[CarlHoliday] The Artists

[Dannsar]

Hey there,

 

I just wanted to say something about The Artists. It was weird! Not necessarily in a bad way, mind, but weird nevertheless. I haven't had the chance to read your other stories yet, and perhaps this broken up style you use is just your way of doing it ... I don't know! The story threads were all interesting, but even for heightened reality they were pretty extreme. What was it about artists and artistic communities that led you to treat this group in this way? It would be interesting to know Personally I liked Six. I could not get to grips with the adult / teen sexual elements. I understand that much of this was about the conflicting confusions in emergent sexuality, and that none of it was underage (as far as I could see), but it did seem a bit more than distasteful. That's not an accusation or a complaint, but I wonder why you chose to go down these paths for more or less normal sexual contact, whereas peer sexual contact was often pretty bizarre. Boygirls, rapes, beatings, deformities, closet cases, denial cases etc etc.

 

There is another thing that I find really strange about young people in gay writing. They are all terribly good at thinking through the elements and hazards of their sexual desires, which seems utterly implausible to me! I mean, what eighteen year old decides he will have sex with another boy not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but he will?! Eighteen years old means knickers down and let me see the meat, never mind the confusions cos there aint any. There is a note about underage sex on Nifty from a twelve year old who roundly condemns much of what is written as unreal, and a lot of this seemed unreal too in this story. Unfortunately it makes the characters seem a little like cyphers ... a substrate upon which a writer can express themselves. And yes, I do realise that that seems like a self contradiction. But it kind of makes it difficult to pay any attention to the overall point when the situations are so hyper real. I don't know how many times I almost abandoned this story on that basis, but I kept slapping myself around the head and telling myself to give the writer the respect of a decent hearing.

 

And it was worth it, overall. But it is just very difficult to see how it all fitted together. The flitting between characters nature of the story may be metaphoric for teenagers hormonal states. It might even be paradigmatic metaphor, but it is difficult to follow.

 

Anyhooo ... it is very well written and the character development is good. It was quite curious to read about a man with a disability who sees people in colours. I am slightly autistic, and a bit synaesthesic with that. My character image of Six is red, Peter green, Kevin blue, Euphorbia yellowy green. It was quite interesting to come across that trope here. Was there a point to it? I loved it!

 

Dannsar