28 replies to this topic

[honeyandthemoon]

Hmm, I did a search and couldn't believe that there didn't seem to be any mentions of Edward Gorey's asexuality. (Pardon me if this has been covered before.) I love him, and he was actually the first asexual person I had ever heard of. Here are some excerpts from an interview in 1980:

...the press makes a point of the fact that you have never married. What are your sexual preferences?
Well, I'm neither one thing nor the other particularly.

Why not?
I am fortunate in that I am apparently reasonably undersexed or something... I've never said that I was gay and I've never said that I wasn't... What I'm trying to say is that I am a person before I am anything else... I realize that homosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is - but then, of course, heterosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is, too. And being a man is a serious problem and being a woman is, too. Lots of things are problems.

Is the sexlessness of your books a product of your asexuality?
I would say so. Although every now and then someone will say my books are seething with repressed sexuality.

You don't believe that?
I don't really know. I don't know what I'm writing about. I never sat down and tried to figure it out. It's not about sex, or at least not obviously, right?

Sometimes it is about sex. There are those who say that your book The Curious Sofa is a pornographic novel; in fact, it's even subtitled "a pornographic work." And it's full of couples having odd sexual encounters.
But it's not pornographic in the standard sense. It's all in the style.

That book is minimalist and unexpected - a good example of your work. You leave a lot to the imagination.
Well, no one has any sex organs.

But you do mention several times that the characters are enormously "well-endowed."
Oh, right. But the girls are all flat-chested and the men in the pictures have their backs to you. You don't see anything. The whole point of The Curious Sofa is that it was totally not illustrated! I'd rather die than do pornographic drawings. Oh, God!

Why?
It's so boring! I wrote The Curious Sofa after I finally managed to get a copy of The Story of O, which Edmund Wilson had recommended to me as a really great book. I read it with Edmund's strictures in mind, and I thought, "Oh, Edmund, this is absurd. No one takes pornography seriously."


From another interview:

"[There have been] emotional entanglements [in my life], but I don't wish to get into them. I'm always interested to hear about it when somebody I know gets in some totally bizarre relationship, but I know perfectly well I wouldn't want to do it... Sometimes I ask myself why I never ended up with somebody for the rest of my life, and then I realize that I obviously didn't want to, or I would have."

(By the way, these are from a recently published collection of interviews titled Ascending Peculiarity.)

[(SP)]

I had no idea.
And this is nice information to have.

[Cate Perfect]

Wow. I'm a huge Edward Gorey fan, but I never thought about his sexuality. Excellent. *puts on her Gorey 'Embrace Exceterism' t-shirt*

Cate

[Chozo]

I must admit I have never heard of this person, but I shall take a look and see if I can find anything of his to read. Got a recommendation?

[Cate Perfect]

The Gashlycrumb Tinies is one of my favourites.

He's sort of a twisted cartoonist. If you like Tim Burton films or The Addams Family cartoons you'll probably like him.

Cate

[winter]

The Gashlycrumb Tinies is one of my favourites.

ooooh mine too! i have many a fond memory of sitting on my friend's bedroom floor and flipping through gorey cartoons. i like the doubtful guest and the haunted tea-cosy too.

[cait]

Edward Gorey writes novels? or...books? I don't actually know who Edward Gorey is... But a friend of mine got me this Emily Strange calender for Christmas, and I had no idea what Emily Strange was, still don't...apparently just a bunch of merchandise with not actually representing anything at all...anyway, I told my friend I'd never heard of it before and she was all surprised like I should have, then she mentioned Edward Gorey and was even more surprised to hear I'd never encountered the name in my life. Apparently I'd like his stuff...whatever that stuff is. I saw a little cartoon on a poster once...I forget what it was...something terribly violent and silly.

Anyway...yeah...Edward Gorey, what does he do? Anyone want to recommend anything to me?

[winter]

mostly short illustrated stories of a morbid but still rather silly nature. i could see where the creators of emily the strange might have been influenced by him.

see couple of posts above for suggestions.

[Naissur9]

I like Gorey's artwork and poetry. I believe this is the official site:
http://www.goreyography.com

Edit: you can sample some of his stuff here: http://www.lunaea.com/words/gorey/
and the Gashlycrumb Tinies here: http://users.aol.com/emarko/gorey.html

[Islander9]

O glory be, Gorey!
I have all his works (how would you describe them? Profoundy individual, eccentric and strange-atmosphered picture stories) that I could obtain here.
I think my favourite is 'AmphiGorey'(because it is) but - I havent got 'em all.
And he does sound as though he was an asexual person.

[k-a-t-e]

I'm a huge Gorey fan. Along with his books I've also read most of the biography/interview books and completely blanked that most of what he says points to asexual. Cool!

[gwitcoy]

i like gorey's work too, although i haven't seen everything .. i didn't know too much about him, i have to say, but he does seem awful nice. ace!

[Kelly]

Oh, wow. This thread has been brought back from the dead. How gory.


Awesome interview. Gorey is one of our famous asexuals. Yay.

*wonders why EGD has not posted in this thread yet*

[daveb]

My sister recently gave me a little notebook/notepad with Gorey illustrations on the cover.

Gorey's artwork also used to grace the opening of "Mystery" (is that the correct name?), tv show seen on PBS in the US, but originally from the UK. There were atmospheric animated sequences before Diana Rigg introduced the main show. Are they still making "Mystery" or using the Gorey/Rigg intros?

I think his artwork is also used on a card game called Gloom.

[Kelly]

Perhaps a lot of us were introduced to Gorey's art via PBS' Mystery! program.

I believe that the show is still being produced, but Dame Diana Rigg no longer hosts the show, Alan Cumming does. Before Dame Diana, Vincent Price hosted the series from 1981 to 1989.

[ZenKitty]

I have a copy of the book that excerpt was taken from. I've been reading it and when I got to the interview that's excerpted above, things made sense... and I eventually made my way here... I had no clue someone could be this way, and seeing him all but say the word, I started digging more...

He's awesome... I'm slowly wending my way through the book. We've been discussing it in my intro thread in the welcome section. I've read some of his work, grew up seeing the Mystery opening sequence, but now I am truly a fan of his work... just a few years late, that's all.

Amanda

[Raccoons & Arca N.H.]

Hmm, I wonder if Edward Gorey has an AVEN account

[ZenKitty]

Hmm, I wonder if Edward Gorey has an AVEN account

Hmm... did a little digging... he died in 2000... and AVEN was formed in 2001... so, unless he got one from beyond the grave, most likely not. But his spirit could be lurking around here... never know.

[Raccoons & Arca N.H.]

Its a shame that he died, He made asexuality recognizable!

[daveb]

Hmm, I wonder if Edward Gorey has an AVEN account

Hmm... did a little digging... he died in 2000... and AVEN was formed in 2001... so, unless he got one from beyond the grave, most likely not. But his spirit could be lurking around here... never know.

Maybe a posthumous Avenite?

[ThePieMaker]

Perhaps a lot of us were introduced to Gorey's art via PBS' Mystery! program.

I believe that the show is still being produced, but Dame Diana Rigg no longer hosts the show, Alan Cumming does. Before Dame Diana, Vincent Price hosted the series from 1981 to 1989.

I was introduced to him because he illustrated my favorite childhood books that took place in a town based entirely off the little town I live in. One of his drawings for the books was of a house I walked by everyday when I walked home in high school.

[Zerick]

One of his drawings for the books was of a house I walked by everyday when I walked home in high school.

I like that

I have always had a slight crush on his daughter

[ravenofroses]

just throwing my two cents into this one.

edward gorey = love.

wish i had the money to collect more of his work.

and methinks i need to get to researching him more.

[Disillusioned_and_♥ing_It]

At the risk of breathing life into an otherwise...ahem...rather dead post, I did just want to alert anybody who might not know that Gorey's 1957 book The Doubful Guest is going to be made into a feature film by The Jim Henson Company (you know, the people who are famous for The Muppets and Sesame Street).

It's currently set for release in 2010, and I'm sure that it will have its own thread on this site sooner or later (if it doesn't already), but in the meantime I just wanted to express my hope that this movie brings attention to the late Mr. Gorey, and hopefully to asexuality generally.

Here is the movie's IMDB page, just to prove I'm not making this up: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0959380/

And, since the IMDB profile is at the moment only available to IMDbPro members (being an in production title), here is an article I found about the film on the web: http://www.comingsoo...ws.php?id=19751

[Raccoons & Arca N.H.]

Is this him?

[ZenKitty]

Yes, that is/was him. albeit without his infamous fur coat he was always seen wearing around NYC. That looks like it could have been taken later on, when he was living outside the city... Cape Cod, I think? not sure...

Amanda

Is this him?