khyungbird (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} khyungbird) wrote,@ 2008-03-24 02:40:00 |
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Review: Only Words
From reading lots of Boy’s Love over the last two years, I’ve come to the politically incorrect conclusion that the main reason I like gay-themed stories is not because of any fundamental interest in them, but rather, because same-sex relationships offer more potential for angst. At a biological level, perhaps, the neurons of love are the same in straight and gay relationships, and on a pornographic level, the reader’s preference just depends on what particular type of naked bodies they like to see (and how happy they like their happy endings). But just speaking from personal preference, I love stories of anxiety and sexual repression. To use straight examples, that’s why I like Repulsion and The Remains of the Day and Splendor in the Grass (I LOVE that movie). To use a gay example, that’s why I like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home but never really got into Dykes to Watch Out For. That’s why I spent my early twenties reading old-school tragic gay stories: The Boys in the Band and Tennessee William plays and The Face That Must Die and The Fall of Valor. Yes, I know that repressed homosexuality is a cliché -- I loved John Waters’ parody of same, the repressed heterosexual hairdresser in Cecil B. Demented. (“I’m straight, so I hate!”) But whether it’s two men or two women or one of each or whatever, I do like it sad and angsty. In fiction, that is, not in real life.
So when I started reading Boy’s Love (having never read any kind of romance novels or anything before) I was surprised that Boy’s Love was, generally speaking, so blissfully escapist and blind to these issues. (Of course, to call Boy’s Love “gay-themed” is perhaps fundamentally inaccurate.) Later I discovered the angsty, tormented side of Boy’s Love... only to discover to my horror that this borders on the rapey side. In addition to my general dislike and moral qualms about nonconsensual stories, there’s the fact that so many nonconsensual Boy’s Love are so damn happy about it -- stories like the inexplicably popular Love is Like a Hurricane (well, I guess it’s explicable, if you’re a perv). Of course, the “serious,” depressing rape stories are often even worse—World’s End made me want to enroll Eiki Eiki into psychoanalysis. My point is that there are few Boy’s Love manga which manage to deal with dark themes without degenerating into either creepy, clinging codependency or LOLrape. (I can’t believe I actually wrote that last phrase. To quote Saya no Uta, “Is...is this really okay?”)
One story which manages this perilous tightrope-walk is Tina Anderson’s Only Words. It’s the only OEL-BL manga I’ve ever read, so I can’t compare it to others, but it hits the notes of both sex and dark emotions in a believable way. The setting is German-occupied World War II Poland, in the dead of winter. The protagonist is Koby, a young man who was in training to be a priest, until the Nazis converted the church into a barracks and ended his plans. Now he is teased at school by Hitler Jugend thugs, who call him a Polack and ask him “Hey, holy boy, why aren’t you wearing your dress today?” One youth, the blonde, scarred Oskar Keplar, is particularly cruel. But perversely, the introverted, self-sacrificing Koby finds himself wondering what it would be like “to be at their mercy... to be at his mercy.”
And so begins a strong, simple tale. Anderson makes good use of the historical setting, as in her Gangs of New York-era gay/transsexual horror novel Gadarene, which also combines gritty realism, poverty and sex. (And in Gadarene's particular case, a lot of gore and ghost-slime.) The combination of Nazis, Boy’s Love and sexual coercion obviously makes for an even harsher cocktail, but the violence here is far more psychological than physical; BL manga such as the melodramatic Finder Series and the retarded White Guardian are much more graphic and unpleasant. (Actually, Only Words’ combination of Nazis and homosexuality instantly makes me think of Donna Barr’s The Desert Peach, another excellent gay-themed WWII comic which is about as far as possible from Only Words in mood.) Stark and realistic, unencumbered by overexplanation or unjustified romance, the story’s emotional content is strong. Another good thing about the book is Caroline Monaco’s not excessively manga-influenced art. Although her backgrounds are often pretty cursory, her characters look great, particularly the sexy young men who look like actual men—muscular and chiseled but not bearish, with painfully sensitive eyes. (There’s some sample pages here.)
I enjoyed Only Words, and so did a female friend of mine. This brings up another topic: although I read Only Words more as a story than as erotica (to the extent that these can be separated, ahem *cough*), I’ve often asked myself with BL, “would I be more uncomfortable with this story if it had a male-female nonconsensual relationship?” I have to admit the answer is, well, yes. As a basically straight man I would be less at ease with the scenario and my expected reaction to it, but (as I imagine is the case with the intended female audience of most BL) a homosexual relationship, even one which to me feels as plausible as the one in Only Words, somehow exists on a different plane. But now I’m drifting far afield, far away from this story whose most powerful moments take place in alleys and woodsheds... drifting out into the snow and cold.
From reading lots of Boy’s Love over the last two years, I’ve come to the politically incorrect conclusion that the main reason I like gay-themed stories is not because of any fundamental interest in them, but rather, because same-sex relationships offer more potential for angst. At a biological level, perhaps, the neurons of love are the same in straight and gay relationships, and on a pornographic level, the reader’s preference just depends on what particular type of naked bodies they like to see (and how happy they like their happy endings). But just speaking from personal preference, I love stories of anxiety and sexual repression. To use straight examples, that’s why I like Repulsion and The Remains of the Day and Splendor in the Grass (I LOVE that movie). To use a gay example, that’s why I like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home but never really got into Dykes to Watch Out For. That’s why I spent my early twenties reading old-school tragic gay stories: The Boys in the Band and Tennessee William plays and The Face That Must Die and The Fall of Valor. Yes, I know that repressed homosexuality is a cliché -- I loved John Waters’ parody of same, the repressed heterosexual hairdresser in Cecil B. Demented. (“I’m straight, so I hate!”) But whether it’s two men or two women or one of each or whatever, I do like it sad and angsty. In fiction, that is, not in real life.
So when I started reading Boy’s Love (having never read any kind of romance novels or anything before) I was surprised that Boy’s Love was, generally speaking, so blissfully escapist and blind to these issues. (Of course, to call Boy’s Love “gay-themed” is perhaps fundamentally inaccurate.) Later I discovered the angsty, tormented side of Boy’s Love... only to discover to my horror that this borders on the rapey side. In addition to my general dislike and moral qualms about nonconsensual stories, there’s the fact that so many nonconsensual Boy’s Love are so damn happy about it -- stories like the inexplicably popular Love is Like a Hurricane (well, I guess it’s explicable, if you’re a perv). Of course, the “serious,” depressing rape stories are often even worse—World’s End made me want to enroll Eiki Eiki into psychoanalysis. My point is that there are few Boy’s Love manga which manage to deal with dark themes without degenerating into either creepy, clinging codependency or LOLrape. (I can’t believe I actually wrote that last phrase. To quote Saya no Uta, “Is...is this really okay?”)
One story which manages this perilous tightrope-walk is Tina Anderson’s Only Words. It’s the only OEL-BL manga I’ve ever read, so I can’t compare it to others, but it hits the notes of both sex and dark emotions in a believable way. The setting is German-occupied World War II Poland, in the dead of winter. The protagonist is Koby, a young man who was in training to be a priest, until the Nazis converted the church into a barracks and ended his plans. Now he is teased at school by Hitler Jugend thugs, who call him a Polack and ask him “Hey, holy boy, why aren’t you wearing your dress today?” One youth, the blonde, scarred Oskar Keplar, is particularly cruel. But perversely, the introverted, self-sacrificing Koby finds himself wondering what it would be like “to be at their mercy... to be at his mercy.”
And so begins a strong, simple tale. Anderson makes good use of the historical setting, as in her Gangs of New York-era gay/transsexual horror novel Gadarene, which also combines gritty realism, poverty and sex. (And in Gadarene's particular case, a lot of gore and ghost-slime.) The combination of Nazis, Boy’s Love and sexual coercion obviously makes for an even harsher cocktail, but the violence here is far more psychological than physical; BL manga such as the melodramatic Finder Series and the retarded White Guardian are much more graphic and unpleasant. (Actually, Only Words’ combination of Nazis and homosexuality instantly makes me think of Donna Barr’s The Desert Peach, another excellent gay-themed WWII comic which is about as far as possible from Only Words in mood.) Stark and realistic, unencumbered by overexplanation or unjustified romance, the story’s emotional content is strong. Another good thing about the book is Caroline Monaco’s not excessively manga-influenced art. Although her backgrounds are often pretty cursory, her characters look great, particularly the sexy young men who look like actual men—muscular and chiseled but not bearish, with painfully sensitive eyes. (There’s some sample pages here.)
I enjoyed Only Words, and so did a female friend of mine. This brings up another topic: although I read Only Words more as a story than as erotica (to the extent that these can be separated, ahem *cough*), I’ve often asked myself with BL, “would I be more uncomfortable with this story if it had a male-female nonconsensual relationship?” I have to admit the answer is, well, yes. As a basically straight man I would be less at ease with the scenario and my expected reaction to it, but (as I imagine is the case with the intended female audience of most BL) a homosexual relationship, even one which to me feels as plausible as the one in Only Words, somehow exists on a different plane. But now I’m drifting far afield, far away from this story whose most powerful moments take place in alleys and woodsheds... drifting out into the snow and cold.
