…The diaries of David Wojnarowicz…
I chose this book purely on the strength of its title, it is, I think, the last book I bought in Tokyo, where you had to take what you could get.
It was slow going, mostly because it contained rather more graphic detail than I was comfortable with about some of his sexual encounters. Though there was a lot of good context material the first two thirds of the book did rather concentrate on things I really didn’t want to read about.
Things got interesting when his friends started getting ill, at that point you get the feeling that his view on life changed, from the live-forever view of a teenager to a rather more fragile and mortal man. After this things spiral down into his own illness and depression that goes with it.
Theres a telling moment where he’s on a roadtrip with a friend but shes not talking about details of her life when he’s been opening up about his – he gets upset that he feels she doesn’t trust him any more and goes into a sulk. These are precious days for him, he knows he doesn’t have much longer but can’t bring himself not to be angry, equally doesn’t express that in such a way it can be solved, perhaps not even open to the idea it could be fixed.
No happy ending, obviously, there rarely is with biographies or diaries, but this has gotten me thinking about the final days, what they’ll look like. More importantly, what I should be doing now, before getting to the point where I know my final days are coming imminently.
Should you read this book? Maybe, if you’re less prudish about homosexual relationships than me and (probably) if you know his works, this will be a worthwhile insight into how they came to be. Me? I won’t read it again, but I think I understand people a bit more now. And certainly understand mortality a bit more. And I’m not sure I like it.
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