Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Charming, yet disturbing, 6 Jan 2002
Carl, a rare success story in the overcrowded music industry, becomes infatuated with a boy called Steven, who at 16 is half his age. They share a passion for swimming and diving, but they also share a degree of confusion over their respective sexual identities. As the story unfolds, it soon becomes evident which of the two is most confused, disturbed. Initially, the reader may have some doubt as to whether the burgeoning relationship between Carl and Steven could be considered exploitative. Such deliberations are resolved as we begin to read more about the other Carl - the secret Carl. There is plenty of love in this story - but it exists between Steven and his friend, Michael, and between Steven and his slightly wayward mother. In so far as Carl is concerned, there is just lust. The detail here is exquisite, the pace mostly slow (except towards the end where we rather joltingly lurch forward eighteen months) but this did not hinder my enjoyment of the book. Suffice it to say, this is not a book with a fairy tale happy ending for any of the protagonists. I read 'Sixteen' cover to cover in a day. It is a charming novel, yet disturbing. Witty, yet tragic. I loved it.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mad about the boy, 4 Jul 2002
By A Customer
The fine line between the cult of youth and paedophilia on the gay scene is certainly an interesting taboo to broach, and Sixteen is a pretty lurid portrait of a man in his early thirties lusting after boys half his age. The particularly interesting issue is whether Carl is 'gay' at all, or whether his proclivities represent a completely different type of sexuality - it is precisely because Steven is not a man, after all, that Carl finds him irresistible. Carl's loathing of adult men on the scene is complex - not only because they bear no comparison to Steven and he wants nothing to do with them, but also because he sees in them an ugly reflection of himself. He is quite different, and yet the same. Like his protagonist (or Mann/Aschenbach in Death in Venice, for that matter) Hartnett himself seems torn between the aesthetic and the erotic. There are lyrical descriptions of the art of swimming, but then episodes whose purpose seems purely pornographic. Most amusing is the way that Hartnett's own understanding of youth culture so accurately mirrors Carl's try-hard efforts to connect with his lust object - not quite authentic, to say the least. Hartnett has no ear for teenage dialogue, and some of the bands he namedrops into their conversations seem very much of his own era rather than theirs (show me a boy of sixteen today who is a connoisseur of New Order). The whole thing seems out of date. The novel stems from a short story, which shows in the facile pay-off at the end. It's an undemanding, titillating read, an interesting theme let down by poor writing and ulterior motives.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A disturbing novel with difficult subject matter, 7 Nov 2001
By A Customer
Gay Lit's enfant terrible, PP Hartnett returns with Sixteen, his fourth novel and most self-consciously literary work to date. 16 year old Steven, a would-be popstar, meets Carl, a record producer twice his age, at the local swimming pool. From there Hartnett charts Carl's growing obsession with Steven and the exploitative relationship which develops between the two. Sixteen's biggest problem and most disturbing feature is Hartnett's need for the reader to identify with a protagonist who starts the novel as a borderline paedophile. Although this is an extremely troubling literary device, and despite the plot creeping at a snail's pace, it proves the basis for a deeply unsettling look at one of society's greatest taboos.
I've enjoyed Hartnett's other work but I found Sixteen quite hard going. The subject matter was extremely disturbing and readers unfamiliar with this author would probably be better off buying his first novel, Call Me. Despite that though the conclusion was excellent and Hartnett's pop culture references remain as pertinent as ever.
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by Bernice Rubens
by P P Hartnett
by Will Davis
