My Queer War (2010) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters/People edit see section history

• James Lord: Author, memoirist and critic.
• Pablo Picasso: Artist
• Gertrude Stein: Writer
• Thomas Mann: Writer

Quotes edit see section history

• “P.13: Consider the Sacred Band of ancient Greece, those 150 couples of soldier lovers, incorruptible hoplites, faithful to one another till death, homosexuality winning pride of place in the heartland of civilization.”

• “P.50: How can you tell just when the person you like becomes the one you love? Or just why? You may recall where this happened, never forget what the clock said. But your mind spins in the space of the marvellous, the dazing conjecture of the physical and stupefying transformation of survival. Yes. A lifetime in an instant.”

• “P.63: Taking risks to show that a lifetime lived without a willingness to take risks shows up a life devoid of anything worth risking.”

• “P.67: They say that no matter how fitfully you sleep you actually sleep even when you're lying awake all night long.”

• “P.166: My first view of France came as a piercing disappointment, for the Norman coastline resembles many another seashore, and I had been looking forward to a sight surpassing the capacity for surprise. That of course is why I failed to see a future of perpetual enchantment spread before me, because either genius or a lifetime of lucid hindsight is necessary to perceive the amazement concealed in the commonplace.”

• “P.200: Thus, in the midafternoon of Sunday, December 3, I came out of the Gare St. Lazare for the first time. Albeit grimy and grey, Paris was glorious, everything I had ever wanted it to be, and I had wanted it to be everything I had ever wanted. All the sights were the most beautiful in all the world, and I gazed at them all. I also had an eye on beautiful young men, having forgotten for months how beautiful beautiful young men could be. However, I'd not forgotten that I'd come to Paris with the hope of satisfying a desire more spiritual than sexual.”

• “P.310: And I thought that if writing is to become a reality someday for a writer, then what he must to do in consideration — precisely — of his emotions is to write, to write at length, interminably, to write his heart out, so to speak, in order to make readable writings out of his emotions.”

• “P.315-316: I wished for nothing more than freedom to do as I pleased day and night in this captivating city, call on Picasso, Gertrude Stein, visit art galleries, and linger on the boulevards, bridges, esplanades, gazing at palaces, places or worship, and seats of state. Oh, and occasionally making love with Roger.”

• “P.323: When we went to make our visit, it was a rainbow day of later summer, and any youth in Paris then could feel that he held the wide world in both hands simply by being alive.”

• “P.337: And always to remember that everything in an individual's experience has a meaning, nothing is truly accidental, what may appear to be a happening is in reality an act.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• “We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”

  Highlighted by 8 Kindle customers

• “You were wise to be punctual. Genius makes every moment momentous.”

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• though surrounded entirely by men, whom I saw not only clothed but naked daily in the showers, I felt no sexual hunger for any of them despite a nagging awareness of which ones were attractive or might even be gay.

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• “A picture lives life like a living creature, undergoing the changes imposed upon us by our life from day to day. This is natural enough, as the picture lives only through the man who is looking at it.”

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• And always to remember that everything in an individual’s experience has a meaning, nothing is truly accidental, what may appear to be a happening is in reality an act.

  Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers

• All adventure, of course, is concerned with going somewhere, attaining a destination, whether actual or spiritual, one remote from a point of departure. It will entail a search or a quest, which may lead to a definitive meeting with oneself.

  Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers

• Taking risks to show that a lifetime lived without a willingness to take risks shows up a life devoid of anything worth risking.

  Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers

• the passion of fighting men for fighting made lust ever more fierce, the war had passed me by even as I was pledged to its wherewithal.

  Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers

• that abominable thing called a homosexual, a loathsome mistake of nature, a cultural criminal

  Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers

• Our relation to both experience and existence is consequently an inexplicable one of which no responsible account can realistically be expected.

  Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 940.544973092

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › History › Military › World War II › Personal Narratives
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Professionals & Academics › Military & Spies
• Books › Gay & Lesbian › Biographies & Memoirs › Gay
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Leaders & Notable People › Military
• Books › Gay & Lesbian › Nonfiction
• Books › Gay & Lesbian › History
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Memoirs