I suppose I should have read NOCTURNES FOR THE KING OF NAPLES first, followed by THE FAREWELL SYMPHONY. But I didn’t.They both cover the same stories, characters and events from White's life. But THE FAREWELL SYMPHONY, whose title references a Haydn piece where each orchestra member stops playing and leaves the stage one by one until only two muted violins remain, is much more autobiographical. Pioneering gay author Edmund White tells us about losing his lover to AIDS in Paris while intercutting to memories throughout his life—memories of loves and losses, parents and family and friends, traveling and writing. But especially losses. The early years of AIDS, the seemingly unending deaths of friends, and the weekly or almost daily funerals are all told with heartbreaking starkness. Each friend, each orchestra member leaves one after the other, the sound of life growing smaller and dimmer with each exit.
Names of prominent people have been changed and, he tells us, some characters are composites, but we still get the sense of White’s life just the same. When presented in this way, his life seems restless, maybe even aimless, funny in places, often unlikely, but sad and lonely. He carries with him throughout his life a motif of loneliness, somewhat resulting from the institutionalized and publicly sanctioned scorn and derision of gay relationships and gay life in general. But some of this loneliness comes from himself, choosing partners whom he knows, even at the time, are not the best for him—he pines for men who are indifferent, unavailable or simply not interested. I suppose this is not so unusual—people of all persuasions seem to make such mistakes, especially in youth when experience has not caught up to longing.
He is quite unapologetic—and rightly so—about “cruising” for sex on the docks and piers in New York City or in parks in Rome or in the dunes of Fire Island. The sex is described with the same starkness as his description of lost love and death. He speaks at length and often about the attitude fostered by gay liberation of the 60s and 70s (he was present at the historic Stonewall Riot!). This frank treatment of sex and an affirmation of oneself as a sexual being is one I appreciate and agree with, but after a while, White’s need for cruising and sex starts to seem a bit compulsive and I wondered now and then, “When did he have time to write anything?” He is aware of this himself and rolls it into the mix with everything else.
I must confess that it was sometimes a bit difficult to remember all the men in his story. Names and personalities bled together. It was a bit like reading ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, with nearly everyone named Aureliano Buendia, but Marquez was making a point: “The more things change the more they stay the same.” Or “Meet the new boss—same as the old boss.” Or even better: “The more time goes by, the more everything becomes alike—interchangeable.” I mention this because I suspect that White had a similar idea in mind. Men come and go, love comes and goes. And I know it is like this for everyone. We look back on our lives and it often appears not as a pattern, but as solid mass.
NOCTURNES FOR THE KING OF NAPLES was all this but in a slim volume of gorgeous, embellished and highly ornate prose. It was dream-like meeting the same people and reading about the same events and circumstances but told to me through a veil of silk, in the golden light of sunset or the tenebrous otherworldly light of dusk. Had I read NOCTURNES first, its enigmatic feeling would have impressed itself upon me as truth, but hearing the unadorned, gossipy version first in THE FAREWELL SYMPHONY takes away the mystery. Which is not to say that NOCTURNES is not worth reading, because it certainly is. Despite the fact that it appears to be a slim volume, it is a surprisingly slow read. The baroque form of his sentences, the curlicues of his logic and the delicacy of description requires one to read slowly, take it in, digest it.
Recommend? Yes. But if you are going to read them both, do it the other way around.
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