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The Beautiful Room is Empty (Picador Books)
 
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The Beautiful Room is Empty (Picador Books) (Paperback)

by Edmund White (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Picador; New edition edition (18 Nov 1988)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0330304372
  • ISBN-13: 978-0330304375
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 1.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 65,587 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #2 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > W > White, Edmund

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Product Description

Review

Sequel to White's autobiographical childhood novel A Boy's Own Story (1982) that carries the nameless narrator from sexual awakening through college and young manhood in Chicago to gay paradise in Greenwich Village. The cloying style that drained A Boy's Own Story and made a glutinous mess of Caracole (1985) is kept under control here. With everything seen in less voluptuous lighting, the new novel reveals itself as a plotless paste-up - with clearly heartfelt but far-from-intriguing description standing in for incident. But just when you think nothing is going to happen, the last quarter of the book achieves an inspired breakthrough. Before then, the narrator's family appears vaguely and threateningly, with Dad going purple with anger about his son's queerness, and with Mom hustling him off to a shrink. The shrink turns out to be sicker than his patients. Meanwhile, the narrator tries to make sexual contact with Maria, a sculptress, who becomes his live-in lesbian buddy - a tie that lacks drama and never achieves the taste of honey it seeks. For a decade the narrator resists his homosexuality while giving in to the most degrading (and lively) cruising and to his compulsion to give quick sex in the college toilets - a compulsion that finally bursts into dramatic fireworks when the narrator lets it carry him to the sexual world of filthy, reeking New York subway toilets during rush hour. From this point on, until Judy Garland's death on the evening of the Stonewall tavern riot, two or three struggling gays take on some weight and breadth but remain minor notes in the saga. So, praise for restraint, especially for the less lyrical style - but, all in all, these scraps are nothing new. (Kirkus Reviews)

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Literary Magic, 9 Jan 2007
By Mike Cormack (Aberdeen UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Beautiful Room Is Empty (Vintage International) (Paperback)
This is a remarkable book. The second in Edmund White's autobiographical trilogy (following "A Boy's Own Story", a growing-up-gay novel, and succeeded by "The Farewell Symphony", about the onset of the AIDS crisis), this follows the un-named narrator through his days at a prep school, through college and into New York, up until the Stonewall Riots.

What I find particularly enjoyable about White is the lushness of his prose; it's so sensually enjoyable, comparable to Nabokov. It really brings alive the physical sensations of the narrator, whilst there is an intellectual ballast to the novel which is equally prominent but never overwhelming. White is as comfortable dealing with ideas as he is with physical descriptions, a rare combination. There is a trajectory of increasing warmth throughout, starting from the "deep freeze" of the prep school, which only ever seems to be in Winter, and the art students nearby are wonderfully described as working alone in the cold, with mittens to warm their hands, an apt metaphor for the isolation of intellectuals and artists in the Eisenhower 50s.

As he progresses through college, things heat up, literally and metaphorically; he meets people that help him to develop, and he starts to at on his sexual compulsions, although still in a solitary and loveless fashion. College life, the fraternities and faculty life are skillfully evoked, characters always vibrant - "Mick" is particularly memorable, as is William Everett Hunton.

But the most important character is Lou, an addict and writer, an introduction to bohemia. Like Allen Ginsberg, although from a completely different tradition, White is remarkably unselfconscious about describing sexual activity, with an unflinching eye. Their relationship, with its various tumults, provides the backbone of the novel, as only Lou can fulfill him both intellectually and physically. The ending, during the Stonewall riots, marks the passing of the era of "gay shame", though it does seem a little pat and neat.

This is a wonderful novel, full of life, ideas, memorable characters, unflinching self-analysis, evocative passages, sensual desrciption, and a vitality that keeps you returning to it. It's not "a gay novel" but a brilliant bildungsroman about a man who is gay - and a brilliant read.
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3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars superb, really just superb, 6 Sep 2002
what can i say? I've just finished the beautiful room is empty and i am so impressed. Its the second part in Edmund Whites autobiographical trilogy.
It follows White's thoughts on coming out in 1950's America. Having to live in a time were being gay was a thing to be deeply ashamed about. It follows his experiences in crusing, his self revultion and his desperate search to be in love.
The writing is wonderful, very funny and incredibaly personel. I cant wait to get stuck into the final book.
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