2025/138: The Golden Gate — Vikram Seth

[tamaranth]

2025/138: The Golden Gate — Vikram Seth

.. "Dear fellow!
What's your next work?" "A novel..." "Great!
We hope that you, dear Mr Seth--"
"In verse," I added. He turned yellow.
"How marvellously quaint," he said,
And subsequently cut me dead. [stanza 5.1]

Seth's verse novel, The Golden Gate
should really be reviewed in rhyme.
A story told in lines of eight
or nine syllables: worth your time.
A tale of love, protest and cats:
and death, and homophobia -- that's
the nineteen eighties for you, in
fair San Francisco, shrine to sin.
Our characters, all young, most white,
Are John, Liz, Phil, Janet and Ed.
(Just one of them will end up dead.)
Each has a past, a hope, a plight,
In changing patterns they make play
at romance variants: het, bi, gay.

I loved the cats so much: they do
progress the plot, not just look pretty.
Illuminate character, too:
John's feud with Charlemagne (the kitty
who lives with Liz, John's paramour
and thinks John should be shown the door)
is early warning of his views --
which cats and humans don't excuse --
on homosexuality.
The close-knit group, with John and Jan
at centre, suffers diverse schisms: can
John's fragile masculinity
survive exposure to Teh Gays?
Or will he claim it's just a phase?

The book is quite extraordinary.
It is, technically, juvenilia:
but nonetheless it's literary!
The author's logophilia
Springs from the page: his hudibrastic
sonnets (sometimes pleonastic)
are seldom forced. Seth's playfulness
offsets syllabic awkwardness.
A tour de force! an enterprise
evocative of that decade
before the internet was made.
(The author doesn't euphemise.

That was a time when we feared war
atomic bombs and escalation:
A time when one must wait in for
a call arranging assignation.
No (anti)social media, no
staying home to stream a show.
Seth's folk go out to enjoy plays
and concerts, films, and takeaways.)
My copy (second-hand) dates back
To that decade: it's cheaply printed,
The words are blurred, the paper tinted
yellow. Yet this old paperback
is bright with index flags, and will
be reread, because it is brill.

Wikipedia on The Golden Gate

Comments

[lobelia321]

This is genius. I love this very much! And am in awe. It is also super fun and captures that lightness plus darkness of the novel. Love the bit about "technically juvenilia".

[anef]

Wow! I will add it to the list.

[doubtingmichael]

Very nicely done.

[tamaranth]

thank you!

[tamaranth]

I have a copy you could have, if you don't mind removing all the little index tabs...