What do you think about his statement?
"What could I say to such priests and doctors? I would say to the priest that God made me as I am, that I had no choice, that He must have made me like this for a purpose, that He knows the ultimate reasons for all things and that therefore it must be all to the good that I am as I am, even if we cannot know what that good is. I can say to the priest that if God is the reason for all things, then God is to blame and I should not be condemned."
3 comments:
standby for response i should get there by tomorrow...
i think Carlo is an amazing character. he struggles with so much self-guilt and shame, yet he continues to flourish. he can't tell anyone how he feels, which is so isolating, but he continues to give and give and give, knowing that he will essentially never get the return he craves.
interesting how soldiers in WW2 and soldiers today may be having the same struggles in terms of expressing their sexuality honestly.
sub-question: do you think the love he has for his fellow platoon-mates indeed makes him fight harder to protect them? i think it may. not that it should exactly become official tactical strategy, but, i would probably fight harder for someone i loved than someone i just really liked as a buddy.
I used to wonder about writing one of those "to be read no sooner than the date of my own death" letters - and I think when I was younger, I would put such a dislaimer on my own diaries. Because I wanted to be free to write the truth as I saw it - to not spare feelings of others, to not bend my own ideas to placate their judgments. I think in some way, we are all, in the words of Carlo "reduced to eternal and infinite silence." Maybe not to the same degree as a strong, beautiful gay man serving in a past era military, but by our nature and to maintain the social contracts we enter into to preserve our life, we all have an unspoken part of our souls. And how intense are his feelings and how beautifully he expresses them - "I am exploding with the fire of love and there isno one to accept it or nurish it. I am a foreigner within my own nation, an alien in my own race, I am as detested as cancer when I am as purely flesh as any priest or doctor."
As for the sub-question, I do like how Plato describes the "inspired hero" and how love enobles us all. And on one hand it makes sense for Carlo to fight harder alongside the beautiful young men he truly loves, yet I wonder if he fights any harder than the men who share the same dreams of returning home to their wives/girlfriends, and connect as "brothers" only because that love is reciprocated. Poor Carlo is damned to unrequited love. I don't really know. I am just looking at love as a force multiplyer and that it is stronger when reciprocated - but maybe not. I used to think i had love all figured out - now, i am a little skeptical...
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