Plays Well with Others

Rating:
Summary: Compelling, witty, poignant--but a little too cute
Review: "Works Well with Others" portrays a group of young artists transplanted to New York City, desperately seeking fame and fortune, only to have their careers and lives interrupted by the onset of AIDS. The lead character, Hartley Mims, arrives in 1980; an aspiring writer from North Carolina, he reminds the reader of--well, of Allan Gurganus. Fifteen years later, Hartley writes "The Voyage As I Saw It," about his years in New York and the many friends he lost to "the plague," and the resulting "memoir" makes up the entirety of "Plays Well with Others."

Two other friends--the pretty-boy, wannabe composer Robert Gustafson, and the tomboyish, wannabe artist Angie (Alabama) Byrnes--round out a trio of bohemians in the West Village. Just how much of the biographical detail is truly autobiographical is left to the reader's imagination, but there are many obvious events from Gurganus's life that make their way into the novel and one suspects that this is as much a heartfelt tribute as it is a work of fiction.

Composed as a series of vignettes (told more or less linearly), the prose is impressionistic, filled with sentence fragments, puns, catty asides, inverted clauses. When Gurganus is good, he's astonishing: one of the most brilliant chapters recounts the visit of Hartley's parents to his friends' hangout, where his embittered father shatters the joviality with one well-timed sentence. Likewise, the reader experiences the satisfaction of being published for the first time, the torment of waiting for HIV results, the moment when Hartley notices a telltale spot on Robert's arm.

Yet, every so often, what is paraded as oh-so-clever authentic vernacular strikes the reader as just-too-cute authorial affectation: "Each of us tried on personae like cheap and brilliant store-bought ascots, sometimes a few a day." "So, being unrequited love, it was never solitude, more socialism." "Do I idealize our early idealism?" Similarly, Gurganus's metaphors for AIDS (the sinking of the Titanic, the state of his address book) are initially shrewd and appropriate but eventually exasperating and overwrought. The author just doesn't know where to stop.

Even his portrayals are more than a little unreal. Robert is repeatedly and cloyingly described, in one form or another, as "the prettiest boy in New York of his decade." (Trust me: there is, and has never been, such a person. Beauty in this town lasts about five minutes; then the crowd is on to someone else.) It's hard to tell just how seriously Gurganus means this incessant flatter patter. Late in the book, he seems to apologize: "by now, you're probably so sick of hearing the exact color of his pale eyelashes." Even the fictional Robert scolds Hartley's/Allan's literary excesses: "Your weakness is this hero worship. Gets in the ways of your characters' seeming real." Exactly. But Gurganus's self-awareness of the ludicrousness of this portrait doesn't excuse it. And, finally, the cameos by two other friends (Gideon and Marco) are so emphatically defined by their ethnicities that they are little more than tokens, in the worst sense of the word.

These faults mar what is otherwise a compelling, funny, witty, emotional, even sentimental (but rarely manipulative) ode to the West Village in the 1980s. Some readers may find the book's "cuteness" less grating than I did, but I do think that a little less self-absorption would have shown Gurganus on top (rather than over the top) of his game.

Rating:
Summary: overly-indulgent, but a good read
Review: "Plays Well with Others" is a well-crafted, well-told story, but I though the author over-idealized his subjects to such a point that I never found myself invested in them. I felt hammered repeatedly by Gurganus' proclamations of how talented Robert, Hartley and Angie were and what a great loss to the world it was to have these artists taken out of the world - because their demise would have been less of a tragedy if they had been any less great? I just didn't buy into how perfect everything was before "it" happened, and consequently I didn't buy into the characters.

That said, there are parts of the novel that are fantastic and it was really a good read.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites
Review: "Plays Well with Others" is one of my favorite books of the last few years. It's written in an unusual style that takes some getting used to, but the characters and relationships are outstanding. I've read it a few times now, and it never fails to make me emotional.

Rating:
Summary: At last, a truly terrific gay-themed novel...
Review: After reading one dreadful gay-themed novel after another, all of which seem to be on either a quasi-Lolita theme or "wacky and biting" drag queen humor, at last here's one for the grown-ups. Plays Well With Others is spectacularly written, fearlessly plotted, and, oh yeah, hysterical and sad, too.

I'll admit, my heart sank a bit on reading the blurb ("Here we go again with another AIDS memoir"). Callous as that feeling was, Gurganus still manages to take well-tread ground and make it seem like the first time you've heard it. I didn't want to stop reading, especially after I had laughed out loud at the first ten pages (It involves a specific number of dildoes and has to be read to be believed). The book continues in that vein, finally culminating in a short story about angels that's one of the best short sections of writing put to paper since "Pafko At The Wall."

I've already bought this book as a gift twice, and I can't recommend i! t any higher that that.

Rating:
Summary: At last, a truly terrific gay-themed novel...
Review: After reading one dreadful gay-themed novel after another, all of which seem to be on either a quasi-Lolita theme or "wacky and biting" drag queen humor, at last here's one for the grown-ups. Plays Well With Others is spectacularly written, fearlessly plotted, and, oh yeah, hysterical and sad, too.

I'll admit, my heart sank a bit on reading the blurb ("Here we go again with another AIDS memoir"). Callous as that feeling was, Gurganus still manages to take well-tread ground and make it seem like the first time you've heard it. I didn't want to stop reading, especially after I had laughed out loud at the first ten pages (It involves a specific number of dildoes and has to be read to be believed). The book continues in that vein, finally culminating in a short story about angels that's one of the best short sections of writing put to paper since "Pafko At The Wall."

I've already bought this book as a gift twice, and I can't recommend i! t any higher that that.

Rating:
Summary: Gurganus live......
Review: Allan Gurganus spoke on UNC Chapel Hill's campus tonight, and he gave a brilliant reading of the last section of Plays Well With Others. Our collective reactions told all about this man's writing and what it does to you as you get caught up and swept along in his novel. We laughed with disbelief and delight at what he can say but then, suddenly, realized there was not smiling face and that he's (once again) taken you from the height of gaity and absurdity right to your gut. Just below the ribs, where you really feel a great novel. And that's what Plays Well With Others does. Disregard the issues, because they're bigger than a mere commentary can address. This novel is a triumph of language and words and what they can do to you, how they can make you feel and life and experience. Afterwards, he talked about Proust and Shakespeare, evident influences on his absolutely musical language. Read it, and read the good parts again - out loud. You'll understand.

Just in case you don't believe me - I've had to turn my copy over to mom for hiding. It's exam week and I wouldn't have studied a minute until I'd read it all!!!

Rating:
Summary: Does NOT Play Well At All
Review: As difficult as it was, I struggled through every last page of this much anticipated novel in the hopes that I would come across the epiphany needed to pull this story out of its meandering darkness. First, let me say that though this may be a highly personal subject for the author, this material would be better presented as a memoir or autobiography, if it is indeed pulled from real life. I certainly am not criticizing anyoneÕs feeling of loss. That said, this novel is bad. It is a predictable and clichŽ ÒAIDS storyÓ, one that we have read and read so many times in the past decade (i.e. "we were all so young, we were all the most beautiful, we all had the most potential, we all had tons of sex and did lots of drugs at the most fabulous celebrity-studded parties ever, and then, we all died before we realized our potential"). Anyone with half a brain realizes there's more to the story than that, though it is what seems to be repeatedly force-fed to us by publishers in one imitative novel after another, with the exception of a very few smart inciteful works. I doubt that the novel as a form has anything more to say on the subject (although other forms certainly do!), but if it does it is not to be found here. ..........Here we are presented with such stereotypical characters and storylines and settings that at first I thought it was meant to be satirical: we have the Òprettiest boy in New York of his decadeÓ; the feisty-but-talented gal-pal, both of whom, of course, are doomed; and the artist (writer) struggling with acceptance and New York fame and the oh-so superior talent and sexual prowess of his (doomed) friends. Why does Robert have to be the most beautiful, the universal type, the most-desired lay? The truth, especially about New York, which seems to be missed here, is that in New York there is no star that so brightly outshines the city itself...there are no ultimates here...just lots of passing glory, meanwhile the cityÕs own story continues, relentless. The use of hyperbole immediately made me feel remote and distanced from these characters, because they were types, not people, so I could never put myself into the narratorÕs head and heart as I was reading. It all seemed so fake. Even by trying to ÒhumanizeÓ these two by showing us their human flaws, I was more tempted to laugh than to feel compassion (e.g. Robert, the super-beauty, is ÒcaughtÓ going to an AA meeting, a subject which his best friends then never discuss with him...ever!) It reads more like a soap opera than high opera. There is no element of surprise, no twist, no turn...itÕs like sleepwalking through a plotline. That, combined with characters that feel very much thrown in and underdeveloped (Gideon and Marco) whoÕs respective deaths at the end of the novel are handled with overbearing attention thatÕs seems to come out of nowhere. Who are these characters? They barely flit through earlier pages and suddenly we have this direct focus on their deaths and itÕs effect. ..........Although there are moments of beautiful and poignant writing (including the appended Òshort storyÓ), this book is screaming for a good editor (although it deserves a nod for an excellent jacket design by Chip Kidd). It is so disjoint, so filled with triteness and heavy-handed allusion and attempts at symbolism (MahlerÕs Kindertotenlieder, the sinking of the Titanic as subject matter for an unfinished symphonic piece (especially laughable in light of the current incarnation on Broadway)...where was the editor on this book? ItÕs truly a shame, because Gurganus has certainly shown us in the past (and in a few glimpses here) what a beautiful writer he can be. I took my copy to a used bookstore to sell, as I could not honestly even give it to friend with a recommendation to read it. I would not recommend this book to anyone...even die-hard Gurganus fans, and certainly not to anyone looking for new light or revelation on the AIDS epidemic which is still so much a part of all of our lives, the artistic community in the Eighties, or gay life, love and relationship. And that truly saddens me.

Rating:
Summary: Felled by over-ambition?
Review: Ever since reading the masterly "White People" four years ago, I've periodically ransacked London bookshops looking for more work by Alan Gurganus. Imagine my pleasure earlier this year upon seeing "Plays well with Others" on the shelves. (The UK edition comes armed with a Keith Haring graphic on the cover so the casual bookbuyer is better prepared for the AIDS storyline than a purchaser of the American edition might be.) The pleasure was however more mixed than before.

"Plays Well" has moments of sheer perfection, particularly the interlude at the narrator's parents in Florida,a self-contained short story on some of the same familial themes as "White People". There's a wonderfully evocative vignette of an Austrian Jewish widow at Carnegie Hall (which Gurganus read on BBC Radio in a recent trip across the pond) and Robert's death-scene is handled with striking sureness of touch. "A perfect blond pebble skips three times across the lake's surface. Then, the next try, it skips just once. A third, in every way identical, it only sinks. But it settles right where you can - in water this clear - see it go straight down and rest upon its side there on the very very cold very bottom." The closing plot twist haunts you long after you put the book down and the novel's style, although initially offputting, and considerably more baroque than "White People", ends up dazzling you. Defoe's "Journal of the Plague Year" is deftly used to point up the parallels with earlier pandemics.

It's not all positives. The characterisation throughout is pretty thin (Robert seems to exist purely as a symbol not as a person) and the recurring metaphor of the Titanic is heavy-handed. The opening "dildo scene" works well as a piece of bravura PR but seems at odds with the tone of the rest of the book. For a book chiefly set in the pre-Aids West Village there's remarkably little sex. Hartley is more monastic than libidinous, holding up the values of friendship and solidarity while Robert screws and Angie pushes her way to the top of the art world.

"Plays Well" succeeds through accumulation. You have to read it in long concentrated sessions so as to get the full force of the author's unapologetically personal style. It's a book of symbols more than characters. I was left intrigued about the play-off between fiction and autobiography. Were these events just too recent & painful for the author to be able to sketch his own lost friends with more individuality? Was it easier to commemorate "composite icons" like Robert than to remember real losses? Or is this a failing born of over-ambition: the desire to memorialise an entire generation? Peter Cameron's "The Weekend" was, in the final reckoning, a more moving AIDS memoir, because it focussed on a single loss not the half-dozen or so of "Plays Well". I'd be fascinated to hear how other readers rate Gurganus against Cameron.

Rating:
Summary: Quite wonderful, a little long
Review: First, if you liked _...Confederate Widow..._, you will not necessarily like this book. They are two completely different creatures, with two completely different stories, atmospheres, and styles. Coming to _Plays Well With Others_ from the other book expecting a symmetry...it would do a great disservice to both works.

Also, don't be turned away (or hastily drawn) by some people calling this a "gay book". Sure, Hartley Mims is gay. Sure, so are a lot of his friends. But that's not the point. The point is that these -people- are all on an unstoppable journey to tragedy. Gurganus brings a great urgency to their struggles, as artists, as homosexuals, as heterosexuals, as poor New York city faces, just people trying to burn bright before they get snuffed out.

This book is very good. It's a good story, it's very funny, it's also quite sad and often over-dramatic. A big plus is that Hartley's parents are an important part of the book-it only adds to the quickly emptying portrait of Hartley's world. Certain episodes leap from the book as memorable, while many other fade after you've read them. However, the main problem with the book is that it is very very long.

With the urgent pace set in the beginning of the book, Gurganus loses much of the speed when, in fact, speed becomes the biggest issue. When everyone around him begins to get ill, the speed, the frequency, the desperation suddenly begins to be drawn out, effectively nullifying the rapid effects of the disease on the narrator's world. The reader loses a lot of possibilities to feel Hartley's world disintegrating. Hartley tells us how quickly it all happened, but it isn't told that way. It really isn't even told as if we should feel that those quick months seemed interminably long.

One note to those reading. When the Appendix is referred to in the text, I advise you to immediately skip to the end and read it. I read it after completing the book, and it felt very out of place.

Rating:
Summary: SIMPLY DISAPPOINTING
Review: For years, I couldn't wait to have another Gurganus work in myhandsafter reading his two most brilliant books (OLDEST LIVING CONFEDERATE WIDOW TELLS ALL and WHITE PEOPLE). The very first day PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS came out, I bought it and returned the book 4 days later after reading the first few chapters. Very disappointing. Not one single sentence caught my attention and strangely the style of writing is entirely different from his earlier works. As a gay man, I thought I'd simply adore this story dealing with gay men in NYC, etc but it turned out to be increcibly boring (same old sh--) and too dated. Nothing refreshing or enlightening.