Sometimes things just sort of appear.  Here is one:

It is an image of the lauded Japanese writer Yukio Mishima posing as St. Sebastian.  Yukio apparently used Sebastian as a trope to describe homosexuality in his writing.  He later had this picture made and eventually committed suicide by slicing himself open.  I have not yet and of Mishima’s novels but I have ordered them from the library.

K recommended Mishima last night on the phone.  She had asked me what I was reading and I stumbled in my response (per usual) and rambled a title or two.  Luckily she came back with her own list and recommendations.  I say luckily because Mishima will feed my desire for novels with interesting interpretations of the gay experience.  And he is someone I have yet to encounter in any of my own research.  Why not?

Since I have been contemplating desire I have also been trying to find vicarious outlets in books.  Some of the books found me, but mostly I have just kept my ears open for any mention, subtle or explicit, of any potential gay theme connected to any famous author.  I am still constantly suprised at how little I actually uncovered in my desperate searching.

Society’s prudishness definitely got in my way.  But a bigger hurdle seems to be the concept of canons and popularity.  Professors focus on what they know or appreciate, publishers consider marketability, countries are obsessed with their own national bias, and races still seem quite blind to the experiences of others.

And of course this has informed my own identity and self-determined canon.  The authors I have decided to focus upon all have some similarities to me and my own ideas, and when I felt I had come up with an exhaustive list of important gay works I am undermined by my own short-sitedness.  I still only look for things I can directly place myself into.  Lately I am finding this might me my biggest limitation and the reason my own writing seems stale.

How do we get outside of ourselves?