Who Was That Man?: A Present for Mr. Oscar Wilde (Masks)

Who was that Man ? is a meditation and celebration of the form and meaning of gay life in London in the 19th century and the 1970s and 80s. Neil Bartlett puts together a collage of thoughts, excerpts and pictures to find the common threads of behavior and the disparate ways of understanding. He analyzes Wilde's work and life to find its relevance and irrelevance to today; the ways in which Wilde's downfall and persecution cast its shadow; the not very hidden subtext of all of Wilde's work that Wilde desperately denied as he fought for his life. Bartlett has ransacked the British Museum Library and the Collected Works of Oscar Wilde to uncover and restore forgotten history. Read together with Richard Ellman's biography and Neil Mc Kenna's Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, this book illuminates and goes far to explain Wilde's intentionally fascinating life and works. But more than that it casts light on the whole swath of gay experience.

A gay Londoner of the 80s goes searching for his roots and finds Oscar Wilde, a complex figure early on in the history of the cultural and social construction of twentieth-century homosexuality. If you're interested in Wilde, this is a very good book to read along with Richard Ellman's more standard biography.

Still reading this very literate and informative book.

thanks