I've been daunted by the idea of trying to do justice to Aster Glenn Gray's
The Sleeping Soldier here on Dreamwidth.
Somehow I did manage, finally, to say a few things on Goodreads, but when I think about writing a DW post, I think about saying more, or making it more personal, or something. And then I wilt. And that's a shame, because I love this book. All of AGG's books are fun, thoughtful tales, but this one really nails a central theme of hers, which is what friendship means or has meant for people at different points in time, and what romantic love means, and what sexual attraction is and how that fits in.
The scenario is that Russell, a young Civil War soldier, was cursed, Sleeping Beauty style, by a fairy, and has now awakened 100 years in his future, in 1965, where he's guided through his new life by Caleb, a miserably closeted gay college student. The story has plenty of the fun you'd expect from that setup, as Russell encounters the wonders of life in 1965--and also enlightens the college crowd about which things were, in fact, present in 1865 ("I
know what ketchup is," he says haughtily at one point). But it also probes the grief and loss that would go with waking up 100 years in the future, and touches on how we understand history--or don't:
Caleb nodded. "It's hard for people to let go of their preconceived notions [about the past]."
"They don't really want my opinion on anything," Russell griped. "They just want to draft the whole nineteenth century into supporting what they think. As if we all agreed with each other! We had this whole Civil War, you might could remember."
And then there's that theme of friendship and romantic love, and what's appropriate to express and what's considered by society to be deviant at any given time. I knew some of this, but not much, and very little about how same-sex attraction has been understood. In fact, what little I know is mainly thanks to AGG's earlier stories. I'm humbled to say that her writing in this book made me understand the situation of a gay friend of mine (Caleb's contemporary) in new ways. On that note, I really love the character Michael in this story. What a good and patient friend.
I came across this in someone's Goodreads review of the book:
I felt sad because I honestly never knew how it was in the past (men being open with their affection to each other).
And this, from an Amazon reviewer:
I came out in my teens, in the Midwest in the mid-70s, and the novel captures that sense of isolation and self-discovery: reading The Charioteer, Giovanni’s Room etc. anything with gay characters while feeling like you’re the only gay person in the world and trying to figure out how you’ll make a life. I never would have expected this book to capture the profundity and comedy of this forgotten world so well.
Those comments say so eloquently what's important and special about this book.
... But past-meets-nearer-past moments were also great, honestly. I enjoyed the explanations of things like hot dogs ("Hot dogs are... um. A kind of sausage") and Russell's encounters with items such as escalators a whole lot too.
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