The story does entertain. You have the interaction of Djanko and
Picano. You have the comic relief of the
expatriate actresses and Mr. Muscle. You
have, as well, the escapades of Djanko’s various friends and hangers on.
And yet…this story also disquiets. Are these the people one really wants to
spend one’s life—or even a year—with?
The expatriates are not stupid—but they do seem superficial. Picano himself…seems confused, uncertain. Of course, people are often confused in their
early twenties. But if Picano is looking
for love, it’s not clear how well he’s doing.
He seems happy enough with Djanko—at least until he realizes he isn’t. And when he leaves Rome for a weekend
motorcycle trip to France, he realizes how unhappy he actually is and decides
never to return; writing a brief letter to inform Djanko of his decision.
And, despite a sexual escapade earlier that causes
him to reflect on his betrayal of his “fidelity,” it’s not clear exactly what
“fidelity” means to him. He’d already
gone to bed with a variety of men during this year in Rome. Did any of this sex bring him any closer to
love? Did the sex have any significance at
all for him?
Indeed, in common with Edmund White, Picano finds
casual sex liberating. Heading across
southern France at the end of this section, Picano has sex with a stranger in
Marseille. “[T]his nameless French
sailor taught me that neither love nor even attraction was needed for sex, and
that indeed, somehow it became sharper, more encompassing, when it was free of
all that.”
The liberation of pure sex—not love, not even
attraction; just the experience of sex—what some of us may have experienced in
our first solitary childhood masturbations.
Of course, Picano is describing the mid-1960s,
well before the era of AIDS—even before Stonewall! Later, when AIDS surfaced and people were
urged to “know your partners,” Edmund White remarked on how strange this phrase
seemed. Wasn’t the whole point to simply
have as much sex as you could? Wasn’t
sex supposed to free you? Why on earth
would you bother with “knowing your partners?”
Picano certainly chronicles a bye gone age.
So this is a disquieting book. Picano has sex, and it seems to satisfy. Presumably he succeeded in “becoming a
homosexual” (but doesn’t that phrasing sound a bit quaint in retrospect?). At least in this first section of the book,
he doesn’t succeed in finding love. What
he does gain is a beautiful gold Bulgari watch—which years later will come in
handy when Picano finds himself in dire circumstances back in New York.
An interesting read, certainly—but prone to
provoking mild indigestion.
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