...was what Sartre called Genet. His lop-sided but definitely un-hypocritical subversive morality and his almost religiously sticking with it surely were among the reasons for being called so. Am reading these days his magnum opus Journal du Voleur and have to say am bedazzled at the literary skill but also his daring candidness in reporting his delinquent escapades that have lasted for years in the streets, ports, cities of Europe: Barcelona, Anvers, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Krakow... He describes his instances of theft like pieces in an art exhibition, emblazoning the memorable moments of the act with pieces of introspection. Most importantly though, in my opinion, is Genet's descriptions of his many lovers. Now I am not gay and I sure don't get disgusted etc from reading about gays and St. Genet in this regard, I believe is the ultimate king. I do not think I have ever read instances of male homo-erotic behavior that resonate so well as timeless renderings of the erotic in the male of the species. Genet's lovers are not sublimated, or if they are, they are sublimated in the way sex is treated in his plays Les Negres, or Le Balcon , as an invitation to partake in an earthy power play. Furthermore his lovers take on descriptive beauty in the context of and through objects, settings and tiny details whose connections to beauty are so far removed than commodified ideas of love and eroticism that they take on the characteristics of an admirable yet uncanny expressionist painting. The wearing of a wrist watch and the twitch of a wrist, a wrinkle in the brow, the way a belt holds up a pair of trousers, the touch of a pair of eye lashes onto the lovers' neck, and the interminable instances of violence make up the erotic world of Genet. Genet loves domination though not in a purely masochistic way; when the possibility arises he is more than happy to take the position of top so to speak, and candidly reports his anomaly as just another instant in his sexuality, which is considered as ever-changing, although one thing is constant: his disgust of women. It is as if Genet's motif of theft is also present in his amorous liaisons. He wants to both be ravaged and have his identity stolen by the lover, just like he steals from others less powerful than he is. As he chases a lover of his devoted to him out of the room he closes his eyelids and tends to examining the myriad of shapes that appear on the black eyelids, completely forgetting the pain he might be causing just like he doesn't mind the pain that is caused to him by his mean lovers: It is the rule of the game, in fact that is what he expects from his lover. For Genet masculinity is almost always linked with the beauty of violence which is like an aura that resonates more strongly in his chosen lovers.
Thieving for objects, both inanimate and human, Genet seems to be touching on the remarkable role that objects have in our lives. How we might think we made them but in fact they re-make themselves by penetrating our worlds and make us something more than what we were without them.
Which brings us to the poem of the day:) This is Las Cosas by Jorge Luis Borges
El bastón, las monedas, el llavero,
La dócil cerradura, las tardías
Notas que no leerán los pocos días
Que me quedan, los naipes y el tablero,
Un libro y en sus páginas la ajada
Violeta, monumento de una tarde
Sin duda inolvidable y ya olvidada,
El rojo espejo occidental en que arde
Una ilusoria aurora. ¡Cuántas cosas,
Láminas, umbrales, atlas, copas, clavos,
Nos sirven como tácitos esclavos,
Ciegas y extrañamente sigilosas!
Durarán más allá de nuestro olvido;
No sabrán nunca que nos hemos ido.
Things
My cane, my pocketchange, this ring of keys
The obedient lock, the belated notes
The few days left to me will not find time
To read, the deck of cards, the tabletop,
A book and crushed in its pages the withered
Violet, monument to an afternoon
Undoubtedly unforgettable, now forgotten
The mirror in the west where a red sunrise
Blazes its illusion. How many things,
Files, doorsills, atlases,wine glasses, nails
Serve us like slaves who never say a word
Blind and so mysteriously reserved.
They will endure beyond our vanishing;
And they will never know that we have gone.
Translated by Stephen Kessler
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