Daniel Mendelsohn has (or had) a lot of sex with anonymous men. Also, he likes the classics. Also, he writes well, intelligently but not super-pretentiously.

Anyone who thinks that their grad-school reading and lackluster love-life deserves to be turned into a memoir is probably a raving narcissist, but Mendelsohn has gone above and beyond and written a truly ugly book. I have often heard “The Elusive Embrace” described as an intelligent queer classic. What I found when I read it was that no amount of lyric digressions on Greek myth can disguise the racism and homophobia (yes, homophobia) at its core.

The book pitches itself as a meditation on the mystery of personal identity, but Mendelsohn’s own identity is obvious (just not to him): he is a typical rich white gay man who prefers the company of others whites. The weirdly eroticizing hymn to Southern Confederate culture (pp 17-18) is so grotesque that it has to be read to be believed, but it’s really not surprising, given Mendelsohn’s proud sexual obsession with blond, blue-eyed white Southern men (pp 75). Although the setting is New York, there is only one non-white character in the whole book, a Cuban hook-up who is defined by being forgettable (“whose name I can’t remember if indeed I ever knew it”), not looking “Latin”, and low-income (pp 11).

But although Mendelsohn prefers the company of other white gays, this doesn’t mean he actually *likes* them. Gay friends are referenced but almost never encountered; he hates gay bars and prefers online chat rooms. He refers to gay eroticism as a form of “play” but is himself utterly devoid of humor or lightness. He prides himself on being a seducer but comes across everywhere as a manipulative creep, one whose sexuality is - as he frankly admits - predicated on using people like objects (pp 87-88). Solidarity in this world is non-existent: he feels no camaraderie with other gays and is considerably more moved by Sophocles’ Antigone than by young men dying of AIDS (the passage on pp 180-81 is chillingly callous). In short, he is typical case of gay self-loathing. Obviously it’s not his fault for being messed up in the head like this, but the attempt to pass off this squalid neurosis as “the Truth of Gay Nature” is by turns risible and sad.

The problem with this book is not that its author is a cruel, humorless, self-absorbed jerk with weird racial hang-ups (after all, the memoir genre is meant to be a safe space for disclosing personal vices). The problem is that Mendelsohn’s scant interest in other people compounds with his lack of self-awareness in a monster of solipsism that cannot *not* result in extreme artistic bathos (the cringe-inducing rhapsody on the last 2 pages is a case in point).

"This is the place where I decided to live, the place of paradox and hybrids. The place that, in the moment of choosing it, taught me that wherever I am is the wrong place for half of me."

This is one of my favorites of DM's books. Much is revealed about the personal odyssey of the writer in relation to desire, but the revelations never feel sensational or gratuitous. The memoirist has to ask hard questions about intimate truths and what one hides, not only from others, but from oneself. As Mendelsohn explores the secrets he kept, the avid scholar he became, the people who helped him become a fuller, richer self, the word "risk" kept coming to me. He risks much here, and in doing so, exhibits courage on every page.

As I was working on my own memoir, I returned to this book again and again--for fortitude.

Die Teile des Buches mit der griechischen Mythologie trafen mein Interesse. Nach dem Buch "die Verlorenen" vom Daniel Mendelsohn greift er auch hier wieder seine Familiengeschichte Bolechow betreffend auf. Trotzdem es sich nicht um meine Familie handelt, erzählt er darüber äußerst spannend. Bezug zu Polen bzw. Schlesien habe ich Das nächste Buch von ihm liegt bereits griffbereit.

Tested my patience from page one. This is the kind of drawn-out, self-conscious, "tasteful" memoir that reeks of 1990's gay/liberal/respectability-or-bust journalism. Maddeningly coy, partially to shield the sensibilities of a certain version of straight reader (who may or may not actually exist), and partially to disavow the author's own emotions. Titanically over-intellectualized, with clumsy winks at wit and a prissy attitude about sex, all I could think was, "This guy is TERRIFIED of his boner." Petticoats, petticoats, petticoats.

Absolutely stunning nonfiction prose. I deliberately read this slowly so I could savor.

My used copy has a back cover description like, This is an erotic book about how cruising draws from ancient Greek traditions/imagery. And sure, it is that. But it's so much more; Mendelsohn explores family, identity, NYC vs its suburbs, our parents and the parents we become and how we parent ourselves.

This is also of its time and preserves an interesting moment in culture and history: 1999, in both Manhattan and Princeton, and what both urban and suburban scenes were like for gay men. No legal protections for queer couples. The shadow of Reagan stretching long. HIV/AIDS looming large. All of that baggage, while wanting beauty and novel experience and a new boy to meet on the street and go home with.

I feel weird about a star rating, as I always do. One section with tons of gender essentialism is really off-putting today: all women just wanna make babies and be mothers, really?!? But it just reminds me to be grateful that a much more expansive understanding of gender is available widely now, to me as a Millennial, and certainly to all the generations who come after me. I know legally married queer couples who are doing the normie suburban thing, and yet, I also know queer folks living their best genderfluid polyam lives in cities, and there are SO many nuances and stops in-between!

I have no idea what the ancient Greek philosophers would say about Grindr.

Nice prose, but a bit curdled if you're not gay or from out of town.

Okay, he's my friend, but even if he weren't I would be blown away by the originality, the creativity, the verve of this book.

There was a promise attached to this book, something about the joys of gay sex and falling completely into another. And there is such a fragment. But the rest of the book is meant to contradict this thesis. It is a book about aloofness, about splitting your life into two pieces that are kept into two different locations.
What surprises in this book is the relentlessness with which the author exposes the roots of his identity. He digs deep into family relations, exposing the myths and the people with a persistence of a country priest. Unless you are Saint Simon or Chateaubriand, there is no need to tell so detailed stories about your aunties and your grandpa. There are feelings that don't transpose well into prose, that don't become interesting notwithstanding how great the writer is.
The last disconcerting thing about this book is the limited mentions of the AIDS impact on NY gay scene. The boys wither and disappear, the pain is muffled and hidden. No one is so close that any sort of solidarity has to be shown. Somehow there is no-one important enough to nurse through this disease, there is no protest, no indignation, only a short mention of playing safe. The gods (maybe Apollo himself) have blessed our author - in all this turmoil, he gets out unscathed. And still he looks away, trying to make sense of other stories.
There is no identity with the other. There is no losing yourself into the other. It is just a short visit one pays to beauty. This Narcissus won't die of hunger.

Effortlessly masterful, Mendelsohn weaves his expertise as a classical scholar into his Jewish heritage to narrate his experience of "identity"--as a son, as a godfather, as a gay man "just outside" Chelsea. The result is a meditation on the nuances and messiness of "identity"--and hence the silliness of identity politics--that, quite apart from Mendelsohn's intentions, has a lot to teach religious communities in a secular age.

Toujours aussi fin et intéressant.
Une étude sur l’identité par l’auteur des “Disparus” que j’adore !
En fait, c’est son premier livre qu’il faudrait donc lire avant, mais ce n’est pas grave.
Histoires, Généalogie, vérités et mensonges, qui suis-je ?
Ensuite je lirai le 3e de la série “Un père, un fils, une épopée”.