Nocturnes for the King of Naples
by Edmund White
On This Page
Description
The letters of a seducer to the great love of his life, a sensual tour-de-force by "the paterfamilias of queer literature" (New York Times)"Can't sleep tonight. Was lying in bed reading the biography of a great man whose genius deserted him . . . The genius who deserted me was you." In a series of late-night letters, gorgeous, funny, filled with memory, sensuality, and regret, a seducer calls across the years to the great love of his youth: an older, revered expatriate known, in his show more adoptive city, as the King of Naples. As the narrator evokes their affair, in scenes of beauty and remorse, his memories range over the men who came after and before, especially the seductive father who still haunts his erotic imagination.
First published in 1978, before the trilogy of frankly autobiographical novels that made him famous, Nocturnes for the King of Naples reveals Edmund White at his most poetic, playful, and evocative, a magician on the level of James Salter, James Merrill, or Vladimir Nabokov.
. show less
Tags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
My favorite of all of White's books. Parts of it are truly sublime. I put it up there with _The Swimming Pool Library_ by Hollinghurst because it also manages to capture the essence of what it was like to be a part of the sex hunt back in that [now almost mythical] pre-condom era.
[i]A cigarette rhymes its glow with my own across the huge expanse that has shattered its crystal lining to the ground. [/i]
Did you get that? Neither did I. And this is just page two. It keeps getting … deeper? baroque? I fail to find a description.
Anyway, this is not for me. I don’t mind angst… when it comes with a plot. And I actually enjoy poetic writing… when the sentences make sense.
Life is too short. There are too many books out there to be read. This one is heading to the recycle bin.
Did you get that? Neither did I. And this is just page two. It keeps getting … deeper? baroque? I fail to find a description.
Anyway, this is not for me. I don’t mind angst… when it comes with a plot. And I actually enjoy poetic writing… when the sentences make sense.
Life is too short. There are too many books out there to be read. This one is heading to the recycle bin.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Harold Bloom - The Western Canon: D. The Chaotic Age
833 works; 24 members
Favorite Epistolary Fiction
143 works; 144 members
Author Information
68+ Works 13,066 Members
Author Edmund White was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on January 13, 1940. He majored in Chinese at the University of Michigan. Before spending a year in Rome, he worked for Time-Life Books from 1962 until 1970. Upon his return, he became an editor for The Saturday Review and Horizon. He lived in France from 1983 until 1990. His works have chronicled show more gay life with such books as A Boy's Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
McNally Editions (11)
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Nocturnes for the King of Naples
- Original publication date
- 1978
Classifications
- Genres
- LGBTQ+, Fiction and Literature, General Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PZ4 .W5829 — Language and Literature Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction in English
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 368
- Popularity
- 85,223
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.27)
- Languages
- Dutch, English, French, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 13
- ASINs
- 4
