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Rating: 
Summary: Easily Monette's best book
Review: "Last Watch of the Night" gets unjustly forgotten in the light of Monette's more famous "Borrowed Time" and "Becoming a Man," but this collection of essays is a better book than either of them. This is what should have been up for the National Book Award, not "Becoming a Man."The flaws in the book: some of the essays, especially near the end, seem to drift, and are not particularly engaging. These include the soporific "Sleeping Under a Tree." Also, Monette's observations about graves of famous people in "3275" are not even close to as important and insightful as his look at his lovers' and friends' plots. However, the majority of the book shines true. Alternately bitter, angry, hopeful, and amazed, Monette's words have tremendous emotional force. He is at his best in "The Politics of Silence" and "My Priests," sometimes combining all these emotions in a single paragraph. He sees the dying all around, but can still find glimmers of hope in the conduct of those fighting AIDS. His depictions of the "last watch of the night," where he cares for his sick lover, are heart-breaking. Although Monette does tend to go off on rages or streaks of uncontained sentimentality, something which marred some otherwise stellar poetry in his book "Love Alone," most often he controls his use of language to the extent where he is able to use forceful emotional passages without drowning his readers. He does this especially well in his essay about his lover's dog, "Puck." "Last Watch of the Night" stands with his volume of poetry, "Love Alone" and non-fiction, "Borrowed Time," as essential texts of both Paul Monette and the AIDS crisis.
Rating:
Summary: Easily Monette's best book
Review: "Last Watch of the Night" gets unjustly forgotten in the light of Monette's more famous "Borrowed Time" and "Becoming a Man," but this collection of essays is a better book than either of them. This is what should have been up for the National Book Award, not "Becoming a Man." The flaws in the book: some of the essays, especially near the end, seem to drift, and are not particularly engaging. These include the soporific "Sleeping Under a Tree." Also, Monette's observations about graves of famous people in "3275" are not even close to as important and insightful as his look at his lovers' and friends' plots. However, the majority of the book shines true. Alternately bitter, angry, hopeful, and amazed, Monette's words have tremendous emotional force. He is at his best in "The Politics of Silence" and "My Priests," sometimes combining all these emotions in a single paragraph. He sees the dying all around, but can still find glimmers of hope in the conduct of those fighting AIDS. His depictions of the "last watch of the night," where he cares for his sick lover, are heart-breaking. Although Monette does tend to go off on rages or streaks of uncontained sentimentality, something which marred some otherwise stellar poetry in his book "Love Alone," most often he controls his use of language to the extent where he is able to use forceful emotional passages without drowning his readers. He does this especially well in his essay about his lover's dog, "Puck." "Last Watch of the Night" stands with his volume of poetry, "Love Alone" and non-fiction, "Borrowed Time," as essential texts of both Paul Monette and the AIDS crisis.
Rating: 
Summary: Words to *live* by!
Review: Despite and perhaps *because* of the fact that this book is written by someone in the midst of a life or death struggle with AIDS, this book is one of the most moving odes to *life* I have ever come across. From meditations on the importance (or lack thereof) of possessions to thoughts on death and dying, Monette presents a worldview, philosophy, and perspective that is rich and wise. The language he employs is beautiful, poetic, precise, serene... amazing. Some of the topics covered are disturbing and he does speak some angry words, but every one of them is just and every one of them is life-affirming.
Rating:
Summary: An advocate and critic of humanity.
Review: I recall reading this book during my brief and traumatic service in the Israeli army. In the week it took me to finish it, I was as if transported to another sphere of existence - one in which humanity reigns triumphant. As with his two other autobiographical novels, the reader gains a intimate glimpse of his thoughts and experiences. Undoubtedly, Paul Monette goes to great lengths to condemn the corruption of today's world, but side by side his essays are interwoven with instances of sheer beauty. I think his capacity to love, both his friends and his longtime (or short-time) companions is truly inspirational.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent and moving
Review: This books represents one of the finest collections of essays I have ever read. Incredibly moving and filled with the intense passion of a man dying and yet gripped by life, this book has blown me away every time I've read it -- and that's been several times. I'm not sure which essay I like best but at the moment "My Priests" stands out, as it certainly ties in to certain news regarding the Catholic clergy. I wonder what Paul Monette would have had to say about it. Absolutely a must read for anyone with a feeling heart.
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