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I came home with red ink still wet on my fingers. That cheap pen exploded on me as I graded tests from my freshman literature course. Must have been anger, feeding through my fingertips into the pen. I felt like the Mrs in the Scottish play, and felt even worse that it was such an inelegant and obvious metaphor for the interior life I purport to have.
I'd taken over the course from a retiring professor. It was my opportunity to prove myself and place my stamp on the syllabus while still fulfilling the expectations of the department. But I had to accept their 'suggestion' that I keep 'Death In Venice' on the reading list—after all, I'm only an assistant professor. It's one step up from adjunct, so I shouldn't be complaining.
But I hate that story with a fuckin' passion: I hate the prose, I hate the voice, its so-called ironic quality (irony my foot), I hate what the story says about human beings, and about queers in particular. And I have to use the sucky translation.
I mean, enough with stories about love and death. Scratch that, enough with stupid, superficial and grandiose stories about love and death, especially with queers. It's a NAMBLA fantasy with Nazi overtones, and the day it goes out of print, it'll be a great day for faggots everywhere. Pardon my French.
-- Aldo Alvarez, “Flatware”
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