I just finished reading Three Junes by Julia Glass. A compelling novel, provocative, thoughtful, absorbing.
The men were the most interesting characters in the book, one in particular, Fenno. (His father as well, although he had a shorter history in the book.) Quiet, introspective men whose feelings of pain and joy are deeply settled within them, looking for change, change that will bring them love.
That the story is told mainly through the thoughts and travels, internal and external, of a homosexual male, unravels any possibilities of differences in the sexual preferences of feelings. But it also deepens the similarities of yearnings of men and woman, for either sex, for or without sex, for connection.
My curiosity about the differences between the sexes often makes me feel like a student of male energy. Here is a female author who portrays the sensitivity of male yearnings with clarity and precision so that in the last chapters, as Fenno talks intimately to a female of wandering emotions, his wisdom penetrates and instructs like that of an old crone.
The novel itself is strongest in the middle section. The final third is weaker until Fenno appears again. His quiet thoughtfulness brings together the threads of the book, weaving a testament to living and honoring feelings.
Posted by leya at December 20, 2003 02:44 AM