Seemingly Speaking Simply from Solitude
Jean Genet speaks from solitude in THE MIRACLE OF THE ROSE and OUR LADY OF THE FLOWERS and he returns to prior times of solitude, even snatched moments of privacy in a hammock at Mettray Reformatory, or in solitary confinement in prison, always able to somehow sneak a friend in for the night--amazing this man writes from solitude so that symbols of the inner artist can emerge in a pure form. It is like the parables of some Zen master when we open his books and allow the words of his poetic mind to fluidly arrange themselves within our psyche. He teaches us to love the poetics, the aesthetics, of solitude, of the confinement, of the prison where nothing that is of value can be stripped from a man, especially in the embrace of another who is like minded, similar spirited. His loves are loyalties given freely to fellow partakers of solitude. It is the criterion par excellence: confined alone together! In his movie that lasts but 25 minutes (Un Chant d'Amour) he displays how everyone, prisoner and guard, all are caught in the web of manly solitude. What is the meaning of this poetry? It tells us that the essential homosexuality lives before now in some essential sanctuary of the self, that it precedes interaction, and precipitates interaction but it is of itself unchanged. There is a core essence that is homosexual, and Genet puts it on display for all to see. It does not leave room for conjecture about origins and causes of homosexuality, no--it is essential--it exists and the man discovers it's existence, but it does not come and go, not the essential homosexuality.
