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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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I adored it
It made me laugh and kept my attention. It is so sad that the hatred and violence that Quentin Crisp experienced years ago is still around today. I did feel lik I really knew the man after reading the book. He is very honest and very dry. A good read.
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What a hoot!
By far, one of the funniest books I've ever read, and I read quite a bit. The writing is dry and witty, like Sedaris in ME TALK PRETTY or McCrae in BARK OF THE DOGWOOD, and Crip's insights into things are at once hysterical and also tinged with sadness.
My favorite quote in the book? "My parents hated me chiefly because I was expensive." Or something along those lines.
Do yourself a favor and read this. Like CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES or NAKED this is one you'll want to keep on your bookshelves to pull out from time to time when you need a good laugh. Highly recommended.
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"Queer" Before There Was "Queer" -- And Funny as Hell
Quentin Crisp truly embodies the expression "to thine own self be true." But his life bumped up against another cliche, "don't frighten the horses." As a young man in London during the 1920s and 1930s, he lived openly as an effeminate, homosexual man, not closeted, but, as he says in these witty memoirs, "brazening it out" and willing to take the social and other lumps associated with such visibility.
Actually, his sexuality seems to be the least of his problems in these sharply observed autobiographical accounts. An eccentric in the true British tradition, he refused ever to dust his bedroom, observing that after the first three years the dust didn't get any worse . . . and at bedtime he slipped beneath the seldom-washed sheets ensconced in cold cream like a cocoon in its chrysalis.
Corporate life had its own bewilderments and intrigues for Mr. Crisp, who was silly enough to take literally what he was told to do. When asked to buy his employer a pair of scissors, he went to a good stationery store and spent one shilling sixpence (eighteen pence, pre-decimalization, about US$.50 at that time) for a good pair of office scissors. This frightened his office colleague no end, who had expected him to pick up a cheap pair at Woolworth's for sixpence. Crisp facetiously suggested denominating the more costly pair "paper shears" and was aghast when she accepted his notion all too happily. His droll take on the mismatch between his mentality and the corporate life shows us that his ego demands no grandiosity, no sense of who is "right" and who is "wrong," but simply a perpetual befuddlement at two mindsets that can never understand each other.
Along with such everyday satires of circumstance, much of the pleasure of *The Naked Civil Servant* lies in its prose style and tone, which are conversational and chatty, but also clever and occasionally arch. Perhaps like a pleasant, purring pussy cat who gets its back up once in a while, but is never indignant -- not at us, anyway. As an inducement to stay in town and leave the family alone, Crisp mentions receiving the proceeds of "GUILT"-edged securities, a pun on the British term "gilt-edged" securities, or what we Americans would call "blue-chip stock."
But of course, interwar gay life had its stereotyping and role-playing. The he-man types were expected to be the sexual aggressors, and the nellies the submissives. In one section Crisp complains that he and his friends "camped it up all over the place" but their virile new acquaintances were too dense to figure out what they wanted in bed.
Because of this book, Mr. Crisp's services (as an author and savant) became greatly in demand on this side of the pond, and he became a favorite in lecture halls and as author of such books as *Manners From Heaven.* His Wildean sensibility was evident -- when he panned a movie he'd say something like "it was as boring as real life." But Crisp was never a bore, and there was never a book like this. First-rate all the way, full of surprises, and interesting glimpses of an interwar England not usually mentioned in the usual histories.
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A rare and wonderful treat
Written in what the author describes as his "Havisham twilight," Quentin Crisp set the literary world on it's head when he published this ribald memoir. A man of estimable spirit and courage, Crisp has documented his early life with great wit. By living openly and honestly despite the often negative consequences, Crisp was a pioneer in the gay rights movement. Perhaps this was not his intention at the time, but his willingness to share his life with us in this most enjoyable momoir, has served to embolden an entire generation.
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Quentin Crisp was not a homosexual...
...well, okay, YES he preferred the company of men, and he cringed at the thought of carnal relations with women, but I'd argue that *The Naked Civil Servant* isn't actually about anything as obvious as sexuality. It's clearly more about living on the fringes of mainstream society--even on the fringes of a fringe society, as the homo subculture was in Mr. Crisp's salad days (and still is, in some places).
Throughout the book, Crisp makes it quite clear that he's not your average gay man. The makeup, the hair, the nails: these bits of frippery aren't for every homo. In fact, he talks at length about the fact that many of his gay friends wouldn't even be seen with him during the day because of his flambuoyant appearance. Crisp was doing his own thing.
In the end (if you'll pardon the expression), Crisp wasn't out to champion gay rights. Rather, he was arguing for widespread tolerance of individuals who don't live up to the hegemonic standard. Whether that means tolerance of three-headed Siberian pygmies or of flaming, screechingly effeminate creatures such as himself, I don't think his arguments would change much.
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