Hey, it's quite a thing to know how to get a reply right (actually, does right really have a place in such a thing? who knows?) to this piece. It happens when someone writes about something so personal: what can anyone say in response that doesn't appear trite, or mirroring, or patronising? Man, I'll have a go.
So, I thought it was both skilful in the way you shaped it and moved it about from the one sense of the personal as a child with a living father to another sense of the personal of a man with a dead father who had changed in ways slightly frightening from the child's father, from the scariness of horror to the scariness of real life family dynamics, and touching as you thought about the moving away we all do from our parents, followed by our own work on reclaiming all that shtick for ourselves (pace Proust).
And, from what one has read of Cushing, I feel he would have understood what you were saying and what you were trying to do with the piece. I gather he was a very decent man, who took his work seriously (as did Lee and Price...showing that it's possible to be both camp and serious which,I think, is admirable) and acted with integrity.
You may have caught an interesting programme on Radio 4 called Queer Gothic which Sarah Waters (man, can that woman write?!) presented with a mix of brio, humour and intellect. It was good on subversion and trangression but equally illuminating on the grace and goodness at the heart of much transgressive thought and behaviour.
Hi Nicolas. I always find replying to a reply pretty hard myself, so I'll keep this one short and sweet and just say thanks for your kind words. It means a lot. I haven't heard QG, but will track it down and have a listen for sure. Thanks again.
Hey, it's quite a thing to know how to get a reply right (actually, does right really have a place in such a thing? who knows?) to this piece. It happens when someone writes about something so personal: what can anyone say in response that doesn't appear trite, or mirroring, or patronising? Man, I'll have a go.
So, I thought it was both skilful in the way you shaped it and moved it about from the one sense of the personal as a child with a living father to another sense of the personal of a man with a dead father who had changed in ways slightly frightening from the child's father, from the scariness of horror to the scariness of real life family dynamics, and touching as you thought about the moving away we all do from our parents, followed by our own work on reclaiming all that shtick for ourselves (pace Proust).
And, from what one has read of Cushing, I feel he would have understood what you were saying and what you were trying to do with the piece. I gather he was a very decent man, who took his work seriously (as did Lee and Price...showing that it's possible to be both camp and serious which,I think, is admirable) and acted with integrity.
You may have caught an interesting programme on Radio 4 called Queer Gothic which Sarah Waters (man, can that woman write?!) presented with a mix of brio, humour and intellect. It was good on subversion and trangression but equally illuminating on the grace and goodness at the heart of much transgressive thought and behaviour.
Hi Nicolas. I always find replying to a reply pretty hard myself, so I'll keep this one short and sweet and just say thanks for your kind words. It means a lot. I haven't heard QG, but will track it down and have a listen for sure. Thanks again.