![]() fiction as queer archaeology, demonstrating that looking back doesn’t necessarily mean looking backward. In nudist safe havens in the countryside at peacetime, codified arrangements between privates and majors during war, lurid encounters in Continental brothels while on leave and lively salon conversations about Hellenistic poetry post-armistice, the novel presents the many ways other 'outlaws' like Maurice and Alec successfully, if tenuously, carved out spaces for themselves. reads like an attempt to make these forgotten men feel less alone, to proliferate their stories. There’s a sweeping romantic vision here that’s as old-fashioned as it is refreshingly modern, with this war-torn couple pining away for each other as they hold their love in the highest esteem, in bold defiance of English laws and customs. ![]() In following the couple beyond a hazily suggested happy ever after, di Canzio makes Forster’s wish for them all the more tangible as he shows these characters building a life for themselves on their own terms. Once di Canzio pushes past his borrowed characters’ figural greenwood, his goal in reanimating them becomes clearer. ![]()
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