*Writer's Corner- Jean Genet's "Our Lady Of The Flowers"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the French writer and playwright Jean Genet's first novel, "Our Lady Of The Flowers".

Book Review

Our Lady Of The Flowers, Jean Genet, 1943

Recently, in reviewing the texts for some of the plays by French writer and playwright, Jean Genet, I wrote the following first two paragraphs that apply to an appreciation of his first novel, “Our Lady Of The Flowers”, as well:

“There was a time when I would read anything the playwright Jean Genet wrote, especially his plays. The reason? Well, for one thing, the political thing that has been the core of my existence since I was a kid, his relationship to the Black Panthers when they were being systematically lionized by the international white left as the “real” revolutionaries and systematically liquidated by the American state police apparatus that was hell-bend on putting every young black man with a black beret behind bars, or better, as with Fred Hampton, Mark Clark and long list of others, dead. Genet, as his somewhat autobiographical “Our Lady Of The Flowers” details came from deep within a white, French version of that same lumpen “street” milieu from which the Panthers were recruiting. Thus, kindred spirits.

That kindred “street” smart relationship, of course, was like catnip for a kid like me who came from that same American societal intersection, the place where the white lumpen thug elements meet the working poor. I knew the American prototype of Jean Genet, up close and personal, except, perhaps, for his own well-publicized homosexuality and that of others among the dock-side toughs that he hung around with. So I was ready for a literary man who was no stranger to life’s seamy side. His play “The Maids” was the first one I grabbed (and I believe the first of his plays that I saw performed).”

I also noted in a review of “The Maids” that, fortunately, by the time that I got around to reading (and seeing) then such seemingly avant-garde material I had shed my prissy Catholic ignorance about the great varieties of human sexual expression, for good and evil. Especially about the overt homosexuality and masturbatory fantasies that dominate the story line, a plot, moreover, set in prison and concerning the French version of those lumpen elements, from the Parisian streets and waterfront, that I mentioned above that I grew up around in the 1950s. This reading is not for everyone, as literature or as prod to sexual fantasy, but it certainly is in the great French tradition of literature down at the base of society. And certainly a kindred spirit to Celine’s novelistic approach. The problem for us is, as the short-loved Paris Commune of 1871 found out, this lumpen social layer, this human dust form the “shock troops” for the reaction when society slides into a revolutionary period. For now though, read this.

*Playwright's Corner- From The Pen Of Jean Genet-"The Maids"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the French playwright Jean Genet.

Book Review

The Maids, Jean Genet, 1947

There was a time when I would read anything the playwright Jean Genet wrote, especially his plays. The reason? Well, for one thing, the political thing that has been the core of my existence since I was a kid, his relationship to the Black Panthers when they were being systematically lionized by the international white left as the “real” revolutionaries and systematically liquidated by the American state police apparatus that was hell-bend on putting every young black man with a black beret behind bars, or better, as with Fred Hampton, Mark Clark and long list of others, dead. Genet, as his autobiographical “Our Lady Of The Flowers” details came from deep within a white, French version of that same lumpen “street” milieu from which the Panthers were recruiting. Thus, kindred spirits.

That kindred “street” smart relationship, of course, was like catnip for a kid like me who came from that same American societal intersection, the place where the white lumpen thug elements meet the working poor. I knew the American prototype of Jean Genet, up close and personal, except, perhaps, for his own well-publicized homosexuality and that of others among the dock-side toughs that he hung around with. So I was ready for a literary man who was no stranger to life’s seamy side. His play “The Maids” was the first one I grabbed (and I believe the first of his plays that I saw performed).

Fortunately, by the time that I got around to then reading (and seeing) such seemingly avant-garde material I had shed my prissy Catholic ignorance about the great varieties of human sexual expression, for good and evil. Otherwise, I would not have appreciated this play as either a perverse form of class struggle (the story line centers on the plot of two interchangeable maids, sisters, although the performance that I saw had the two maids played by men) to “murder” their mistress. Or as a ritualistic sadomasochistic sexual exercise. Either way this play still holds up today as a very well thought through literary effort, at a time when seemingly every offbeat sexual expression has been ground to bits through banal exploitation. See this one, the next time it is revived, if you get a change. In the meantime read the text.

*Playwright's Corner- From The Pen Of Jean Genet-"The Blacks"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the French playwright Jean Genet's play, "The Blacks".

Book Review

The Blacks, Jean Genet, 1959

Recently, in reviewing the text for the play “The Maids” by French writer and playwright, Jean Genet, I write the following first two paragraphs that apply to an appreciation of the play under review , The Blacks”, as well:

“There was a time when I would read anything the playwright Jean Genet wrote, especially his plays. The reason? Well, for one thing, the political thing that has been the core of my existence since I was a kid, his relationship to the Black Panthers when they were being systematically lionized by the international white left as the “real” revolutionaries and systematically liquidated by the American state police apparatus that was hell-bend on putting every young black man with a black beret behind bars, or better, as with Fred Hampton, Mark Clark and long list of others, dead. Genet, as his autobiographical “Our Lady Of The Flowers” details came from deep within a white, French version of that same lumpen “street” milieu from which the Panthers were recruiting. Thus, kindred spirits.

That kindred “street” smart relationship, of course, was like catnip for a kid like me who came from that same American societal intersection, the place where the white lumpen thug elements meet the working poor. I knew the American prototype of Jean Genet, up close and personal, except, perhaps, for his own well-publicized homosexuality and that of others among the dock-side toughs that he hung around with. So I was ready for a literary man who was no stranger to life’s seamy side. His play “The Maids” was the first one I grabbed (and I believe the first of his plays that I saw performed).”

As I have mentioned elsewhere once I “discover” a writer I tend to read through everything else that he or she has written to see if there is anymore gold in store. That is the case here. In a race-driven and obsessed society like America, notwithstanding a current black president, the question of the relationship, for good or evil but mainly evil, between blacks and whites necessarily has to dominate the central societal drama. Many black writers, including James Baldwin or Richard Wright, have been very sensitive to that need to blacks to “wear” a mask around whites. That a French writer, immersed in white waterfront and prison lumpen culture could capture that same idea in a sharply symbolic (read the direction instructions) play is another matter.

This play, unlike “The Maid”, reaches way down to a place where most play-goings, black and white, do not want to go. And that tells the tale here. I will wonder out loud how today’s audience, spoon-fed on the notion of a “post-racial” society, would react. More simply put, this is the difference between Malcolm X’s racial truth and Martin Luther King’s. Enough said.


Note: If you look at the above linked “Wikipedia” entry for “The Blacks” you will realize that the first performances of this play was a very important part of the acting careers of many black performers, including James Earl Jones. I have seen this play but without the star-studded cast of the original performances.

*Playwright's Corner- From The Pen Of Jean Genet-"The Balcony"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the French playwright Jean Genet's play, "The Balcony".

Book Review

The Balcony, Jean Genet, 1957

Recently, in reviewing the text for the plays “The Maids” and “The Blacks’ by French writer and playwright, Jean Genet, I wrote the following first two paragraphs that apply to an appreciation of the play under review, “The Balcony”, as well:

“There was a time when I would read anything the playwright Jean Genet wrote, especially his plays. The reason? Well, for one thing, the political thing that has been the core of my existence since I was a kid, his relationship to the Black Panthers when they were being systematically lionized by the international white left as the “real” revolutionaries and systematically liquidated by the American state police apparatus that was hell-bend on putting every young black man with a black beret behind bars, or better, as with Fred Hampton, Mark Clark and long list of others, dead. Genet, as his somewhat autobiographical “Our Lady Of The Flowers” details came from deep within a white, French version of that same lumpen “street” milieu from which the Panthers were recruiting. Thus, kindred spirits.

That kindred “street” smart relationship, of course, was like catnip for a kid like me who came from that same societal intersection in America, the place where the white lumpen thug elements meet the working poor. I knew the American prototype of Jean Genet, up close and personal, except, perhaps, for his own well-publicized homosexuality and that of others among the dock-side toughs that he hung around with. So I was ready for a literary man who was no stranger to life’s seamy side. His play ,“The Maids”, was the first one I grabbed (and I believe the first of his plays that I saw performed).”

As I have mentioned elsewhere once I “discover” a writer I tend to read through everything else that he or she has written to see if there is anymore gold in store. That is the case here with “The Balcony” . If “The Maids’ centers on the sexual fantasy and the social distortions that the class struggle accentuates, and “The Blacks” delves deeply into the “masks” worn to survive in the class and racial struggle, then “The Balcony” underscores the centrality of the real and illusionary in Genet’s work. Here he tackles theme of revolution and counter-revolution as seen and felt through the characters who inhabit a brothel, clients and customers alike. That struggle, real enough in our world, is what drives the plot here. This is not, however, some quirky Marxist interpretation of revolutionary struggle, win or lose. It is not Leon Trotsky’s theory of revolutionary tensions between the old and new societies and degeneration of the latter but it is a nice theatrical, stripped down look at those interpretations. If the play is acted and directed correctly it is well worth seeing. In the meantime read the text.