ON JEAN GENET'S NOVELS

created mainly while incarcerated this mind 
presents to the unwilling world a unique perspective 
of man the outsider from society: 
the homosexual who plies his arts with detached pride/ 
the man who kills for the sake of principle 
who then walks through the night haunted by 
a spirit that he himself hardly understands/ 
hitler himself
who in the confines of a secret alcove confronts 
his victim with the rarest of combinations, 
both love followed by a certain death 
this hitler/
mastermind of the reich
a libertine wielding his exclusive power to
play god and extinguish all possibilities to exist

genet:
novelist and play-write the progenerator of sordid dream scenes that assume 
grotesque reality when read through carefully 
perhaps are not so fantastic at all 
if god does not exist, then all is permitted 
and that is an absolute truth

perhaps genet himself projects with a poignant 
clarity the self he wishes deep inside of himself 
that he could become but the realities of society
would make him worthy of the rope if he did

are his characters a surrogate for himself 
the genet of a truth that dares to express himself 
as the need arises?

annihilation by his own serenity and intelligence 
of his imagination

is it any wonder that among 20th century france's 
novelists, in spite of his extreme graphicness 
that he is ranked among the best?

no, not at all-.
in a world consumed in its own infinite possibilities 
there are in fact no coincidences ...


Copyright: james j nemeth     9-17-2002