Honeytrap, by Aster Glenn Gray
Sep. 3rd, 2020 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyume
“At the height of the Cold War, a Soviet and an American agent fall in love.”
Not only are their countries enemies, but the agents are both men, in an era when being gay was still taboo. Fans of Aster Glenn Gray know that she’s excellent at complicated and anguished love—and Honeytrap really lets her show her stuff.
She’s also in top form when it comes to another of her strengths: the intelligence of her characters. Gennady and Daniel are interested in ideas and ideals, in what poetry’s all about, what happiness is, what freedom means, or love, and they talk about all these things, and when they fall for one another, it’s for the beautiful mind as well as the beguiling body.
I completely fell for Gennady, the Russian agent—I submit by way of explanation the following conversation:
“I can still do ‘Paul Revere’s Ride,’ though not as well as you do Pushkin.”
“Let’s hear it, then.”
So Daniel stood and recited, and Gennady lay down again and listened with his head on his crossed arms. “There’s a galloping rhythm to it,” he said, enchanted. “That’s very American, isn’t it? A poetry of movement.”
“Yes,” said Daniel.
But he looked at Gennady so strangely that Gennady said, “What?”
“I don’t know. Most people aren’t interested in poetry, I guess,” Daniel said, and then clarified, “Most men, at least.”
“Poetry isn’t manly?” Gennady scoffed. “Like wearing a coat that is actually warm enough isn’t manly? Poetry is…” How to explain? “When there is nothing else, when all the world has gone mad, you recite poetry to hold things together, to give life order and meaning. The world is shaking, but poetry is steady.”
So that’s Gennady on poetry. He’s also cogent on abuse and love:
“You think that if you are afraid it should be possible to do something, to fight back or get away. But sometimes it isn’t, sometimes there is nothing to do but endure, and then people fall in love with the thing that they fear because there is no other way to protect themselves. They hope that if they love perhaps they will be loved in return. Do you see?”
And he has no patience with Shakespeare’s dictum that “love is not love which alters when it alteration finds”:
“Oh, how silly,” Gennady said impatiently. “Everything in this world alters. If love is not love if it changes, then love can’t exist.”
I realize I’m giving Daniel short shrift in this review. Daniel doesn’t have as many quotable gems as Gennady, but he holds his own in conversation, and he’s got some skills as an agent that Gennady lacks. Suffice it to say that having fallen for Gennady, I can completely see how Gennady falls for sunny, warm-hearted Daniel.
The trajectory Aster Glenn Gray traces for their love is interesting and unexpected, and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. The only thing I’ll say is that while it might have been possible to end the story in the same year in which it began (1959), it actually spans decades. I found it rich and satisfying. I can't wait to see/hear/read other people's reactions!
Available via Amazon
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Date: 2020-09-03 04:58 am (UTC)I thought all three historical eras were well done -- I was surprised when we left the Cold War era! I hadn't known about that at all. Or if she mentioned it, I forgot. It felt like a really historical book -- the characters were really tied to their backgrounds, even as the times and places changed around them. A lot of the time romance with a happy ending seems to kind of exist in a little cut-off bubble of happiness, and it's like this ending opened out instead. - I gobbled it up even tho I had a headache! I'm going to read it again.
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Date: 2020-09-03 05:02 am (UTC)Do you ever leave Amazon reviews? I'm feeling very frustrated because I tried just now to leave a truncated version of this review on Amazon, and Amazon politely but firmly told me they weren't "accepting reviews on this product from this account." WTF?? Anyway I've emailed them about that, but if I'm not going to be allowed to post reviews, then I hope EVERYBODY ELSE DOES.
.... I mean, I understand not wanting shills and so on, but I think it's just plain WRONG not to let people not post reviews if they know the author. But maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. **frustrated**
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Date: 2020-09-03 05:12 am (UTC)and Amazon politely but firmly told me they weren't "accepting reviews on this product from this account."
WTFFFFFFFF It seems like that might have something to do with unverified reviews, or the product getting too many reviews in a day, or if you sell something similar from your account? IDEFK. Did they give you a contact email? That is fucking bizarre.
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Date: 2020-09-03 11:51 am (UTC)But I know that this is one of those things where Amazon isn't going to change its policy based on one person's well-argued but self-interested reasoning. Dammit.
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