Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully Written, 12 Sep 2006
Unadventurous booksellers often place Edmund White's work in the "gay" section of their stores, which is a pity as White is today one of the most skilled writers of English prose. My Lives, which is structured simply around ten long chapters entitled "My Europe", "My friends", "My Mother" and so on, contains a wonderful series of glimpses into a life lived in appreciation of diversity in art, culture and society in general.
White is by turns humourous, knowledgable and intellectually self effacing. He presents in an accesible manner ideas on psychology and sexuality which more academic but less skilled writers cannot convey to a general readership. His Mid- American take on Europe is fascinating for its freshness of approach, its openness and affection. His description of John, a theatrical friend from the eighties is worth buying the book for.
White is also good on the Mother/son relationship, gay life in Mid America and French Society life.
The key to this "autobiography" is that reading it would be enjoyable even without a grain of interest in Edmund White himself. It is just a wonderfully enjoyable view on one man's life- in this case a life lived as a gay man-although White is excellent on his relationships with women- some of which were consummated.
Straight or Gay at the end of this you will wish you knew Edmund White for the sheer beauty of his prose.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Real Thing, 4 Nov 2005
For over thirty years, Edmund White has written some of the most insightful fiction and non-fiction about American life. He's successfully blended autobiography and the novel to capture the startling ideological and political changes of the country. The scope of his books range from a time when homosexuality was branded a psychological disease to recent strong campaigns to legalize gay marriage. The vivid experiences he's written about are artistically shaped to allow the reader to see things from an entirely new perspective while also finding common emotional ground. This memoir allows us access to White's own true experiences for the first time. After rewriting his life so thoroughly in his popular novels A Boy's Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty, The Farewell Symphony and The Married Man, one would assume there would be nothing left to tell. But, in fact, White has led such a rich and varied life that there are numerous important moments which haven't yet been committed to paper. My Lives allows us intimate access to the real man while still providing thoughtful commentary on affairs beyond his own experience.
Rather than write a straightforward account of his life, White has organized his memoir in sections about particular aspects of his experience such as My Shrinks, My Hustlers, My Friends, etc. At times in this book his pithy summation of a period of American life can be startlingly insightful. In other parts, the intimate details he reveals about his life are so shocking that White humorously guesses at some people's reactions: "'Must we have every detail about these tiresome senile shenanigans?'" However, White's probing exploration of his past has much more value beyond mere gossip. This book is not the great elder artist, purveyor of gay literature and international lover boasting. Rather, he reveals that he is still a fragile and tender individual who is prone to despair, hopeless infatuation and self-doubt. Bravely and with his usual beautifully crafted prose, the author proves that there is still so much more to tell.
If you are a fan of White's fiction and are looking for insight into his real life, this book is a treasure filled with sumptuous and enlightening details. And if you haven't read anything by White before, this memoir makes a great jumping off point.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
White Mischief, 6 Dec 2006
Edmund White has/is living a rich life. A Life that may or may not be rich in the monetary sense (though this changes throughout his life) but in the sense of being rich with the exalted currency of true friendship. Time and time again in this latest edition of his autobiography, "My Lives," White writes about men and women with whom he has remained friends over the course of his entire life: people that are compelled to keep in touch, both Gay and Straight. Some are formers Lovers, Some were objects of White's Lust and sometimes Love. The women, though never lovers, are still his friends because White is the consummate comrade: always available emotionally at least and at best available in the flesh to lend a hand.
"My Lives" is divided into nine sections with names like My Mother, My Shrinks, My Hustlers, Mr. Genet, etc. but naturally all the sections bleed together as White excels in the fine art of straying from the topic. Along the way we get some sterling observations:
"In the 1950's people were ashamed that they were inadequate; in the 1960's they were proud to announce that they were victims...Rilke had said, You must change yourself! But now people said: Everyone else must change."
Though some of what he writes about his Mother, Lila Mae makes me wince, a lot of what White writes about her is very funny: "...Lila Mae's baseless optimism, her coquetry, her insistence that she was an old fashioned gal, 100 % feminine made us (White and his sister Margaret) cackle like gargoyles. Adolescents are wretchedly conventional as they tiptoe nervously into the great crowded ballroom of adulthood."
As he does with all facets of his life, White's examination of his sexual obsessions is exhaustive and brutally honest: "...but all of these encounters with hustlers were as much an expression of fear as of desire, and above all they were animated by curiosity. I was swallowing the sperm of strangers and this feast convinced me that I possessed all of these men. I was like one of those nearly insane saints who must take communion several times a day..."
So real, precisely expressed and profoundly learned...so much there to cause any number of people to bleed out the eyes.
Edmund White is nothing if not blunt, honest: sometimes maybe to a fault but "My Lives," as with much of what White has written, is profoundly observant and beautifully composed. Though White is of course a fine writer particularly when it has to do with his own life, I think that in the long run as an observer of life in all its forms and as a commentator of all he sees, White's greatest contribution both personally and cosmically is his remarkable ability to earn the trust and retain the friendship of those with whom he has remained emotionally tied for many, many years. If a man is judged by how many true friends he has then White is a truly great human being.
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