Terry Goldie
Reviewer: B.I. Laureano
This book is high theory. What I mean by “high theory” is that Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, John Money, and other similarly respected thinkers are mentioned, cited and invoked to help shape an argument and prove a point. When I was reading these authors in grad school, I realized that they are not writing to exclude those of use who are unfamiliar with terminology and philosophy, but they are writing for their community. This is a book that Goldie has written for people in his community. That means for many of you this is not going to be a book you ever pick up. For some of you this book may rock your world.Mr. Goldie is a professor of English at York University in Toronto. He claims this is not about him, but a book where he examines what he has done. Because many autobiographies are not constructed in such a way, Goldie provides us with a 26-page introduction. He begins his interrogation through an analysis of the film The Crying Game. Pulling from 13 different aspects of the film, which include identity, photographs and the phallus, Goldie pulls the film apart while asserting his own experience at the same time. It made me want to check the film out again to see the parallels. The third chapter focuses on adolescence and childhood. The most fascinating part about this chapter was his use of literature that ran the spectrum of childhood sexuality and pedophilia. He shares his experiences with librarians at the Library of Congress and how their demeanor towards him changed based on the texts he requested.
Chapter four is entitled “Penis Envy” and it is filled with discussions of Freud and the authors’ experiences with his own penis and with others. Other chapter highlights include ones on race, bisexuality and anal sex. I wasn’t impressed with the conversations about bisexuality, and I was left with the perspective that the author doesn’t take people who identify as “bisexual” seriously.
If you enjoy theory, keep an eye out for discussions of “homovestism,” where Goldie discusses how a “female seeks to replace a lack of power not through male dress but through an extraordinarily female guise, a version of power-dressing that over-emphasizes the figure” (p. 34). The sections on race wouldn’t necessarily make a critical race theorist happy, but it’s a topic that is often forgotten overall in such texts. At the end of the day, this book attempts to do several things but only a few of you may be interested in reading how they are done.
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