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A review by lbrex
Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall by Neil Bartlett
5.0
Spring break has finally allowed me to finish this, and I'm very grateful for the break.
I continue to be stunned by Neil Bartlett. There's a hypnotic, erotic, and dream-like element to his books that has convinced me that they are some of the best gay male novels available to readers. Bartlett's books consistently map the intersections between violence, desire, and abjection in the lives of gay men, while they are also finely attuned to the works of earlier gay writers. The tributes to _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ that one finds here are beautiful, while the mysterious figures of "Father" and "Mother" that become central to the narrative deserve their own novels. Bartlett's readers will experience stupefaction from his work's strangeness, anticipation around his characters' sexual exploits, fear impending violence against vulnerable gay men, and admiration for the lyricism of a frankly aestheticist passage. As I was reading _Ready_, I was repeatedly uncertain about why I was reading, but I knew that I had to keep going, almost as if unraveling the story meant unraveling something about myself.
I could keep gushing, but really, the point of a good review on goodreads is to get you to read the book. In this case, if you're interested in fiction about sexuality or in gay novels, this is a must-read. I'm not sure I'll have many more concrete things to say until I've read this again or, alternatively, recovered from its spell.
I continue to be stunned by Neil Bartlett. There's a hypnotic, erotic, and dream-like element to his books that has convinced me that they are some of the best gay male novels available to readers. Bartlett's books consistently map the intersections between violence, desire, and abjection in the lives of gay men, while they are also finely attuned to the works of earlier gay writers. The tributes to _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ that one finds here are beautiful, while the mysterious figures of "Father" and "Mother" that become central to the narrative deserve their own novels. Bartlett's readers will experience stupefaction from his work's strangeness, anticipation around his characters' sexual exploits, fear impending violence against vulnerable gay men, and admiration for the lyricism of a frankly aestheticist passage. As I was reading _Ready_, I was repeatedly uncertain about why I was reading, but I knew that I had to keep going, almost as if unraveling the story meant unraveling something about myself.
I could keep gushing, but really, the point of a good review on goodreads is to get you to read the book. In this case, if you're interested in fiction about sexuality or in gay novels, this is a must-read. I'm not sure I'll have many more concrete things to say until I've read this again or, alternatively, recovered from its spell.