It is a calm Tuesday afternoon in East Pyne. An eager group of Francophiles has gathered in the Romance Languages and Literatures lounge to hear a reading by creative writing professor Edmund White.
White sits, relaxed, in a deep-seated wooden chair, one leg languidly crossed over the other. Wearing a smart black blazer, his dress shirt unbuttoned at the top, glasses enclosing his bright eyes in two black circles, White has a remarkably tranquil presence that puts the entire room at ease.
This aura is particularly apropos because White is reading from his latest offering, a slender non-fiction work on the flaneur — the token "stroller" of Paris who gains a keen understanding of the City of Lights from his many discursive adventures through its boulevards. White reads in his charismatic, amusing tenor, a voice that engages the listener with every dip and pejorative remark. The whole room listens in silent assent, the only sound the occasional laugh that seems as if to say, "How very true."
Capturing the truth of life seems to come like breathing to White. It is sometimes hard to believe the number of overwhelming life experiences he has had, and it is truly fascinating to realize that an individual so integral to civil rights and to literature is a flaneur not only of Paris but of the Princeton campus.
A day later, in his rectangular office in 185 Nassau St., White seems to mirror the brightness of the sun-washed walls with his brilliant smile. He is always eager to answer questions, to tell stories, to explain some of the mystery and excitement of his life. This energy attests to his status as a prominent writer. One can see his unstoppable, writerly urge to live, laugh and observe.
Born in 1940 in Cincinnati, Ohio, White was destined for a unique life. After moving to Evanston, Ill., and attending the prestigious Cranbrook Academy, he studied Chinese at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1962. Soon, White was working in the literary field as an editor at Time-Life Books in New York City.
In New York, White had the distinction of being present at the ground-breaking Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, an event that most consider to be the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. It was, however, during the years following Stonewall that White's presence became universally important to the gay rights movement.
In 1973, he published his first novel, "Forgetting Elena." Dealing with Fire Island, a resort community governed by the strictest of manners, this work ingeniously addresses the topic of personal identity in relation to societal expectations.
Although it can be read as a "gay" work, the novel is written in an allegorical tone that pertains to all individuals trying to find their niches in society.
In the late 1970s, with six other gay writers, White formed the Violet Quill, a group dedicated to discussing and critiquing its members' original work. This network allowed White to hone his writing skills and enter more smoothly into the literary world. "We were openly gay writers addressing ourselves to a gay readership of people equivalently sophisticated," White said frankly.
"At the time, gays had so few people who were visible," he added. White hoped to change that.
The year, 1977 saw the publication of "The Joy of Gay Sex," an illustrated manual for homosexual couples on various positions and pleasures for intercourse. A companion to Alex Comfort's radically popular, heterosexual "The Joy of Sex," the manual was written by White and Dr. Charles Silverstein, a sexologist who was, interestingly enough, chosen along with White to write the book. Although a milestone in homosexual literature, the book underwent a legal battle in Canada, where it faced severe censorship.
"At the time, it was a real strive forward for normalizing gay sex," White said of the manual. "It was really one-third about lifestyle and two-thirds about sex."
In 1980, White published "States of Desire: Travels in Gay America," a travelogue that details gay life in America just before the outbreak of AIDS. In the work, White aimed to address what he calls now the "empty ecological niche" of the American homosexual. He was able to reveal in writing the various types of gay lifestyles: closeted homosexuals, blacks and whites, S&M enthusiasts, pederasts — they all appeared in candid form, in what White calls "the first real turn to realism."
In 1982, White published the first book in his trilogy of "coming-out" novels. Arguably the first modern novel on coming out of the closet, "A Boy's Own Story," like many of White's works of fiction, is largely autobiographical. It deals with a boy in the 1950s who must come to terms with his sexual orientation — in spite of his family, his friends, and his own conscience. The sheer honesty of this work and its narrator heralded a new chapter in gay literary history.
In 1999, the Publishing Triangle, an association of gays and lesbians in publishing, acknowledged the importance of the work when compiling its list of the 100 Best Gay Novels, placing "A Boy's Own Story" at no. 14. Also on the list was "The Beautiful Room Is Empty," which, along with "The Farewell Symphony," continued White's trilogy. No. one was "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann.
To communicate in prose the daunting transformation from the closeted to the open homosexual, White says, "I decided to write about one person, and I couldn't think of anyone better than myself to write about."
Nevertheless, White is also extremely adept at writing about other people. In 1993, he received a National Book Critic's Circle Award for his impressive biography of the French novelist and playwright, Jean Genet. He also wrote a biography of the prolific author Marcel Proust in 1998. It is yet another impressive work, even though White quite humbly refers to it as "a tiny little thing."
"The Flaneur," another shorter work, extols the French sagesse that White acquired by living in Paris for 16 years.
The most admirable quality of White's writing about Paris is that he does not attempt to paint himself as a Frenchman. Although a European at heart, he knows very well that he is an expatriate, and he seeks to immerse himself in the culture and write of what he has learned instead of presuming to tell the American and the Frenchman alike what he inherently knows.
White is a student of the city, an observer of the Parisian. At the same time, he is an academic and a literary enthusiast, his knowledge of French literature and culture boundless. In common speech, he is able to refer to a host of French works. Not surprisingly, then, he holds the remarkable distinction of being an officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters.
In the sweeping yet strikingly believable atmosphere of his most recent novel, "The Married Man," White presents a literary version of his relationship with the late French artist Hubert Sorin, who passed away from AIDS in 1994. Much of the story takes place in the Paris of the late 1980s, a time period extremely important to White, who tested positive for HIV in 1985.
In the work, we see gay life unmasked — as it really is. One of the detriments of early gay literature, White says, was its misleading portrayal of gay life as an unwelcome, unwanted existence.
"It never portrayed gay love and gay friendship," he said. "It was always a sort of doomed tragedy. I wanted to change that."
Indeed, White succeeds in changing that in all his writing. There is always a touching intensity, the reality of the subject matter increasing the emotional exigency of his novels' scenes. The characters never cease to be anything but convincing and utterly real. The writing is a carefully wrought mixture of candor and culture, metaphor and mystique.
In addition, White never forgets his responsibility as a chronicler of sexuality. Instead of being graphic, the sexual scenes of his fiction are simply honest. There is a straightforward tone that seeks to convey both sensuality and the presence of safe sex as a perpetual area of concern for the gay male.
"Early gay literature dealt with sex in a formulaic way," White explained. "It was like pornography. Its purpose was to arouse you. My writing aims instead to be realistic and somewhat comic."
He leans forward and interjects, with classic Edmund White wit: "I defy anyone to get an erection while reading my work."
All the same, passion permeates White's stories. One of his biggest strengths as a writer is his ability to translate the passion of one venue to another with tantamount acuity. In "The Married Man," we are whisked from the streets of White's Gay Paris to the water-sloshed canals of Venice to the vastness of Marrakesh, always aware of the emotional genius of the author's craft.
In spite of his genius, White is impressively easy to talk to. Light-hearted and witty, he spreads warmth in any setting — from behind a lectern, from the chair in his office, from a seat in the lounge of East Pyne. It is no surprise, therefore, that he is consistently spoken of as one of the favorite professors of the Program in Creative Writing, which boasts a star-studded lineup of writers unparalleled in their field.
Danielle Lindemann '02, a student who chose White for a second class after enjoying her first one with him so much, praises his professionalism. "Professor White always takes my writing seriously," she said. "It seems like he really enjoys teaching these seminars.
"He always has really great insights into human behavior and psychology," she added. "Basically, he's just a really interesting person."
Above all, there is this interesting person's glow, his charm and his acute observation. After all his literary masterpieces and shining life experiences, it is Edmund White himself who remains the greatest work of art.
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