Profane Friendship (Paperback)

by Harold Brodkey (Author) "THE AIRPLANE'S COURSE from Rome to Venice-a long crosswise swirl and then a spike going north with a small half-circle at the end-went from side..." (more)
Key Phrases: profane friendship, caro amico, sexual reality, Miss Murphy, Grand Canal, San Marco (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Brodkey, who struggled so publicly for so long with his mammoth The Runaway Soul , seems to have broken his block, writing this full-length novel apparently in a matter of months--and to a commission, yet, from the city of Venice, where it is set. As in The Runaway Soul , there is misguided gigantism at work here. What could have been a touching, atmospheric novella about two boys growing up together in Venice has become a monstrously swollen, infinitely repetitious account of a partly homosexual relationship between youths who act and talk infinitely beyond their ages. Niles (Nino) O'Hara, the son of a successful American writer, meets Onni, scion of a rising Italian Fascist, at the English school in Venice before WW II. He goes back to America at the outbreak of war, picks up again with Onni in 1946 when they are, respectively, about 13 and 15--and Onni has become something of a male whore as well as a bit player in movies. They taunt each other interminably, verbally and sexually, drinking, smoking and taking drugs all the while; they fight, make up and occasionally try girls they pick up in the streets. In the book's closing pages Niles returns yet again, to find Onni a famous, world-weary movie star, still challenging him. Venice in its darker moods is often strikingly caught, and its pre- and postwar atmosphere is skillfully conveyed. But Brodkey's logorrhea is painful to read, endlessly, strenuously yet tentatively straining for effect; never has a severe editor been more needed. There is a considerable talent here, certainly, but buried in self-indulgence.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Niles O'Hara, son of an American expatriate novelist, grew up in Venice in the 1930s, taking as his best friend an Italian boy named Giangiacomo Gallieni, or "Onni." After World War II, Niles returns to a sleazier, shell-shocked Venice and resumes his friendship with Onni, now a drug-addicted male prostitute and aspiring movie star. O'Hara's obsessive analysis of their sexual relationship, written from the vantage point of old age, is almost Proustian in scope, much like Brodkey's monumental first novel, The Runaway Soul ( LJ 11/1/91). The goal is to capture the reality of love, stripped of fantasy and illusion. Commissioned by the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, a preservationist group dedicated to saving the city, this new work gives Venice itself a central role in the story. Recommended for larger fiction collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/93.
- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Mercury House (April 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1562790714
• ISBN-13: 978-1562790714
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,847,452 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read it and form your own opinion, October 18, 2007

By	Nic Brodeur (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Profane Friendship (Paperback)

Anyone who heeds Federico (Fred) Moramarco's review of Harold Brodkey's novel "Profane Friendship," might decide against attempting this long and challenging book, but they would do so ill-advisedly.

Other Amazon.com visitors may have seen Mr. Moramarco's topic--"Great descriptions, but not for everyone"--and hurried on. But I stayed to see what he thought I might want to miss (other than some good descriptive writing)--and why.

It didn't take me long to find out. After praising Brodkey's descriptions of Venice as "marvelous" and his book as a "major achievement," Mr. Moramarco gets down to business: "But Brodkey's homosexual eroticism fall [sic] flat for readers not turned on by male/male sexuality." A bit later he goes on to confess that "one man's obsession with his male lover . . . leaves me longing for a stronger female presence."

Not to be thought prejudiced, however, he assures us that none of these comments should be considered heterosexist.

Indeed, heterosexist remarks are not to be expected from someone with the bona fides that Mr. Moramarco posts in his Amazon.com profile: "Fred Moramarco is the editor of Poetry International, an annual journal published at San Diego State University. He teaches creative writing, poetry, and American Literature there. He is the co-author of 'Italian Pride: 101 Reasons to be Proud You're Italian,' 'Containing Multitudes: Poetry in the US Since 1950,' 'Modern American Poetry,' and co-editor of 'Men of Our Time: Male Poetry in Contemporary America.'"

Reviewing books they wish had been written rather than books the authors themselves chose to write is a common enough error among reviewers and it's one that someone with Professor Moramarco's background should know to avoid. But the problem I have with his remarks is of a different order.

"Profane Friendship" is Harold Brodkey's meditation on the bonds of an episodic friendship--and probably love--between two men, from boyhood, through youth and manhood, to old age. Suggesting that such a novel suffers from insufficient female presence is about as apt as suggesting that a Toni Morrison novel might benefit from a bigger white presence. And isn't a subtext behind this suggestion merely that Professor Moramarco is, you know, just a regular guy? (Nudge nudge, know whatahmean?)

His denial of heterosexist intent notwithstanding, Professor Moramarco reveals the curious belief that heterosexual readers must be protected against exposure to descriptions of "homosexual eroticism" and "male/male sexuality" (read "gay sex"). Is it possible he is not aware that the kind of exposure he warns against is identical to the one gay readers experience all the time? And what about Brodkey's explicit descriptions of heterosex? Why not alert gay readers to them while he's at it? If there is a clearer case of heterosexism, I'm not aware of it.

Unlike Professor Moramarco, I do not believe you have to be "turned on" by gay sex to appreciate this book. Brodkey's determination to avoid absolutes and explore the ambiguities and inconstancies of friendship/love/friendly love offers some fine reading to anyone with an open mind, of whatever sexual persuasion. ("They were not lovers after all. And yet they were.")

If you want something approaching a valid reason for rejecting this book, look at the Library Journal review on this page. There you will find someone who found Brodkey's writing "monstrously swollen, infinitely repetitious" and guilty of "misguided gigantism." I disagree with this characterization, but I do not find it repellent.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Novels rarely achieve this emotional authenticity, July 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Profane Friendship (Hardcover)

Generalising, the typical novel fits its action into a wide, undetailed character arc - neat but hardly lifelike.

Profane Frienship takes the opposite approach. Knowing interaction between two people is so changeable within a short time - a run of actions, reactions, reaction, reaction; ending only when people separate - Brodkey focuses on the moment-to-moment details of contact and lets the broader plot arc take care of itself.

As it does in real life. This novel's originality results from its intrusive depth; few other books maintain such intense focus on the undercurrents present in even the most glancing contact between friends - especially teenagers.

For most writers, achieving such emotional reality would be enough. But after dissecting young friendship, fights - the low-level continuous conflict I remember as essential to my adolescence but rarely see reflected in books - Brodkey then tops off his novel with a final adult section, where his now late-middle-aged characters present the most authentic description of the experience of making films I've read.

This is a really terrific, masterful novel - a distillation of the entire life of a highly intelligent, curious, unforgiving and sentimental man with close-to-photographic recall. <P

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sacred Possession, April 10, 1998

By A Customer

There are few books that enable you to discover yourself through the revelation and reflection of others thoughts and feelings, but Profane Friendship is a rare exception. The canals of venice become like the vessels in ones brain - the colour and vision created by lyrical text painting colours so vivid that they enter consciosness, half realised but fully consumed. The novel pulls no punches yet reaches and tickles its reader with a knowingness with which you have to marvel. Love,place (Venice) and memory are woven to create a superb patern.