| Title | : | Horse Crazy |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0452264278 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780452264274 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 218 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1989 |
Horse Crazy Reviews
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Gary Indiana is a wise and well-respected art critic. a photo of him will show a man who looks really gnomish, wizened well beyond his years, an almost malnourished version of Truman Capote. he is not even remotely a traditionally handsome guy. i say this not to be critical or demeaning; my point is that this is a man who has experienced difference his entire life - so i hoped his perspective would be informed by perhaps something of an outsider mentality. and this lack - combined with the knowledge that he is presumably an intelligent and discerning art critic - is exactly why the rote, annoying Horse Crazy was such a disappointment. Indiana tackles a story and a theme that is so familiar that it becomes inescapably dull and predictable and trite. it is like every other gay or non-gay novel in which an older guy chases after the skirts of some pretty young thing who ends up being a femme or homme fatale, a moral black hole. the eternal - and eternally predictable - pursuit of physical perfection. this is especially aggravating when considering who the author is and what he has probably experienced in his life - physical appearance does create 'outsider status', particularly in Gay World. so why did he play into this paradigm instead of reacting against it or even subverting it? was he aiming for marketable blandness and the standardized depiction of beauty in order to achieve... well, what exactly did he mean to achieve?
the writing is not at all bad. quite dry, quite sardonic. it is, unfortunately, the underlying ideas that are mediocre. there does not appear to be an awareness that a cliche is being trotted out, repeated in yet another book, per usual.
anyway, the novel itself. it is about a writer obsessed with a manipulative waiter (and a former heroin addict - thus the lame title). the waiter is, of course, oh such a handsome errant prince with such a great, junkie-chic body. the writer is, of course, all too easily strung along and taken advantage of. YAWN. the only reason this rises above 1-star material is that i had a lot of amusement when our protagonist learns that his love-of-a-lifetime is selling whatnot on a nyc sidewalk. his dawning realization that he is obsessed with someone who is not just a handsome hustler, but also a tacky, thieving bozo... priceless! suddenly he finds him to be not-so-cute. ha, ha - joke's on you, bougie sucker!
Indiana went on to deliver a postmodern trilogy based on famous modern crimes (among them, andrew cunanan's murder of versace and the menendez brothers' parental slayfest). i wonder if they are more interesting. -
great! very little actual equestrian content though
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Tijdens het lezen moest ik vaak aan
Bright Lights, Big City denken, van Jay McInerney. Daarin volgen we ook een gefictionaliseerde versie van de auteur, terwijl hij zijn schrijfleven op orde probeert te krijgen, waarbij ook een af- en aanwezige liefde roet in het eten gooit. De roman Horse Crazy van Gary Indiana is in alle opzichten de schaduw van McInerney; waar Bright Lights een feest van yuppen-exces, toont Horse Crazy the underbelly van New York medio 1985: straatarm, vies en gevaarlijk. Het zou een interessante lezing opleveren om deze twee romans naast elkaar te lezen. -
I just wrote that I never wanted
"to read another story about a sad sack young man in love with a 'crazy.'" Yet I just finished another book about a sad sack (not young) man in love with a "crazy." In this case it's an older vain writer in love with a younger beautiful man, who won't sleep with the writer, yet the young beauty proclaims his love, while the writer grows paranoid and crazy, and gives us a very nasty portrait of his vain, deceitful, disloyal, and duplicitous "boyfriend."
My friend who loves this book loves books about alcoholic writers "struggling" with their writing. (Which this book is.) Loves stories about NYC, esp. from the 80s. (Which this book is.) Loves dark stories about obsession and despondency and how the writer is put upon by sociopaths, degenerates, and our shitty world. (Which this book is.) And he loves books about doomed love affairs. (Which this book is.)
But I'm sick of that shit.
Again, this book is well written. Indiana's writing swings from twitchy neurotic to genuflecting submissive to frenzied paranoiac. The dialogs is right, always, and the amazing setting is as vibrant as a gritty color photo from Nan Goldin. But the writer is as delusional as his love interest and never too concerned with his own participation in his complete debasement. I mean, the writer does submit himself to his pretty boyfriend as someone to be completely used, but when it actually happens, and when the object of the writer's obsession devours him, as he asked, the self-awareness slides away and we fall into the writer's confused, "ohdeargodwhyme"s.
I guess what I want is a full account of the writer's culpability. I guess I'm a little ruined by Proust who shows how a character like Swann can deceitfully weave a web of "love" that captures both him and the object of his obsession, and you, the reader, feel for Swann because you've been there, while at the same time despising his creepy game, and the way everyone plays their part. I guess that happens here, but the writer seems to spin a web of lies that he's a part of and that he's shoving down our throats. And there's an inability to face up to the awfulness that he must be. I guess I just don't want to read anymore books about struggling and reserved assholes falling in love with "crazies." Enough of that. It's a lie. Worse, most of us have been there; have been both the asshole and the crazy. So let's not write nor read about it anymore.
But what I love about this book is the setting. It's a great picture of the bohemian scene in 80s NYC. It's a portrait of a vital world, long gone, with appearances from the artist David Wojnarowicz (who died of AIDS), several artists I can't quite place, the director Dieter Schidor (who died of AIDS), and I think, Ulrike Ottinger, the artist and actress. It's set largely amongst Indiana's gay friends, and the AIDS epidemic is starting to rampage through the Lower East Side / E. Village scene. Death starts making an odd and unwelcome appearance among the more familiar "in love with a crazy" narrative, and early mortality gives the rest of the story a sense of doom and tragedy. If the relationship works or doesn't work, death is on its way, and Indiana's world will soon be ground down.
And the ending... Wow. The ending is a brutal survivors ellipses about life moving forward, and it's jaw dropping and deeply sad. The standard pettiness of an individual fucked up relationship is dwarfed in a sea of finality. -
"Or do people like to poison themselves and each other with morality when the slightest pleasure makes it possible to breathe for a change."
I thought this to be an outstanding dissection of a relationship (in this case, homosexual, but I agree with William Burroughs in that this is "an archetypical story, expertly told. Fascinating to everyman, no matter what his sexual tastes" - or hers, come to that). In some ways - obliquely - it reminded me of the obsessive love story, "The Tunnel" by Ernesto Sabato which I also love. And whilst this is in many respects completely different to that, the resonance meant I enjoyed it all the more. Packed with anecdotal detail, occasional comedy, and utter frustration from the narrator, this short novel feels painfully real - a perfect example of how love distorts reality, opaquely, in which the madness revealed is just as tantalising as love's absence, of how obsession can wreck even the most logical of us. Highly recommended. -
Kind of like when you accidentally catch sight of yourself in a magnified mirror
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Great storytelling, kept me entertained right to the last page ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
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Fever dreamy and paranoid and big hearted at times and full of these punchy critiques of society. Loved so much of this.
“What else can you do in this life, except attempt miracles?” -
One of the earlier New York AIDS novels - or a novel set in the time of the early AIDS crisis - Gary Indiana's Horse Crazy offers up a tale of emotional and other dependencies. Addiction stalks through the streets of Indiana's Lower East Side, as his characters succumb to drugs to love to boys to work while the world falls apart around them through AIDS and gentrification. Indiana writes with an anxious fury.
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lovely writing but the whole time i was like damn this guy needs to get a grip
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no book has activated my fight or flight like this one
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Didn’t love this as much as I thought I would! At the beginning, I was blown away by how, while I am not a gay man living in 1980s New York, AIDS a very real threat looming over me, I felt so SEEN. There continued to be beautiful, funny little sentences throughout, but even at 220 ish pages I felt the toxic relationship between the two main characters dragged on and became tired, annoying almost. Maybe that was the point - to be sighing “come on!” at the narrator, but it is a novel and could’ve been more of a story.
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I had wanted to read this book for years.
Then I finally did, 2 months ago in September. It's a pretty short book, and I read it in two long sittings while traveling.
Then, just now, I saw Horse Crazy in the Completed Books section of my reading app and thought it must be a mistake. I had no memory of reading the book, and only the memory of wanted to read the book.
When I looked at the plot summary it all came back to me. Definitely a good book. Sometimes these New York bohemian pre-internet artist-adjacent stories sometimes blend together for me. That said, I love them, and this is a good one too.
Hopefully the act of writing this review will help overwrite the wanting-to-read-it feelings with I-read-this-already feelings. -
Smart dipshit and dumb dipshit play mind games with one another. Almost inadvertently a fine oblique look at the AIDS era, and the East Village. Takeaway being that if you can mindlessly stare into the chiseled face of absolute shallowness for so long, you yourself must be as boring. Which to his credit, Gary Indiana doesn’t flinch from as the verdict on himself.
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Stunning, searing novel. Told in a rush of hard truths and honesty.
Couldn’t put it down. -
Despite being anchored (figuratively and literally) by a deeply frustrating tale of unrequited love, this first novel by Gary Indiana is a knock out. Like fog on the city streets in a film noir, interspersed throughout are some of the most devastating and astute observations of the physical and emotional toll rendered by AIDS crisis that I've ever read. Those who read the novel as about a sexless "love affair" between the narrator and the his muse miss the forest for the trees. This is an AIDS novel by any other name. It's mastery comes from the dichotomy between 1) the matter-of-fact, war-like reportage of the effects/mood of the Plague era and 2) the exasperating, inexplicable relationship between two un-likeable homosexuals in 1980s New York City. What would you do if the world around you was ending? Distract yourself in an unhealthy, sexless, one-way relationship with a former (?) drug addict using you for your money? There are worse things you could do. As Indiana writes, "We live in a time when bad things happen so frequently, to so many people, that it's an entire vocation to keep up with the bad news."
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If you've ever been caught in a situation where your love is obsessive, and your obsession is love, but the target is blurry and your best intentions are your enemy, this book is for you.
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One of the best ending sequences I've read in a long time.
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Oh, my god. Where do I begin with this story. First of all, I loved it. The writing itself, I loved, adored. It is not often that I pick up a book and it leaves me with a quote that I will remember for the rest of my life. This book does it multiple times. The story drove me nuts at times, as it should, it's about crazy obsession. I don't know where the title comes from (and if anyone has a clue please message me) but I assume Mr. Indiana means "Horse Crazy" as "Boy Crazy" or "Car Crazy" or some behavior we would expect of a teenager or a person going through a mid-life crisis - not a thirty-five year old gay man who has a prestigious job at a newspaper. I suppose the "Horse" could also refer to heroin, which has a bit of a role here - but don't worry, it's not about heroin. The story takes place in the East Village (or, the lower east side back then) during the 1980s, probably mid-80s. The back drop is the now-deceased East Village art scene, which is all around, although the story is not really about this. The protagonist is not given a name, although he seems to lead the same exact life as Gary Indiana during this period - so let's call him Gary for this review. His obsession's name is Gregory - and I must say that the name Gregory has probably been forever tainted in my mind by this book. Gregory is beautiful - yes, in that way that obsessions are always described in a gay novel - but no, this goes further than the typical gay novel because Gregory is also described as a bit of a psychopath. Not "American Psycho" psychopath - this is not a slasher book - Gregory is more of a borderline personality. Gary has loads of friends to whom he complains and obsesses over Gregory, who has somehow evolved into a boyfriend, even though there is no sex, really no intimacy, although lots of angst. That is really all there is to say about the story itself. However, the writing - that's what keeps this story going. It's exquisite. I savored entire sentences, paragraphs, pages of Gary's observations, his analogies. He so precisely describes a world that is gone, that if you did not live through AIDS, or NY during the 1980s, and you really want to know some things, what it smelt like, how it felt around its sharp edges, then read this book. It has captured and preserved it like a bible to a pressed flower. I was sad that it ended, I almost wanted it to go on forever. I wanted to pick up the phone and call Gary to find out what happened to him the next day.
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Deconstructing the proxemics of bodily desires, within the bounds of social standards and the mechanics of psycopathy, operates in the debut novel of Gary Indiana, Horse Crazy (Plume Books, 1990). An art critic himself, Indiana transported the readers into the (mis)adventures of an unnamed art columnist together with his love object, Gregory, a bisexual waiter-photographer-heroin-addict. The narrative, however, does not succumb to the objectification of a character desired by the narrator. Rather and fortunately, it escalates to the investigation of the politics of queer life in 90s New York, where art enthusiasts met in sushi bars under the immensity of neon lights and expected the reciprocation of each other's adoration. The story does not reside in what lurks between one's manhood and the other's submission; more than anything, it illustrates the ruminations of self-destruction when unrequited love is slapped on one's face and he still keeps on tracing the sojourns of the beloved, the latter an expert of "coming" and leaving. This stream of consciousness, at once elegantly verbose or startlingly secretive, is a testimony that when love conquers all, a person ruled by his wit and prestige will stoop down, and sometimes kneel, for the desired to give back what he has excessively given away. And when what happened in the end was the other way around, he would be left with his spirit losing its generosity, but not its creativity to write against the tide, to convey pain in literature, against the grain.
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This slightly unstructured novel depicts a mad, obsessive, sexless gay relationship during the relatively early days of HIV/AIDS. It has a wonderful, manic prose style, with endless, breathless comma splices knitting together funny and absurd observations (those about the restaurant owner Philippe, a very minor side character, are particularly funny). In short, a thirty-something successful gay magazine writer becomes obsessed with an impossibly handsome (former?) heroin addict (hence, horse) with aspirations to an art career, who may or may not be bisexual, but is definitely not having intercourse with the narrator. The mind games, however, seem mainly of the narrator's own invention, and the question of whether the love interest has relapsed, and whether if so the narrator can admit it to himself, drive the tension in the story (and to a lesser extent, whether they will EVER hook up). The latter tenth of the book loses a little steam as the two main characters see less of one another and the ending in particular is a little lackluster. But the first 90% is a glorious study of obsession and also a little period piece of the era.
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I picked this book up in San Francisco with high expectations as the author has been compared to another of my favourites - Armisted Maupin. That said the overall word to describe this book is 'disappointment'. The text rambled and there was no clear narrative - I found the character of Gregory frustrating and could not understand why the main character (narrator - no name) put up with him. Sometimes its good to finish a book just so you can get onto a better story!
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Disappointed in you oomfies who’ve gone on suggesting this one to me… I get that the narrator is unlikeable, but there are just so many choices I do not agree with in here, and I found myself skipping almost entire pages to just get through it. Many of the recurring chords and choruses here were heavy handed and clumsy. I was holding out for some redemptive ending, and instead I got something that just shriveled up into itself. Beautiful opening page, though, really quite nice.
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Please don’t use swimming in the ocean while menstruating as a metaphor for a dumb drama between 2 men! Do all men think they are the first to be daring enough to use a period joke?
Sorry, maybe this was exciting at the time it was written but to me it was boring and tbh I’m tired of junkies being romanticized. -
I wasn't sure of this one upon reaching the halfway point, but I soon found myself so engrossed in these characters and their behavior that my fall into the story matched the repetitive and hypnotic trance of the narrator's towards Gregory.
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Harrowing. I could relate to it so well. It plunged me back into my 20s ... Also, it's an incredibly evocative portrait of the time and place that was 80s NYC.
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the coldest story of codependence ever told
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Drugs, homosexuality, New York...
