Don't trust it if you're studying it in french, 01 Jun 2004
For anyone studying a foreign language text, a translation is a great way to get the gist of it without having to plough through it with a dictionary first. If you ARE studying Journal du Voleur though, beware of this one. Although it is, for the most part, a pretty faithful version, the translator, for reasons best left to himself, has inserted great chunks of narrative that don't feature in the original, mostly to do with Genet's sexual encounters, so for god's sake don't put all your faith in this version.

For those of you who have no idea about Genet, he was a homosexual writer who counted Cocteau and Sarte among his friends and supporters and wrote The Thief's Journal in the late forties. It is based on his experiences of being a thief and homosexual travelling around Europe and his encounters with various men, most notably Stilitano who he almost worships. It had to be published anonymously in Switzerland to prevent an enormous outcry - as it was, Genet was banned from entering the US for years on the grounds of being a deviant. He demands a degree of complicity from the reader, but at the same time keeps us at a distance, manipulating us to his will in order to convey his rejection of society and simultaneous need to be condemned by the same. It's a disturbing read at times - his subjection is deliberately humiliating - but fascinating in terms of how the author can hijack language for his own gains. Genet takes a fairly colourful attitude to factual biography so don't trust his word completely, but as an exploration of submissiveness, love, prison and beauty, you won't find a much more interesting read than this.

Don't trust it if you're studying it in french, 01 Jun 2004
For anyone studying a foreign language text, a translation is a great way to get the gist of it without having to plough through it with a dictionary first. If you ARE studying Journal du Voleur though, beware of this one. Although it is, for the most part, a pretty faithful version, the translator, for reasons best left to himself, has inserted great chunks of narrative that don't feature in the original, mostly to do with Genet's sexual encounters, so for god's sake don't put all your faith in this version.

For those of you who have no idea about Genet, he was a homosexual writer who counted Cocteau and Sarte among his friends and supporters and wrote The Thief's Journal in the late forties. It is based on his experiences of being a thief and homosexual travelling around Europe and his encounters with various men, most notably Stilitano who he almost worships. It had to be published anonymously in Switzerland to prevent an enormous outcry - as it was, Genet was banned from entering the US for years on the grounds of being a deviant. He demands a degree of complicity from the reader, but at the same time keeps us at a distance, manipulating us to his will in order to convey his rejection of society and simultaneous need to be condemned by the same. It's a disturbing read at times - his subjection is deliberately humiliating - but fascinating in terms of how the author can hijack language for his own gains. Genet takes a fairly colourful attitude to factual biography so don't trust his word completely, but as an exploration of submissiveness, love, prison and beauty, you won't find a much more interesting read than this.

Genet's masterpiece., 14 Apr 2002
'Our Lady of the Flowers' is the best novel by Jean Genet- a victim of the intolerant French prison system (not unlike 'three strikes & you're out in the USA). Allusions are drawn to another French writer, famously incarcerated: the Marquis de Sade. This only goes so far- true that both '120 Days of Sodom' & 'Our Lady of the Flowers' were written in prison. And early drafts were destroyed or withdrawn... But Genet was more modern than de Sade (obviously)- here he writes about the senses- a theme common to modernist works such as 'Tropic of Cancer' & 'Ulysses'. Though I feel his closest literary relations are Ferdinand Celine: the Vichy-collaborator & William S. Burroughs. His influence can be detected in the more erotic elements of JG Ballard- notably 'Crash'...In this novel, which has a thoughtful foreword by Jean Paul Sartre, Genet takes us to the internal abyss he occupies. And describes how he transcends this to make it a heaven... but it is taken to a level of Holy praise...This is probably Genet's masterpiece- though 'Miracle of the Rose' & 'Querelle of Brest' are close. I don't think you have to possess homosexual inclinations to get something out of this book...As with writers like Charles Bukowski & Hubert Selby Jr. Genet is a self-educated man from 'the other side of life' (to quote from 'Journey to the End of the NIght'). Unlike Sade he was not from the upper-classes, nor was he from the middle-class; he was from the streets. Almost a prefigured character for a Jacques Brel song. As the foreword tells you, the French Existentialists (Sartre et al) who would later turn obliquely Marxist, campaigned to have Genet released. And this is the end product of that. It is also one of the finest fictions of the 20th Century.