Three books that celebrate gay love by uniting words and illustrations.
After having devoted a first graphic novel to the life of the painter Claude Monet, the German Matthias Lehmann has set his sights on a fictional being, but whose destiny would be strongly inspired by a true story. Published by Steinkis, A parallel life gives access to the story of a man forced to hide his homosexuality in post-war Germany. At the age of retirement, at the time of the balance sheets, inhabited by the feeling that no one really knows him, resolved to “finish the lies”, Karl Kling decides to write to his daughter, Hella, with whom he hasn’t had any contact for eight years, and to tell her everything: the first emotions, the movements of desire, the proofs of affection and the impossible loves, but also the violence which takes many forms, failed marriages, lost jobs, strained family relationships and injured loved ones.
While Karl struggles with his double life, he is, despite some friendships, tormented by fear and loneliness, vast swaths of the history of German society pass in the background, starting with the heavy sequels left by the war, then the Berlin Wall, from its construction to its fall, without forgetting the repression of homosexuality, practiced brutally until 1994. With neat illustrations, in black and white and in superb shades of gray, Lehmann naturally intertwines past and present. Doing justice to a lifetime, the voluminous graphic novel is a work of memory, of course, a necessary reminder of the path traveled, but it also allows us to take a current look at Karl’s existence. The impressive courage that man deploys, first to conform to the norm, then to free himself from it, resonates easily to us.
A parallel life
★★★1/2
Matthias Lehmann, translated from German by Gaïa Maniquant-Rogozyk, Steinkis, Paris, 2022, 464 pages
Composed of fragments
After a collection of poetry, Tell friend and enter (Triptych, 2021), Victor Bégin publishes with Hamac a story entitled The boys interlude. The 84 fragments of a few lines, all provided with a title, are answered by the 14 monochrome drawings by Cole Degenstein. Author and illustrator deposit on the page, each in their own way, a series of snapshots: encapsulated memories, pinned regrets, recorded desires and retained hopes. Both tragic and everyday, the sightings primarily concern the passing men, but several other related topics are discussed. Dave St-Pierre, Michael Glatze, Johnny Depp and Aragorn also make notable appearances.
Generally, the narrator expresses himself by means of an address to another, to one of these absent lovers, already far away, or who are moving away visibly. “I bury first names by the shovelful, the Jorges, Alfonso, Félix, Hugo, Pierre, Yanni, Lucas, Étienne. I thank my head for no longer exhuming them. The memorability of some seems inferior to the pleasure of forgetting. The moments are captured in a café, a bar or an apartment, in a tattoo parlour, a poetry evening or a darkroom, on the Plateau, in Greece, Mongolia or Argentina, but also, very often, in the twists and turns of a dating app. “Without making lists, here I am trying to talk about everyone, to include the boys in a family tree of unfinished relationships. I who have always hated the boxes, I put you in small compartments, you are all there, prisoners of my story, succeeding you in a pretty ballet. »
While devoting himself to a cartography of his loves, the narrator expresses with great acuity, using rich metaphors, by dwelling on the body and its representations, the need he feels to be reassured, consoled and valued, his immense thirst to meet something other than interlude or fugitive boys. “The last time you came to the apartment, I made too much pasta and we didn’t eat; now I love you and I eat the remains of our love alone. Then: “Several times I plunged my hand into the cry without ever touching bottom. And finally: “I paid for my happiness with so many losses.” As for Degenstein’s magenta illustrations, sober, evocative, never catchy, they marvelously marry the narrator’s amorous disarray.
The boys interlude
★★★1/2
Texts by Victor Bégin and illustrations by Cole Degenstein, Hammock, Montreal, 2022, 80 pages
Favorable positions
On a much lighter note, but still instructive, Taiwanese Lee Tao confides in Da-Tao and Tao-Dee, the couple from the web series that made him famous, Peachy Boys, the delicate task of “exploring the fundamentals of gay sex”. Entitled Kamasutra gay, the guide published by La Musardine is generously illustrated and, it should be noted, is intended for adults. Stopping at nothing, the two heroes literally bend over backwards to represent no less than 38 positions, from the simplest to the most acrobatic, from French Kiss to the spider passing the trampoline and the chihuahua.
There is humor and playfulness, especially in the comical scenes of married life which are sketched between two positions. An important place is given to affection, tenderness, looking at and listening to others. The whole testifies to a frankly positive approach to sexuality. That said, the characters drawn by Lee Tao in the style of Japanese manga are young, very fit, Caucasian, cisgender, and totally beardless. You will have understood that when it comes to body and gender diversity, there is still a long way to go. The book is certainly naughty, and even alluring, but it remains uninventive, even harmless.
Gay Kamasutra
★★★
Lee Tao, La Musardine, Paris, 2022, 128 pages