Wanneer 'n mens 'n stromende verkoue het (oë tranerige jellie, neus 'n waterval, ens), is lees mos 'n onmoontlikheid, 'n straf. Jy wag tot jy sterker voel voor jy jou bedrus daarvoor begin gebruik. Maar dit is slegs waar as jy die verkeerde boek in die hande het: ten spyte van die swaarste verkoue in maande het Maupin se THE NIGHT LISTENER my saans uit die slaap gehou, my snags besig gehou wanneer ek ongemaklik wakker word, en my in my energielose toestand voortgedryf tot ek die roman van 344 bladsye binne enkele dae verslind het.Maupin stel Gabriel Noone aan die woord, 'n skrywer wat kort, gemoedelike stukkies skryf en oor die radio voorlees en 'n stem vir die rustige, behoudende element in die gay gemeenskap geword het. 'n Uitgewersvriend stuur aan hom 'n manuskrip van 'n dertienjarige seun. Hierin vertel die seun Pete 'n verhaal só verskriklik, maar met só 'n sterk ontwikkelde skryfvermoë, dat Gabriel totaal ontroer word. Hy en Pete begin mekaar bel, veral in die klein ure van die nag.En dit is nie alleen Pete wat baat by die middeljarige Gabriel se lewenswysheid nie; aangesien Gabriel se lewe en die aannames waarop dit gebaseer is, stadig maar seker om hom lostrek, is Pete dikwels 'n vraagsteller wat Gabriel by belangrike insigte uitbring - omtrent Jesse, sy metgesel van meer as 'n dekade wat onlangs uit die huis getrek het; omtrent Gabriel se verhouding met sy eie pa, suster en stiefma; omtrent die manier waarop hy waarlik die lewe bejeën. Maar miskien trek dinge nie werklik los nie: miskien begin hulle bloot hul ware kleure toon.THE NIGHT LISTENER is 'n roman à clef (wat lekker as Wikipedia jou slim kan laat klink!) - 'n roman met 'n sleutel. Die sleutel is dat die roman voorgee om fiksioneel te wees, maar dit is maklik om die verwantskap met die feitelike en bewysbare werklikheid aan te toon. Gaan lees gerus oor die literêre loopbaan van Anthony Godby Johnson - ek het iewers in die 1990's sy boek A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE gelees, ten diepste geskok oor die mens se vermoë om boos te wees. Het ek voor die lees van Maupin se boek al geweet my verstomming moet eintlik wees met hoe die mens betower word deur boosheid? Ewenwel, Maupin speel 'n ondersteunende rol in die Godby Johnson-saga.Benewens roman à clef is THE NIGHT LISTENER 'n metaroman, 'n verhaal wat sigself skryf voor die oë van die leser. Hierdie narratief oor twee skrywer-psiges wat by mekaar aanklank vind, kon natuurlik nie eintlik iets anders wees nie, en daar word jakkalsdraaiend met jou kop gesmokkel, liewe leser. Wanneer jy agterkom die skrywer manipuleer darem nou, vra jouself af: Watter skrywer? Maupin? Of eerder Noone? Miskien Pete? Nes jy dink die teks is klaar omdat daar staan THE END, is daar nog 'n Afterword deur GN. En sodra jy dink dié paar bladsye sluit alles netjies af, erken AM in die Acknowledgements die hulp van die uitsonderlike Britse skrywer Patrick Gale met die ontrafeling van sy eie verlede sodat hy dit kon fiksionaliseer.Jy maak dus die boek uitasem toe en wag op beterskap - en 'n herleeskans.Ja-ja, as verwysings na enkele (redelik oppervlakkige) gay sekspraktyke jou laat gril, gaan verby - maar gaan voel skuldig in die hoekie oor al die gedetailleerde straight seks wat ek al in my lewe moes deurmaak om literêr te kon saampraat. Die lewe is meer kompleks as jou ervaring!Die vyf sterre vir THE NIGHT LISTENER is anders as my vyf sterre vir Maupin se TALES OF THE CITY-reeks. Dáár was dit onder meer vir Maupin se status as "gay warm fuzzy" - sy politieke standpunt om in die Amerikaanse kultuurkookpot van die 1970's ook gay mense se alledaagse ervarings, ekstases en mislukkings in te roer - natuurlik sou hy geen indruk gemaak het as hy 'n swak skrywer was nie. Maar hier, nog meer as vroeër, bewys Maupin hom as meester van die woord, beeld, sin, dialoog en karakter (kyk na die vernuftige skakel met TALES!). Meer nog: hy is meester van die moontlikheid, van potensiaal. En dít maak THE NIGHT LISTENER vir my so opwindend.[Armistead Maupin's THE NIGHT LISTENER links in a small way with his famous TALES OF THE CITY sequence, but is a story of a different kind: it fictionalises an event in his life with which it would have been difficult to deal. In the process he forges a complicated metanarrative about writers and writing, playing virtuoso games with the reader. Highly satisfying, seriously recommended.]
I started reading this in 2006 and just recently picked it up and read the last 150 pages. I tend to think the essay at the back of the book detailing the sad story of "Anthony Godby Johnson" and the sad, disturbed woman who invented him is more interesting than the book itself.This novel is very firmly etched within its own time and place, about a person who is fairly famous within his own narrow community and fathoms very little outside of it. Gabriel Noone is coddled within his own community and is startled when he has to step outside of it and go to the Midwest (!) and encounter people who have never heard of him. Perhaps if he were more open-minded, it would have been easier for him to realize that the conversations he had with Pete/Tony were not the typical conversations one has with a boy in his early teens, and that there is little chance that a child could have played the role that he did for him.I think that's what happened with the real "Tony", and why so many people were duped by him. Most of them were celebrities, who existed and thrived in a very narrow community. It was easy for them to believe that a teenage boy could perform all these roles for them, because they lived so apart from how the wider public lived and behaved. Of course, celebrities weren't the only victims. But without a face and an identity apart from what he presented online, it was easy for even more "worldly" people to believe he was anything they wanted him to be.It seems that "Tony" pretty much disappeared after he was "outed" in 2001, and that the revelation that the photos of him that had circulated for 14 years were actually photos his alter ago had stolen of her grade school students killed him off for good. Her "protector" died soon afterwards, and I've wondered if she would try to play the old role that she once did. I haven't seen evidence of this, but I also wonder why no one went after this woman for the money that she conned out of others. To add to the intrigue, Lesley Karsten, who supposedly married a fake personality created byVicki Zackheim and took over her role as caregiver of her nonexistent son, is still carrying on the last name of her fake husband. For some, the mystery still lives on. Intriguing.But I guess I better get back to the novel. Like I said, Gabriel Noone is a celebrity in one of those very cloistered communities, the LGBT community of San Francisco of the 80s and 90s. The novel takes place right as AIDS is becoming a manageable condition, and a lot of it centers around the sex life of Noone and his ex husband (he wants to be monogamous: his ex, now that he has realized he isn't going to die, doesn't). At the time this book took place, Gabriel could imagine himself an outsider, but a decade later that isn't the case anymore. We can talk about these things more frankly, but I still wonder if the very un PC nature of Jess's sex life would even allow a book like this to be published. Yet even as I read over this book, I realize how much I am outside it, and how so many of us today are outside it. There is no room for the libertarian, the gay positive pro lifer, the tattooed, gothed-out, born again Christian in Gabriel's world. We don't judge him, but he judges us.Perhaps if it hadn't been that way, there would have been no need for a Tony Johnson, or his fictional counterpart. The real result is here in the huddled masses, the dread "red states", the despised "Tea Partiers". I wouldn't be surprised if Vicki Johnson was among one of those groups in the first place, and chose a very twisted way of making herself matter.Maybe that's not it at all. But it is an interesting theory.
What do You think about The Night Listener (2000)?
"המאזין הלילי" הוא אחד מהספרים היפים והעוצמתיים שקראתי השנה. הוא מעלה שאלות על היחס בין אמת ובדיה, על היכולת להאמין בטוב האנושי וביכולת שלנו, כבני אדם, לקבל אהבה כפשוטה.גבריאל נון, סופר מצליח הקורא מסיפוריו בתוכנית רדיו לילית, נמצא בנקודת שבר בחיו כאשר פיט לומקס, נער בן 13, נכנס במפתיע לשביל חיו. אט אט מתוך הסיפור המרכזי של גבריאל ומערכת יחסיו עם בן זוגו ג'ס נטווית רשת קורים של סיפורים קטנים, אנושיים, שאוחזת בחוזקה בלב הקורא.כשסיימתי את הספר, רק נותר לי להצטער שלא תורגמו עוד ספרים מאת מופין.וציטוט שמאוד דיבר אלי, כי אולי ככה גם אני מרגישה במערכות היחסים שלי -"בשעת בין ערבים לקחתי את הוגו לטיול בשולי היער, בניסיון לעשות לי סדר בראש. ועלה בדעתי דבר מה מטריד: הקשר שלי עם פיט יש בו דמיון מובהק לקשר שהיה לי עם ג'ס. בשני המקרים פיצלתי את עצמי לשני אנשים, שאחד מהם מסוגל לאהבה חסרת פחד, ללא תנאים, ואילו האחר, ממתין בחישוק שיניים לאפשרות שבכל רגע יכה המוות, מזהיר אותי שלא אתמסר כליל." (189)מומלץ בחום!"המאזין הלילי", ארמסטיד מופיןהוצאת עם עובד, 2004, 344 עמודים
—Siv30
I'm a long-time fan of Armistead Maupin's work, so I dipped into this book with excitement. I was not disappointed. This is a both a story about a storyteller and a story about a story. Although based loosely on actual events that happened in Maupin's life, there is plenty bejeweling of the elephant going on here. I'm so glad I happened to notice that this book existed - somehow I had been unaware until it popped up when I searched for something else. The Night Listener is emotionally engaging without being traumatizing to read, and Maupin is as always a master storyteller.
—Hillary
After reading the book, I'm not sure why the trailers for the movie tried to pass it off as a thriller - it's not creepy or scary or anything. It's a mind puzzle and a mystery, but I guess Hollywood thinks its audience won't enjoy something cerebral (they did the same thing with Stephen King's Secret Window; its advertising campaign puzzles me to this day). The neatest thing about the book is that it's based on something that actually happened to the author. The copy of the book I have contains an article from The New Yorker that sums up the real-life story, which is pretty similar to the novel. I'm not sure how I feel about the plot device thrown in during the afterword; in some ways, I feel like the story itself is complete enough without adding this new layer, and in other ways I feel like it folds right into the overall themes of the book.I've never read Maupin's Tales of the City books, but I'm more inclined to now after seeing what a capable author he is. Even though the bulk of The Night Listener is made up of phone calls, it moves forward quickly and never stalls.
—Brooke
