Tolstoy Lied : A Love Story (9780547527307) Read Online Free PDF

fascinations of
Beowulf.
” He takes a mug from the cabinet and looks inside dubiously, then rinses it in the mini-sink. “Continuing the profound and brilliant impression I’ve been making on him. And letting it be known, parenthetically, that I might be persuaded to alter my present circumstances. For the right offer.”
    â€œWhy would you want a job at Emory? This is a much better department.”
    â€œUpward mobility,” he says tartly, setting the mug down.
    â€œNo way you’re going to leave Manhattan for Atlanta. Even for love. I know you. Can you really see yourself in the land of seven-lane superhighways? Where everything in town is sponsored by Coca-Cola?”
    Saying nothing, he empties the coffeepot and sets it up for another round. I watch his profile. Jeff has known he was gay since he was seven, and he claims this early intimacy with what W.E.B. Du Bois called “double-consciousness” (living by one set of societal rules, all the while experiencing a different, unvoiced identity) trained him well for the path he’s chosen. Life is about strict separations, and Jeff’s boundaries are concrete: British Drama by day, Chelsea dance clubs by night; never the twain shall meet. In any other line of work Jeff’s dress would mark him as obviously, stereotypically gay, but here in the world of lit he slips under the gaydar. He’s routinely mistaken for just another straight Europhile liberal arts professor in tight black jeans, synthetic black shirts, and chunky black belts—one of dozens of boy-men stamped with the standard academic-chic pallor. Guys who dance with their eyeshalf closed and break the hearts of female grad students with their eternal, eloquent, tormented ambivalence. Who have, where romance is concerned, more second thoughts than is mathematically possible.
    In fact Jeff is anything but ambivalent. He knows exactly whom he loves (Richard) and what he wants (an apartment together with a spare room so they can share a home office). They’ve agreed to cheat on each other freely until they can figure out a way to be together for more than just vacations. At that point neither of them will have wild oats left to sow, and they’ll buy a place in whatever city will offer stable attractive positions for two British lit specialists, one (Richard) with a subspecialty in queer theory. The fact that such opportunities are supremely rare has not escaped Jeff’s notice, and although he is usually closed about his personal life, the relationship’s glum prospects have fueled an occasional gripe session. Jeff, to his own surprise, is a lousy cheater. And Richard doesn’t seem to have more success down at Emory. Despite all efforts, they’re engaged in what is, according to Jeff, one of the colossal stupidities of the universe: a monogamous long-distance relationship. The prospect of spending three solid months together this spring—Jeff having at last succeeded in arranging a semester’s leave—seems only to have sharpened Jeff’s frustration.
    Other than this inexplicable indiscretion of his loyalty to Richard, nothing fazes Jeff. He can read a department’s politics like a page of Shaw, analyze, deconstruct, and tell you what’s going to happen in the next scene. He’s witty enough that conversation with him is intellectually seductive—there’s a buzz I get from staying on my toes with him—and also fatiguing. I don’t let my guard down entirely, because he doesn’t. We watch each other’s backs, but it’s clear who’s got the keener eye. Jeff lives and breathes cynicism. To talk to him is to measure the volume and density of my own naiveté. And though I know I’m his favorite in the department—I am, as far as I can tell, the only one who knows about Richard—there’s something about his unshakable control that makes me uncomfortable. After Jeff’s tenure