatever.

Well ... of course, that's the implication. That Franklin and Eric are
lovers. I guess that maybe (in the unenlightened postwar times) that maybe
it was just another sign of postwar disjunction; things not functioning
quite properly, Easter chicks dying rather than living to a grand old age
.. only to be turned into chicken sandwiches.

How very depressing ...

Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
@ THE INVERTED FOREST www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest