AfterEllen.com Book Club discussion

Discuss it up, y'all.

Ok, so I finally finished Inferno!

First of all, I am not really sure I understood half of what went on, and I think that is the point. Myles tells her story in such a stream of consciousness, anachronistic manner that I'm not sure someone could follow everything. I also got a little bored and frustrated with her constant name dropping. Perhaps if I were an artist, writer, or someone involved in a movement during the same times, it may have impressed me more.

Something I did find interesting was how, at least to Eileen, being a poet seemed to be a lot about the performance. There are so many references to readings and performance art like things, that being a poet isn't about just writing, as I suppose I thought at one time. It is a movement and a complete existence.

She also, at least in the first half of the book, seems to understand being a lesbian as somehow related to a specific field of being a poet. As if it is something you can decide to be, a subset, like being a fiction writer. It is interesting how Eileen's definition of a lesbian sort of warps and changes as the book progresses. By the last third of the book, Eileen knows she is a lesbian and that she really has never been anything else. Even when
she sees herself a lot as masculine or a boy. The way her language and self recognition change throughout is one thing I really liked about this book.

And of course, describing as only a poet can describe what it is like to be with a woman. My goodness, the room got very hot while I was reading those chapters.

Overall, I felt a bit lost while reading the book. But I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. And above all, I love the idea of writing your own Inferno. That your life is just a coded poem. And
that I kind of think we all should write ours.