My Dive into Dancer from the Dance

[@kirilatanasov7798]

I finished the book today, and I must say it is one of my favourite novels I have read recently. I thoroughly enjoyed the ways in which the narrator subverts the contemporary American values and aspirations, namely landing a well-paid job, getting married, and having children. There is a passage in the novel in which Sutherland exclaims that there is nothing else in the world, but vanity, as his grandmother beyond the age of eighty craved to be desired. This point aside, I see the reasons for your frustration regarding the impossibility of getting close to Malone. Yet, this is the core of the book: he is not a real person, but more an ideal and a symbol of the gay experience. He is all of which gay people dream, according to the value system in the novel: handsome, athletic, and, apparently, a gifted lover. All characters admire and fall in love with him, but they are incapable of establishing lasting relationships with him, because he is that detached/alienated ideal. He himself is also pursuing a chimera: as a child he was obsessed with God; as an adult, he is determined to find a perfect 'homosexual love'. This, eventually, leads to his downfall and evaporation in the narrative. There are no ideals in our world, and gays need to learn to love humans, not gods, with all of their flaws. I absolutely loved this work and strongly recommend it to any book lover. You compared the novel to 'The Great Gatsby'; another worthy comparison will be to 'Dorian Gray', especially when it comes to the themes of 'life imitating art' and the shallowness of human/gay existence.

[@SupposedlyFun]

Thank you for the very thoughtful responses. Dorian Gray is an interesting comparison. I'm glad you liked it and I will be pondering this for a while!

[@OlyBliss]

Dancer from the dance was one of my introductions to gay culture once I’d just come out. I definitely think that it’s easier to judge it from a far. I think this was discussing the superficialities of the scene subtlety whilst it was happening at the time. I think that must have been something quite edifying if you were reading it at the time; especially when visibility of the scene was so hidden and men didn’t/ still don’t necessarily talk about how they feel. I loved how it described the scene as something of a liberation and towards the end I remember reading a bit where by the winter the clubs become like jails. I love you comparatives between this and great Gatsby I had not thought of any of that but I thought you were spot on. Very cool review😎

[@SupposedlyFun]

It's a very interesting book both to read and discuss. Very glad it's been rereleased this year.

[@mariomendes3255]

I read the book when it was first published, 1978. As a kid of 19 - and not yet out of the closet - I was profoundly impressed and touched by it. Dancer became my favorite novel then. As I grew older - I'm 64 - I revisited Malone, Sutherland and the other boys in the band several times through the years. And they've never ever disappointed me. I've met a lot of Sutherlands and a few Malones on my way. And had a few glimpses of that generation and its hedonistic zombie atmosphere. Finally, this year I've decided to translate it into Portuguese - as the book has never been published in Brazil - cause I think it's still relevant and not dated. I consider three books have shaped and changed my life forever: Dancer From the Dance at 19, The magic Mountain at 40 and Doris Lessing memoirs - Walking in the Shade and Under My Skin - at 50. Thanks for your good review. Cheers!

[@SupposedlyFun]

Cheers! I'm so glad this book has meant so much to you over the years.

[@nigelprance2540]

Have you read Holleran's later novel "The Beauty of Men"? One could argue that it's an examination of the letter writer as he faces middle age. Whereas "Dancer" is somewhat elegiac, "The Beauty of Men" tends towards the tragic. No surprise: because the characters from "Dancer" worshiped at the altar of youthful perfection, middle age can offer little in the way of reward. As to "Dancer from the Dance," I've read it at different phases of my life: first when I was all of 23 and living the very life examined in the novel, dancing and having lots of sex. I returned to it some years later when I had settled down somewhat (partnered and so forth). I am rereading it now as I am on the verge of sixty four. I've always held with the comparison to "The Great Gatsby" but this time I was reminded of "Streetcar Named Desire" with Frankie playing the role of Stanley and Malone some version of Stella. I enjoyed your review! Thanks for letting me get some of my thoughts out of my head.

[@SupposedlyFun]

I really love hearing all the different points of view about this book. It definitely seems like a book whose meaning can change over time--both politically and in terms of the reader's age. I love that you've had a history with it. Thank you for sharing!

[@robertopastore2453]

Brilliant video, I really liked hearing your perspective. I had a big emotional response to this novel, but maybe I was just dazzled by the glitz and melancholy? Personally can't get enough 70s disco or fleeting beauty. I think the nod to Gatsby was a conscious and audacious one, but I genuinely think Holleran just writes so well that in this case I got swept away by it all, or possibly thought the distance we are kept as a reader gave me a sense of the broader picture, the tragedy at its heart? Anyway, thank you for this review! I do recommend Grief if you're ever in the mood for more Holleran!

[@SupposedlyFun]

Thank you for the comments--I will look at Grief!

[@erik_carter_art]

I absolutely adored this book. The character of Sutherland is one who will stay with me for the rest of my life. Another novel that I really love is Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (highly recommend!)

[@SupposedlyFun]

Giovanni’s Room is a great book!

[@markjohnson9012]

Read this in college. Read it many times since. I think the passage in the third act where the march/protest by others not involved in the subculture Malone and Sutherland inhabit, that's the part that redeems a lot of the excesses, darkness, and sadness of the rest of the novel, though not the characters or their subculture itself. Holleran was making a fine point: the novel is commentary on many kinds of lived queer experience -- even down to helping a neighbor dig up a septic tank in the rural south. I don't like a lot of this book, but I also love it. Thanks for posting .

[@josesalas6641]

Great perspective. I read this book in the early 80's, when i had just moved to San Diego from a small town trying to find myself, my identity and place in the world. I was confused as to where i was heading, yet longing for love and validation. I, too was a hopeless romantic thinking that having a lover would be the answer to everything that was wrong in my young life. I loved the book then because i related to Malone (esp. the part longing for a partner, hopelessly) though i never thought about indulging in the excesses he did. I have started reading it again a few days ago and am excited to relive and to catch segments and meaning i didnt see the first time around. I think this should be mandatory reading for every new gay male coming to terms with their sexuality. Though the times have changed from the late 60's, early 70's many of the underlying themes are the same. I absolutely love this book, but again I am a nostalgic and retrospective person.

[@jonpickell607]

To this day, it remains one of my favorite books - along with Confederacy of Dunces - I think I have 3 hardcover copies of Dancer. I was 21 the year it was published - by 1984, I had graduated from college and moved to San Francisco, which was reeling form the AIDS crisis. Dancer from the Dance perfectly captures the energy of the times and the club/dating scene, to me. There is a weird melancholy feeling to the book, and I still reread the passages about dancing alone in a club from time to time - it totally captures my feelings at that time.

[@SupposedlyFun]

It really does capture a certain time well. So glad you love it!

[@saintdonoghue]

I wonder if you'd feel more personally connected to the book if you weren't so young? Is there a divide, demographically, between people who love the book and people who only admire it?

[@SupposedlyFun]

Interesting question, and unfortunately, I do not have an answer for it. I was only born a few years after this was published but A LOT changed by the time I came of age. It feels easy for me, a legally married gay man in 2019, to criticize the lifestyle of someone who had none of those options in 1978--which is part of why I can't figure out how I feel about this book.

[@saintdonoghue]

@@SupposedlyFun But what about the actual writing? Did you enjoy (or mostly enjoy) that?

[@SupposedlyFun]

The writing is good, but there are parts where I feel like the dialogue gets broken up by an unnecessary amount of "he said"--probably an indicator that this was a debut novel more than anything else. That's the only area where it really shows. Hope that makes sense.

[@alanhill2508]

Yes, Steve, I think there is a great divide. I'm 65 and Holleran (real name Eric Garber) is about 77 now, but it's the same generation, fundamentally. I've always felt that no other author better captures that mixture of joy and self-loathing that characterized so many gay men of my generation. Yes, the closet still exists, and coming out, especially to family and close friends, can still be a struggle, but if you are a gay man born in the 21st century, it will be hard to recognize the pitch perfect key Holleran sounds for gay men of my generation.

[@jcecce]

So I am in the final pages of the book and after some searching, came across this review. Thank you for taking the time to create it! My thoughts on the fact that there is a devolution of characters and that there lacks resolution in the end, is that the author was deliberate in this. It reminds me a bit of European film. I think you allude to this in your review. For me, it’s one of those fill in the blank endings. It leads me to think of those in my circle of friends or acquaintances (past or present). I can think of a few that may have been heading down the path Mallone followed. I ask myself, how did they turn out? And in one case, a friend who I have mostly lost touch with seems to be stuck in Mallone’s pattern.

[@jackwalter5030]

Believe it or not, Dancer from the Dance is my favorite novel of all time, which is strange considering I'm such a fan of the classics. Your review of the book is excellent and very perceptive. I think the thing you must think about is that the story is about the gay subculture of New York in the Seventies, and, given the time period, the story of Malone is almost like a legend or a fairy tale, no pun intended. Malone is kind of a blank slate, both to himself and to others. Everyone projects themselves onto him, while at the same time, Malone must figure out who he actually is. Notice how the ending of the story sets up Malone as a character who will live on in the culture of the locals, and he will indeed become like a "gay legend." Gay culture in the Seventies was very much in need of stories and figures who would prove to be, in a sense, eternal. We have so many unforgettable people in our American past, but here is a person, although fictional, who is unforgettable in gay life. This is a book I read every summer, it's definitely a Summer Novel.

[@saintdonoghue]

Maybe that Kirkus reviewer was just having a bad weekend! Maybe he came to love the novel upon re-readings!

[@SupposedlyFun]

Anything is possible!

[@whatpageareyouon]

I read this recently, and am also a bit mixed about it. I think Malone’s entire being was so driven by his concept of a “Sunday evening”, possibly making it known how cyclical he finds he is in his own life, which carries with you regardless of sexual orientation. I thought Dancer from the Dance did a great job at pointing out how there’s such a lack of representation to know and discover how to approach homosexuality without direct experiences, like Malone messing around and using his desire from others projected onto him as some sort of validation of his own “proof” of being gay, even though it becomes more complicated when how one might define being gay in comparison to, say, Malone and Sutherland. I also really liked this idea of someone writing a novel within the story, possibly suggesting how subjective it is for people to believe non-heteronormative stories / how reliant storytelling is for history to stay intact like with remembering Stonewall. I think there was even a part where Malone found out that someone committed suicide and Malone says something like “maybe if I slept with him, he would have lived, and I wouldn’t have to feel responsible” (or something like that) which is obvs v toxic thinking yet with empathetic intentions, which seemed like a good manifestation of the tug and pull where you’re given permission to be who you want, but your also a part of a larger narrative beyond your control. Loved your thoughts. Sorry about your old boss, yikes !

[@SupposedlyFun]

Very, very interesting points--thank you.Tying in with what you said about Malone using desire to feel validated, I think Sutherland also uses Malone's desirability as a sort of validation-by-proxy (since even though he is well-liked, his endowment makes him feel alone and undesirable himself. He pushes Malone to have the connections he himself cannot.

[@JuanReads]

I’m saving this video to watch after I’ve read the book.

[@SupposedlyFun]

Fair enough--look forward to your thoughts!

[@intellectualreads5696]

Great review and a nice comparison to The Great Gatsby. Enjoyed it

[@SupposedlyFun]

Thank you!

[@augustvirgo1975]

Living in SF through the birth of the prep/truvada era: when all the dj dance parties turned into orgies; I remember thinking this era is history repeating itself- post stonewall pre-aids- with all its dirty glitter , dance, drugs, and debauchery.

[@Cardenio2012]

I haven’t read the book but I certainly enjoyed your talking about it. By the way, I’m a huge Golden Girls fan!! Thank you for being a friend ~~🎶

[@SupposedlyFun]

It really is a wonderful show. :-)

[@JentheLibrarianreads]

Excellent review, I loved hearing your thoughts on it. I recently read Dancer from the Dance and just filmed a review of it (which I hope will be up in the next few weeks), but before that I tried to stay away from any reviews and am just checking them out now. I think, like you, that I definitely admire the book and would agree it is a classic, but that doesn't necessarily mean I loved it or connected with the characters in any way. I hadn't thought of it in the way you expressed it, that Malone says he wants love but actually is too busy sabotaging himself to ever get it - that's so true!

[@SupposedlyFun]

I look forward to your review of it--just subscribed to your channel! :-)

[@barbradingwall3502]

I haven't read Dancer from the Dance... but now I think I want to. Also, Golden Girls shirt for the win!

[@SupposedlyFun]

This tshirt makes me so happy. :-)

[@KramRemin]

Born in 1966, I was 12 when DFTD came out in 1978. It's not so much a novel, as a flask of perfume that transports me back to that era, all that forbidden glamor that a square, well-behaved middle-class kid from San Diego was never going to be able to get a piece of. (I could relate to BEST LITTLE BOY IN THE WORLD much better!) But I did what I could: I ran away from home at 17 to San Francisco - - - when AIDS was just beginning to SLAM THE LID down on all the decadent bullshit.

[@Glenn66ful]

You've inspired me to take another look at the novel, which I first read about 20 years ago. At that time, at the end of the 90s, it was not in vogue at all. There was a certain backlash in the 90s to the depiction of the harsh standards of perfection that certain aspects of the gay clone culture was seen as representing in the 70s. The 90s was all about introducing a more diverse and inclusive approach to gay literature (as I recall). Holleran is a great writer though.

[@ABC_DEF]

I've just read the book and think your review of it is exactly right. I admired the book, particularly the writing style and the literary device of the hidden narrator. It is obviously a literary classic. But although I am a gay man myself, I didn't feel a connection with any of the characters. To enjoy a book, you have to like at least one of the characters, and none of the small number of characters in this book were in any way likeable.

[@SupposedlyFun]

I think this book captures a specific time and situation well but if you didn't live through it yourself, it's difficult not to feel a bit alienated by it.

[@ABC_DEF]

@@SupposedlyFun I agree (and thank you for responding). I was a teenager during the second half of the 1970s, in Scotland where homosexuality was still illegal -- although I didn't know that. I knew no more about homosexuality than could be discovered by looking up the word in the dictionary. The subject was never mentioned by anyone (there wasn't even any homophobic bullying at school). So, from my point of view, any portrayal of gay life in New York in that time might as well be a portrayal of life on Mars! Incidentally, I've just read The Front Runner too and enjoyed that much more.

[@SupposedlyFun]

@@ABC_DEF I think that sounds reasonable! Sorry you had to go through all of that.

[@zevnik]

I just finished reading the book. Excellent review and encapsulation of the book. I too am fascinated by this period in gay culture. I didn't understand who Sutherland was. Is he a drag queen? No, it appears he lives his life as a woman. But then again no, he goes to the gym and works on his pecs and all the guys at Fire Island are ogling him, so it appears he lives as a guy. I couldn't quite figure him/her out. And re Malone: at the end of the book he has a kindred soul, John Schaefer, who is in love with Malone and wants a loving exclusive relationship with him. But Malone eschews John and scoffs at John's notion of love. Malone eschewed the soul-less sexual promiscuity of the gay world he inhabited and wanted love. Here came along John, who wanted the same thing. So why did Malone reject him?? Yes, I know Malone was quite jaded by this time, but wouldn't John have been his saving beacon of hope? I didn't understand it.

[@koulonis]

at 4:22 you complain that there were gay/lesbian couples at the time who lived happily together. At the correspondence however in the beginning of the book(pages 17 and 18 in your edition), it is well stated that the novel is about a subspecies only: doomed queens. It is further explained that these are queens who consider themselves worthless and as a result fall into degradation and sordidness. This might well explain Malone's actions. // Loved your video review btw

[@SupposedlyFun]

Thanks for the nuance. :-)

[@bettyboohadapoo]

Perh aps the narrator is the scene and city?

[@dr.history3567]

I'd love read it

[@SupposedlyFun]

If you do, let me know what you think!

[@JohnSims-pn9ow]

Woof!

[@alvinkoh5556]

Living as gay man in those days was dangerous but fun. If it’s not dangerous it’s not fun. In general, this book is melancholy romantic and totally unrealistic!

[@SupposedlyFun]

"If it's not dangerous, it's not fun" is a great slogan.

[@alvinkoh5556]

Supposedly Fun yes, as a big part of our life is a gamble, and gambling is exciting and addictive. That’s why gay sauna is so addictive...because like a box of chocolate, you never know what you going to get! ;)

[@alvinkoh5556]

Supposedly Fun having said that, I need to clarify that I am not a classical slut. Reputation is important Lol!

[@SupposedlyFun]

That is the best use of "life is like a box of chocolate" I have ever heard in my life, so THANK YOU! :-)