Though not for the faint of heart (it's by far his most graphic and violent novel), this book has some of Genet's most poetic moments. Serving as both a bittersweet eulogy to Genet's dead lover and as an exploration of his own feelings regarding WWII France, the book's subject matter is explosive, keeping emotions at a fever pitch throughout the whole of the novel. While it lacks the range and coherancy of "The Thief's Journal" (his later novel) and is probably not the best choice if you've never read Genet before (try "Our Lady of the Flowers" or "The Thief's Journal" first), it is nonetheless well worth the read.

Jean Genet--orphan, thief, homosexual prostitute, renders his impressions of the occupation and liberation of Paris. His metaphors lead to the comparison of the city to a child who is submissive to rape by the Germans, and afraid of offending them as they perpetrate the act. The narraor's lover is killed at the barricades during the liberation of the city, implying parrallels between the decay of old philosophy and the rise of new (existential) philosophy during that apocalyptic period in the history of the world.

Despite its title, Jean Genet's Funeral Rites is considerably less desperate and less grim a novel than his others; here, Genet's stand-in narrator (Jean) sounds more boastful and vainglorious than threatening or threatened. Taking place in Paris during the Nazi occupation and just after, this is Genet's most psychologically incestuous book, one in which almost every character is linked to the others by undiscussed or only infrequently acknowledged sexual affairs. Despite the violent emotions the characters feel for one another, when they actually speak, their words are banal, monosyllabic, and thus lacking in complex information; the only extensive dialogues are internal. Genet's philosophy is clearly stated: "Speech kills, poisons, mutilates, distorts, dirties."

As the book opens, Genet's love-object--a young resistance fighter also named Jean--has just been killed and buried. There are extended early passages about the dejection Genet feels; he states that "the book is completely devoted to the cult of a dead person with whom I am living on intimate terms." However, Genet questions whether the 'Jean' to whom the book is dedicated is the dead man or himself, and soon refers to him as "my poor Jean-in-the-box" and thinks of him as "changing into fertilizer." Eventually Jean becomes something of an afterthought, as Genet turns away from the dead towards his lust for the living.

The conversational, episodic plot concerns Genet's interactions with the remaining members of Jean's family, as well as with German Erik, former Hitler Youth member and current tank-driver for Hitler, and youthful French traitor Riton, a collaborator with the Reich. Genet presents an awesomely entwined branch of relationships: Genet and the dead Jean; Genet's casual friendship with Jean's brother Paulo, who is both Hitler's and Genet's lover in Genet's fantasies; Giselle, Jean's steadfastly bourgeois mother, is Erik's mistress and keeper regardless of his Nazism; Erik and Riton are physical and emotional lovers; Erik, who clearly gets around, is also the submissive lover of Hitler's massive, unnamed, ax-wielding executioner; unattractive Juliette, Giselle's despised housemaid, is Jean's former fiancé; and Genet and Erik also become sexual partners in time, and right under Giselle's roof.

Genet adds another layer of complexity by having character 'Genet' transform mid-scene into the characters he is describing. Genet briefly becomes Joan of Arc just before she is burned alive, and replaces Erik as the killer when Erik decides to murder an innocent country boy to establish his manhood. Genet also steps into other shoes during the erotic passages, metamorphosing into Hitler (who sends "his finest-looking men to death" because he can't bugger them all, Genet says) when the Fuhrer orders Paulo aside and rapes him, an act Paulo accepts flatteringly and actively responds to. The narrative also moves frequently backward and forward in time, and at least one murdered character (not Jean) shows up robustly alive after his death.

Unlike the later novels, few defensive statements are made about the sexual interaction between the men, who alternately accept male and female lovers without question, as if this were the natural state of things worldwide (though other men seem to be the sexual partner of choice). The tough men of Funeral Rites do not constantly challenge and tease one another about standing, dominance, and submission; instead, they seem to take sexuality in all its manifestations pleasantly in their stride. Erik openly makes love to Riton in front of his soldier comrades, none of which bat an eye; when two grave diggers conspire to rape a maid (Juliette?), they fondle and caress her but also reach for one another's hands under her skirt. The nonchalant attitude Funeral Rites takes towards homosexuality is made abundantly clear in the scene in which Paulo walks in on Genet and Erik, and, observing Genet lifting his mouth from of Erik's parted buttocks, begins a genuinely casual conversation to which they, unperturbed, calmly respond.

Funeral Rites is humorously obsessed with scatology and flatulence, using both as none-too-subtle weapons against the despised French middle class. In one hilariously protracted episode, Giselle, tired of waiting on chisel-faced Erik, retires to her room to "release her wind," only to find she's let fly with something more than she intended and that impatient lover Erik is entering her small, temporarily unventilated room. In another, a prison chaplain, hurrying to give last rites to 28 falsely-accused boys, finding himself in the outhouse without toilet paper, imprudently decides to use his hand, and is then suddenly confronted by God. Hardly a character in the book escapes breaking wind, wiping themselves, or anxiously wondering about the state of their anal hygiene. Genet tells of finding dried feces lovingly sequestered in the doilied, oaken drawers of the bourgeoisie, and, taking up a favorite motif, has 'Genet' hoping that he still genitally harbors some of dead Jean's crab lice. After having failed to crawl into Erik's sheltering and flowering-bearing anal cavity, Genet uses his tongue to pinpoint the lice on Erik's back end which are bloated with his virile blood.

In addition, there are scenes of wanton cruelty that may disgust some readers, such as that in which starving Riton kills a cat with a hammer, but most of the material seems sensational and mischievous rather than offensive. The grief-stricken maid thinks it would be easier to make soup out of her dead child's body than to bury it, and Genet, who has in fury made the living Jean suck the barrel of a loaded gun, surreally fantasizes about eating his corpse. Erik, after a tender night of love with Riton, watches unmoved as he is humiliatingly raped by a frustrated comrade.

Funeral Rites is unhesitating in its depiction of the piggishly selfish and aggressive nature of man. More restrained and less indulgent that The Thief's Journal, if also less deeply felt, Funeral Rites is an excellent choice for new readers approaching Genet's work. Genet seems oddly more confident and hopeful about himself and mankind here, perhaps as a result of the emotional catharsis (as well as the victory) provided by the war. Highly recommended.

Loved by Sartre, this play mixes politics with sex to a hilarious degree. Love the dark humor if nothing else. One of Genet's better efforts.

The ideas that life is an illusion and that we are all actors perpetuating our own illusions are fascinating. This book contains some intruiging Existential ideas. I did get confused at times over who was playing which role.

The madame of the famous Grand Balcony brothel provides a safe place where her clients can come to act out their fantasies and take on the identities of important government and religious figures in the real world. Outside the brothel, a revolution is raging, assisted by a former prostitute of the Grand Balcony who uses her voice to spur the rebels on to a greater victory. When the government finally topples, the whores and clients work together to take their impersonations out of the bedroom and restore order by assuming the identities of the great figures who they used to play in bed.

Sartre referred to Genet as the prototype of the existential man, whose past as a convicted felon and his subsequent literary career illustrated a life where personal choice drove the moral distinctions. I have read an been absorbed by a number of Genet's works, my favorites being _Our Lady of the Flowers_ and _The Maids_. While I don't believe that _The Balcony_ is up to the level of either of those works, it's an important piece of the history of the theater of the absurd.

Worth reading. Perhaps now more than ever in a world where actors regularly transition to politics.

Let me start off by saying that Jean Genet's "The Blacks" isn't for everyone. It's a very abstract work that demands patience from the reader. It's a play within a play so there are lots of times when you are not sure when the characters are addressing themselves or the audience. That being said Genet originally wrote the play (In French) as an assault against French Colonialism in Africa in the 1950's.....However "The Blacks" most famous production came in New York in 1961. Directed by Gene Frankel and starring Roscoe Lee Browne, James Earl Jones, Lou Gossett Jr., Cicely Tyson, and Maya Angelou "The Blacks" ushered in a whole new era of black actors in America. This version of the play contains between 10 and 15 pictures of that New York production. The pictures alone are more than worth the price of the book!

This book details the encounters of Choukri with Jean Genet in Tangier over a short period of time. The prose describing the encounters and the selection of details to include in the description is masterful - in a slim volume one gains both a feeling of Morocco's bureaucrats, of the author's respect for Genet and of Genet himself. There is no hint of "gossip column" or "me with a big shot" - both of which are dangers for this type of writing. This is book is well worth your time.

"Splendid's," the play by Jean Genet, has been translated into English by Neil Bartlett and published in book form with an introduction by Edmund White. The introductory materials in this book note that Genet finished the play in 1948 and that it was considered lost; the text was published in France in 1993. As a stage production, it received its British premiere in 1995.

As the play opens, a group of gangsters known as the "Blaze of Glory" boys are trapped in a hotel which is surrounded by the police. As the tense drama plays out, the boys (and the audience) hear radio reports of the situation.

"Splendid's" is an intriguing drama: violent, and with elements of the ridiculous. The play deals with a number of themes: leadership, group dynamics, male homosexual desire, cross-dressing, the media portrayal of criminals, and the relationship between lawbreakers and law enforcers. Definitely a text worth reading; I'm glad it was rescued and revived.

How do you review a book like this with any degree of objectivity? I think it's best to start with a warning to prospective readers of "Querelle" who might be of a sensitive nature - beware! Genet does not hold back in his descriptions, mostly of gay, but also "straight" sex. Little is left to the imagination. Also, in the edition I had (admittedly a translation) the language is, let's say, uninhibited. So you have been warned.

What of the story? It takes place in the French port of Brest (hence the title) - Genet makes it a claustrophobic place, shrouded in fog, the limited number of characters in the novel know each other and are mostly sleeping with each other. All the men are either gay or bisexual: the tension throughout the book is fuelled by this.

It's a testosterone-filled mini-world: the sailor Querelle is the object of lust, mostly coming from the male characters. Querelle is involved in opium smuggling and there are two murders. The investigation is compromised by the fact that the detective in charge is gay.

Genet depicts a world in which passions and the desire for sexual release take many forms - better to experiment sexually, to steal and to murder, than be inactive. Sex (especially gay sex) is itself depicted as a form of violence. It's a disturbing read at times - whether it crosses the (often fine) line between literature and pornography is up to the individual reader, but it won't leave you indifferent - which I suppose would have pleased Genet.

I bought this book because I loved the Phillip Glass soundtrack cd for this title. I read about 1o pages, then quit.Go buy the cd!!! the music is the best sounds the third world has to offer you.Then get Kiss Originals. "I'm 93, she's 16, and I think I'm goin' blind"!!!!! Wa