Man's World
Product Details | Similar Products | Customer Reviews | Author: Rupert Smith List Price: £11.99 Our Price: £7.40 You Save: £4.59 (38%) Availability: Usually dispatched within 6 to 12 days  |
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 | Product Details: Paperback 220 pages Release Date: 18 February 2010 Publisher: ARCADIA BOOKS ISBN: 1906413401 Rating:  Sales Rank: 21499 | | Look for similar books by subject:
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| | Customer Reviews: Review for Man's world (05 September 2010)I loved this book which covered off the lives of modern gay guys living the life in London. everyone on the scene knows a "Jonathan" character. The best quote: He thinks "share" was a singer who sang believe. This was juxtaposed with the story of an older gay guy and life he lived. Although there are similarities, but also a great insight into how gay life used to be, and the struggle that was fought for us today. This was an enjoyable read.  Couldn't put it down (10 August 2010)The first twenty pages gave me a false impression of the book,that it was going to be a rather boring 'I did this and then this and then went here' ect. Once your past the mundane opening the book really does spring to life and within a day of having it im already half way through. The book jumps between the past and the present via different charachters and highlights the contrast in gay culture and the views on homosexuality over the decades. The book manages to do this in subtle, serious and most of all funny ways often putting a smile on my face with some of the remarks made. The book itself is of a fairly large print making it easy to read (even without my specs on). The book is short enough for you to want more yet not so long that it becomes a chore to read. A brilliant book with great meaning. Love it! Genuinely unputdownable (04 July 2010)It was the endorsement from the fantastic Jake Arnott which sold this book to me: "funny, dirty, deeply romantic". And, boy, does Man's World lives up to its billing. Two gay Londons separated by half a century are intertwined: Robert's modern, narcissistic clubbing lifestyle, and Michael's grim, shadowy, closeted 1950s' National Service. Some of the mirroring of their stories is over-contrived - Robert's blog and Michael's diaries, Robert's uploaded Xtube exploits, Michael's naught nudie snaps - but the overall effect is terrific. The characters are quickly, tightly, believably drawn: and it's because we care about them that this book (for once) lives up that dust-jacket cliche, `unputdownable'. It is a man's world (16 March 2010)This excellent novel deserves a wide readership. Man's World is about the struggle to be free - and not just free in terms of sexuality. It is a book that celebrates the right of all us, gay and straight, to be hedonistic, narcissistic and to live the life we want to live. `I want to go out dancing, take drugs, listen to deafening music, show off my muscles and forget about everything...' Why not? All the characters in this book understand the risks they take. But there is no guilt and no recrimination. And when things go wrong - and someone ends up in prison or homeless - there is never any moaning or self-pity. The title is apt in the old fashioned sense of the term - as I suspect Rupert Smith intended. It is `a man's world' because you have to be tough, brave and non-complaining to live in it. Pure, poignant truth, then and now (24 February 2010)Once upon a time, in Englan you could go to jail for being gay,even if you, like Alan Turing, helped save the world. you had to practiceyour "vice" in secret, in hidden places at night, Then homosexuality was decriminalized, then came the sexual revolution, a change of mores, and, AIDS and Margaret Thatcher's homophobia notwithstanding, now gays in london are free to live their life in the open, like the young protagonist of this novel, who we see move in his new apartment "helped" by a rather exploitive and egotistic friend. Parallel to the blog of the modern gay runs the secret diary of Mychael in the London of fifty years ago, till then and Now shall meet and appraise each other, both searching for love and happiness, but the old cowing in the underground, the new so often taking lightly for granted a freedom the old could only dream and had to fight hard to conquer. This novel, deliciously witten, with very sympathetic and interesting characters, is one of the best gay novels i've rad. Highly recommended! | |
