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''Bertram Cope's Year'' is a 1919 novel by Henry Blake Fuller, sometimes called the first American homosexual novel.〔Roger Austen calls ''Imre: A Memorandum'' the first, but it was published privately in Italy in 1906.〕 ==Publication and reception== Fuller completed work on the novel in May 1918. After failing to interest several New York publishing houses, Fuller placed the novel with his friend Ralph Fletcher Seymour who ran a small publishing house in Chicago, Alderbrink Press, that usually published art books. It appeared in October 1919.〔John Pilkington, ''Henry Blake Fuller'' (NY: Twayne Publishers 1970), 151〕 The novel is sometimes described as "self-published."〔Steven R. Serafin and Alfred Bendixen, eds., ''The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature'' (1999), 414; Jan Pinkerton, Randolph H. Hudson, eds., ''Encyclopedia of the Chicago Literary Renaissance'' (Facts on File, 2004), 30〕 The novel received little attention from literary periodicals when it first appeared and was poorly understood; sales were slight.〔 ''New Outlook'' printed a short notice that concluded: "The study of this weak but agreeable man is subtle but far from exciting."〔''New Outlook'', vol. 124 (January 21, 1920), 119, (available online ), accessed September 9, 2011〕 The American Library Association's ''Booklist'' described it as "A story of superficial social university life in a suburb of Chicago, with live enough people and a sense of humor hovering near the surface."〔A.L.A. ''Booklist'', Volume 16 (January 1920), 133 (available online ), accessed September 9, 2011〕 H.L. Mencken, writing in the ''Smart Set'' described Cope as beset with three female suitors and "somewhat heavily patronized" by Randolph. Cope fails to benefit from the efforts of Mrs. Phillips and Randolph and "even forgets to be grateful....It is simply beyond him to imagine that he needs help....A very fair piece of writing as novels go. A bit sly and ''pizzicato''; even a bit distinguished. If you know the later novels of E.F. Benson, you know the tone of it." Mencken noted how different the novel was from some of Fuller's earlier work, novels that "launched realism in America." In the author of ''Bertram Cope's Year'' he found "a pleasant style, an adept technique, the manner of a gentleman." It concluded: "It is surely something to be an American novelist, and yet write like a gentleman."〔H.L. Mencken, "The Flood of Fiction," in ''The Smart Set: A Magazine of Cleverness'', vol. 61 (January 1920), 141, (available online ), accessed September 9, 2011〕 London's ''The Bookman'' included the novel in a section of short reviews under the heading "Good Novels of Several Kinds." After summarizing the plot as the tale of a young academic who is the object of the "pathetically burning interest" of an older woman and an older man, the latter "the sort of wistful elderly parasite to be found in any college community," the review recommended it for certain readers: "The kind of novel which must be enjoyed not for its matter so mush as for its quality, its richness of texture and subtlety of atmosphere. It has distinction, is as finely wrought in its way as a Howells novel or a Cable. It would be extremely irritating to the customer looking for a rattling good tale."〔''The Bookman'', vol. 51, no. 3 (May 1920), 344, (available online ), accessed September 9, 2011〕 A few years later, in 1924, John Chipman Farrar, early in his illustrious publishing career, was enthusiastic:〔John Chipman Farrar, ''The Literary Spotlight'' (NY: George H. Doran, 1924), 153, (available online ), accessed September 9, 2011〕 Carl Van Vechten wrote in 1926 that the subject, "generally taboo in English literature," could only be addressed when handled in the style Fuller adopted, "so skilful, so delicate, so studiously restrained, which he termed "ironic comedy":〔Carl Van Vechten, ''Excavations: A Book of Advocacies'' (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926), 139-40〕 Roger Austen's 1977 survey of American gay literature faulted Fuller for a lack of candor due to his "pose that all of these gay or semi-gay relationships were something that he himself knew nothing about."〔Roger Austen, ''Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America'' (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1977),30. In a tendentious and political reading, Austen complains that the characters and their motivations are not overt and specified, even as he imagines the work to be set in 1870. He makes several mistakes in summarizing the plot, including statements that Arthur shows affection to Cope only in privacy and that the novel ends with Bertram leaving to join Arthur in the East. He ignores the narrator's voice and says the novel presents Cope through Randolph's eyes. Austen, 28-9〕 By contrast, Andrew Solomon's evaluation accompanying the novel's republication in 1998 praises the novel for depicting "normative homosexuality--discreet, occasional, often unfulfilled, neither delirious nor unbearable," breaking with the traditional depictions of the homosexual as either shameful or theatrical. He cited the novel's "exquisite understatement" and Fuller's "beautifully balanced irony on the subject closest to his heart." In his view, "The novel treads gently around the edge of the erotic" and allows its homosexual characters to "move with moderate ease in a largely straight world." Cope and Arthur enjoy "the minor and comic troubles of essentially rather pleasurable and straightforward male domesticity."〔Andrew Solomon, "Afterword," in Henry Blake Fuller, ''Bertram Cope's Year'' (NY: Turtle Point Press, 1998), 289-300〕 Upon its republication in 1998, it received enthusiastic reviews.〔''New York Times'': (Joel Cannaroe, "Seen Types of Ambiguity," August 9, 1998 ), accessed September 3, 2011〕 Other modern assessments and characterizations vary from "daring"〔James Gifford, ed., ''Glances Backward: An Anthology of American Homosexual Writing, 1830-1920'' (Broadview Press, 2007), 150〕 to "rather campy."〔David Bergman, "Endowed by their Creator: Queer America Literature," in Paul Lauter, ed., ''A Companion to American Literature and Culture'' (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 616〕 A 2004 description of its theme says that when the novel appeared "its gay theme,...although never fully specified, was recognizable. Today...the theme seems positively advertised."〔Jan Pinkerton, Randolph H. Hudson, eds., ''Encyclopedia of the Chicago Literary Renaissance'' (Facts on File, 2004), 30〕 A definitive critical edition of the novel appeared in 2010, and reprints for the first time a recently discovered passage of several handwritten pages that Fuller intended to add to the novel shortly after its initial publication. This indispensable edition supersedes that of Turtle Point Press because it includes helpful annotations and a series of appendices that include Fuller's letters, diary entries, book reviews, and other writings that contain homosexual themes. The introduction by Joseph Dimuro, a UCLA English professor, situates the novel within the corpus of Fuller's other work, discusses its place in an emerging gay culture, and offers revisionary readings of the novel's modern significance.〔Joseph Dimuro, ed., Henry Blake Fuller, (''Bertram Cope's Year'' ) (Broadview Press, 2010)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bertram Cope's Year」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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