The City and the Pillar Book Review

Maxwell Waters

11/3/16

The City and the Pillar

A teenage getaway during one weekend goes for an unexpected turn when Jim realizes he is in love with his teammate Bob. Weeks of awkwardness have gone by and set in this early twentieth-century setting, tensions are high. Soon after in the novel The City and The Pillar by Gore Vidal, accounts a young man’s experience after he meets and loses the love of his life. Jim, the main character meets movie stars, directors, travels to south America, falls in love with a writer, and ends up in the military. Throughout this thrilling fiction, the reader gets an opportunity to read about this adventurous character.

In my opinion, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to get lost in a romance book with all sorts of drama, and obstacles both the reader and the character have to go through. According to the novel I can relate to the idea of wanting someone that in return they might not like you back. The author uses awkward situations throughout the book to express the difficulty of finding a partner. For example in the novel one night, one of the Shipyard men and Jim were going to go out one night into town because they docked ahead of time. After weeks of talking to the shipyard man, Jim believed that they could maybe have some form of a relationship. Unfortunately for Jim that was not the case. At the bar, they both get really drunk and rowdy. Once Jim makes some moves with the guy he soon is shut down in front of him. What made this scene so interesting was the fact that although they both were drunk and they seemed to be having a good time, but it is not realistic for a gay relationship to be so easy, especially in such plain view of people.

According to the novel as Jim is trying to make a career as a tennis instructor he encounters Ronald Shaw, a renowned movie actor in Hollywood, who falls in love with Jim. In order for Jim to jumpstart his life financially he reasons with Shaw a relationship. Their relationship highlights an idea known as, “ for those mainly youth who offered themselves for seduction while proclaiming their heterosexuality, they were known as trade, since they usually wanted money” (164). Labeling amongst the community itself is interesting to point out the different forms of gay present in society. Shaw's and his followers perspective on Jim is false, however they fall for the trap of labeling. Stereotypes are present everywhere it does not matter from what background someone is from.