Books: Before Night Falls - Reinaldo Arenas

This is not an easy book. Compelling, fascinating, shocking are the terms I would use, other opinion's from my local LGBT group were vile, disgusting and liar.

The following (from wikipedia) gives you a good, nutural idea of the themes of the book:

The film offers an episodic look at the life of Cuban poet and novelist, Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), from his childhood in the province of Orienteto his death in New York City. As a youth he joins Castro's rebels. By 1963 he is studying in Havana. He meets the wealthy Pepe, an early lover; their love-hate relationship lasts for years. His writing and openly gay lifestyle get him into trouble: he spends two years in prison, writing letters for other inmates and smuggling out a novel. Later he befriends Lázaro Gómez Carriles, with whom he lives stateless and in poverty in Manhattan after leaving Cuba in the Mariel boatlift. When asked why he writes, he replies cheerfully, "Revenge."

So why such strong reactions, apparently the liberal intelligentsia loved in the states:

His autobiography, Before Night Falls was on the New York Times list of the ten best books of the year in 1993. In 2000 this work was made into a film, directed by Julian Schnabel, in which Arenas was played by Javier Bardem.

In many ways his life was shocking, tough and highly alienated. Like many gay men, he has lots of sex, simply for the pleasure of it. Is it possible that the isolation and misserable poverty of living under a brutal regime (Castro's Cuba in the 1960s was hard on gay men), pushed him into an even more licentous life-style.

While sympathising with the local book group, he was at times vain, difficult and not an easy person to live with; I did despite this like him. He wasn't the sort of person who would become a close friend probably but he was colourful, highly articulate and deeply sensual.

The book group discussion reminded my of a very good joke my aunt and uncle told me recently regarding "intellectual elites":

Q: What it the collective noun for a group of academics

A: A spite

This is harsh but there is an element of truth here - a good joke.

Arenas spends much of the book with petty ill will and hatred to his colleagues, friends and lovers. It was an intensely stressful life where form allies cross and double-cross each other. Throughout the book there is a deep sense of paranoia.

Indeed he has much to fear, he is inprisoned for a couple of years and brutually tortured. Actually the prison itself it utterly savage and with prisonners left to almost starve, abusing and attacking each other; several prisonner are brutually murdered while in prison.

Peter Tatchell has written a very good piece regarding this film and gay/human rights in Cuba:

In the name of the new socialist morality, homosexuality was declared illegal and typically punishable by four years' imprisonment. Parents were required to prevent their children from engaging in homosexual activities and to report those who did to the authorities. Not informing on a gay child was a crime against the revolution. Official homophobia led, in the mid-1960s, to a mass round-up of gay people without charge or trial. Many were seized in night-time swoops and locked up in forced labour camps for "rehabilitation" and "re-education".

The repression did not begin to ease until the mid-1970s, and even then it was not because Cuba's leaders recognised their error. They halted mass detentions and reduced sentences largely because they were shamed by the international protest campaigns organised by newly formed gay liberation movements. A more significant softening of attitudes took place in the 1980s. With the advent of Aids, the Cuban authorities eventually showed greater tolerance towards homosexuals in order to win their confidence and support for safer sex. At around the same time came the secondment to Cuba of east German doctors and psychologists, who viewed homosexuality as a natural minority condition.

The 1979 penal code formally decriminalised homosexuality, but the legal status of lesbian and gay people in Cuba is still ambiguous. Homosexual behaviour causing a "public scandal" can be punished by up to 12 months in jail. Discreet open-air cruising in public squares and parks is tolerated, although often kept under police surveillance. Homosexuals are still deemed unfit to join the Communist party, and this can have an adverse impact on a person's career when appointments depend on party membership. Lesbian and gay newspapers and organisations are not permitted. The Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians, formed in 1994, was suppressed in 1997 and its members arrested. Gay Cuba? Not yet.

It appears that AIDS has pushed the authorities to take a more realistic view of the world, but there is clearly much much more which needs to be done...