Excerpts from the first half of Go Zappa’s brave new book.
Ayumu, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Ah-yuu-muu… He was Ayu, plain Ayu, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. He was Ayumu-chan at school.
But in my arms he was always Ayumu.
***
Did he have a precursor? He did, indeed he did. In point of fact, there might have been no Ayumu at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial androgynous child.
In a princedom by the stream. Oh when? About as many years before Ayumu was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
***
100% medically accurate!
All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actual imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other’s soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do.
***
You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine (oh, how you cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs — the shota outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate — the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; he stands unrecognized by them and unconscious himself of his fantastic power.
***
It was my brother — the frail, honey-hued shoulders, the silky, supple bare back, the silver head of hair.
Frolicking face-down in the shallow bath hid his chest from my aging ape eyes, but not from the gaze of memory, the juvenile buttocks I had fondled one immortal day. With awe and delight (the king crying for joy, the trumpets blaring, the nurse drunk) I saw again his lovely shoulder blades where my southbound mouth had briefly paused; and those puerile hips on which I had kissed the crenulated imprint left by the band of his shorts — that last mad immortal day…
***
In the gay town of Yamabiko I bought him four books of comics, a box of candy, two cokes, a manicure set, a travel clock with a luminous dial, a ring with a real topaz, a tennis racket, roller skates with white high shoes, field glasses, a portable radio set, chewing gum, a transparent raincoat, sunglasses, some more garments — swooners, shorts, all kinds of summer frocks. At the inn we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night he came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently.
You see, he had absolutely nowhere else to go.
Bonus material
I was wondering if you were gonna get around to the cheerleading outfit, but it seems you have gone even further than I’ve watched.
I don’t think Nabakov is so much rolling in his grave as doing a complete calisthenic work out.
I’m likely only ahead of you in the anime because I’ve pretty much stopped “watching.” 4x speed through every damn episode.
Hey E-Minor, just outta curiosity, are you a university undergrad? Your blog posts started coming out suspiciously fast in mid-april (i.e. when lectures end @ Canadian universities :P)
I am (was?) a grad student. I’m definitely not Canadian!
I wish I hadn’t lost my battered copy of Lolita. It was one of my favorite books.
This was funny, as usual. I swear I just skimmed thorough the latest episode, well at least they’re bringing in the fanservice (Because the rest of this show is pretty crappy). And holy shit, is it just me or is there now an ‘obligatory bathing Ayumu’ in every episode now? This show has reached new lows.
Nabokov’s amazing to me, honestly. He didn’t start writing his novels in English until Sebastian Knight and his prose in Lolita is the best I’ve ever read.
Did anyone find it weird when Kazuma found out that generic best friend guy was responsible for sticking his poor brother in a cheerleader’s outfit, he actually approved with a thumbs up?
It’s amazing what he could do with the English language. It’s just beyond me. It’s embarrassing I’ve never read any of his other works though, but that’s because I’m a lazy reader lol.
I thought that was really weird and out of place. All of a sudden, Kazuma is okay with his brother crossdressing? I don’t get it. I mean, he’s never showed any /real/ interest in Ayumu but he likes his crossdressing? I don’t know…all of a sudden I’m confused. But not as confused when oppai sumo turned up. I just had to skip that, it was so awkward.
I think we’ve tip-toed the elephant in the room long enough. Ayumu is nothing more than a loli substitute — one that you can easily show bare-chested on broadcast TV.
That last clip… I don’t even…
Oppai sumo is like pillow fighting — we all know girls do it during sleepovers, OMG.
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