Books on Stages & Screens

Fear and Self-Loathing in Proust and the Gay Canon

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Marcel Proust’s iconic character the Baron de Charlus, his narrator tells us, is fooling himself that no one knows he’s gay. Charlus throws verbal daggers at other men he suspects to be gay, effusively praises Balzac for writing about gay people, and carelessly remarks about the good looks of the man everyone knows him (but no one admits they know him) to be sleeping with. “When Monsieur de Charlus was not talking about his admiration for Morel’s good looks,” Proust’s narrator says, “as if they were nothing to do with a proclivity—known as vice—he held forth about this vice, but as though it had absolutely nothing to do with him. Occasionally he didn’t even hesitate to call it by its name.” This passage, from the new Oxford World Classics translation of Sodom and Gomorrah, which came out last week, is perhaps a case of the floral-patterned ceramic teacup calling the floral-patterned ceramic tea pot floral-patterned. Proust lived a remarkably “out” life as a homosexual for his time, from his school days on, and was wonderfully verbose about gay matters in his writings. However, he was not above writing a friend to ask them not to discuss his orientation, or adding to the same letter a sudden unusual, and rather transparent, postscript about having just spotted a ravishing blonde woman in a cafe. When the writer Andre Gide, the most prominent French advocate for homosexuality of their time, made a remark about Proust’s sexuality, Marcel tossed off a livid letter suggesting damning remarks could be made about Gide too if he could not hold his tongue. (Carter 117.) Proust is fooling no one about his now-famous orientation, and we love him for it. So why doesn’t he seem to love the Baron for it? Why, as has often been asked, did so brave a homosexual in writing about homosexuality go so far out of his way to make his otherwise very autobiographical narrator heterosexual? The same question is asked about his Judaism, as he was part-Jewish but made the hero of his novel Christian.

Don't Say Accessible: Opera Wars and the Fight Over What Opera Can Be

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Nine pages before the end of the new book Opera Wars: Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for its Future, author Caitlin Vincent quotes a more than 40-time contemporary opera librettist about the stigma against accessibility in modern opera.

“Librettist Mark Campbell recalled being confronted by a composer collaborator after Campbell described his music as ‘accessible’ in a public forum. ‘He took me aside and said, Don’t ever use that word again. Critics will use that against me. And I said, I didn’t mean it was dumbed down. I meant the audience will connect with it.’”

Reading and Ranking All of Toni Morrison's Novels in 30 Days

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I was surprised when a Google search for a ranking of Toni Morrison’s novels came up empty. Only Forbes magazine advertised “The Greatest Toni Morrison Books, Ranked and In Order,” but it turned out this meant they had listed her books in chronological order. This seems a major gap for the Internet, so I read all 12 of her fiction books in less than 30 days and have compiled my own ranking. This diverges from the subject “Stages and Screens” but is a follow-up to my last post, on why more Morrison novels have not been adapted dramatically.

Why Aren't There More Toni Morrison Film Adaptations?

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The New York Times on March 11 of this year ran a story titled “Netflix is gobbling up world literature. What could go wrong?” The sub-headline read, “The streamer keeps mounting lavish adaptations of beloved novels – and making them all feel like just more Netflix.” That headline made me wonder: With that flood of novel adaptations underway, why hasn’t there been more than one film or TV adaptation of a novel by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison? She has been called “one of the greatest authors in American history,” and “one of the world’s most celebrated and controversial modern authors,” among many other plaudits. As a blogger about stage and screen who has also read every one of Morrison’s 12 novels, I can personally attest the novels are highly cinematic, well-suited to cinema. And since 2020, there has been a push for more dramatic works by African-American and minority authors. So what gives?

Books on Stages & Screens

Fear and Self-Loathing in Proust and the Gay Canon

Don't Say Accessible: *Opera Wars* and the Fight Over What Opera Can Be

Reading and Ranking All of Toni Morrison's Novels in 30 Days

Why Aren't There More Toni Morrison Film Adaptations?

Don't Say Accessible: Opera Wars and the Fight Over What Opera Can Be