David Leavitt that always makes me want to sit down and write. I suppose, to be accurate, I should say that there's something about David Leavitt's writing that makes me want to sit down and write. There's something about his first person narratives that speak to me in the way that boy band stars talk to pubscent girls: it's all about me. Now I've never met the man, and despite the pictures on the book jacket sleeve I doubt I would recognize him if I bumped into him on the street. But there's something about his work, the eloquent Proustian nature of it, that causes me to identify with him to an almost unhealthy level.
I would probably call Martin Bauman (or: A Sure Thing) my favorite book. In fact, in a previous blog which I shared with my boyfriend of the time, we debated the merits of the book. He found the book's portrayal of the "Gay Eighties" cold and catty, while I found that to be almost exactly my views on most gay culture. I'm fine that the book is, almost to the point of being obnoxious, a memoir with names ommited or changed. So what? When I write, it's usually poetry or short stories, but when I write from a first person, usually in the various blogs, that's how I write. I'm catty, I omit or slightly change names, I hold no qualms about hyperbolizing my life; in fact, I admit freely that I exaggerate.
In a review of the book, I forget where, but the critic said that the book read like a thesis paper from the Truman Capote School of Catty and Cathartic Writing. I forget whether the review meant it as a barb or as a compliment, but I'm sure that if someone described my blog as such, I would be flattered. For me at least, blogging is nothing if it is not cathartic. This is the place where I put things that I feel as though I need to get off of my chest, but don't necessarily want to spend the rest of the week talking about how the roommate and I are worried about the cicisbeo and his stalking behavior. And as for being catty, well, I try and entertain at the same time. I'm not funny like Faustus or Toby, but I'm diligent in my efforts. I'd tell quips if I had them, I'd regale the miniscule number of devoted readers about my childhood had I any that were particularly amusing, I'd make fun of everyone online (like how people chided Bradford a few days ago) were I a member of the clique. So catty and cathartic, in my eyes, isn't so much an insult as it is a standard. ("Catty and Cathartic" would also make a decent tagline, in my opinion).
Returning to the book, there are a lot of things that its characters do that I do as well. I tend to bottle things in, and then, as Leavitt so succinctly puts it, turn tourettic over the slightest problem. I've stayed on the phone, watching TV with someone hours away. I've exaggerated the length I've dated someone; sometimes six weeks feels like six months or even six years, in a good way. In fantasies, I'm always the last resort or only option, I'm not someone whom people fawn over, never the object of desire. I make grandiose statements about people I haven't seen in a while, even though I no longer bear the grudge.
Of course, some of this is selective memory. I last read the book this summer, and I am only remembering the parts I wish to remember, the parts that succinctly with my statement that I feel way too attached to David Leavitt. And I'm okay with that.
That's the whole point of writing, isn't it? To have people connect with and learn from the author, to forge a bond between writer and reader? A good singer makes listeners feel as though the song is being sung just for them, and I guess that this is the same thing.
And so, David Leavitt, if for some reason you decide to google yourself and come across this blog, well, mad props to you.
