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Tricks
A graphic tale of a young gay Frenchman's brief encounters. These 25 fictional tricks—relations which take place only once: more than cruising, less than love—are played out against the backdrop of bars in Paris and Milan and bedrooms from NYC to San Francisco.
Camus captures the immediacy of sexual experiences with French farm boys and businessmen, New York "cowboys," California intellectuals, leather boys, and amyl-sniffing queens in narratives filled with wit and affection. Camus does not justify, plead or interpret; he simply tells all -- from the first interested glances and small talk to the details of physical intimacy and final partings.
Tricks is new, unique, important--an original experiment in the depiction of sexuality. It is the first book to chart this one aspect of contemporary gay life directly and objectively without the distortions of sentimentality, sensationalism, or fantasy.
Camus captures the immediacy of sexual experiences with French farm boys and businessmen, New York "cowboys," California intellectuals, leather boys, and amyl-sniffing queens in narratives filled with wit and affection. Camus does not justify, plead or interpret; he simply tells all -- from the first interested glances and small talk to the details of physical intimacy and final partings.
Tricks is new, unique, important--an original experiment in the depiction of sexuality. It is the first book to chart this one aspect of contemporary gay life directly and objectively without the distortions of sentimentality, sensationalism, or fantasy.
252 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1981
About the author
Renaud Camus
139 books41 followersRenaud Camus, writer, painter, photographer, was born in 1946. As a young man, Camus' ideas and writings were strongly influenced by his association with Roland Barthes, Louis Aragon, Marguerite Duras, and the Warholian circles. He is now the author of more than one hundred and sixty works, published for the most part by P.O.L, Fayard and now by "Editions du Château": annual volumes of diaries, novels, essays, elegies, eglogues, dictionaries, anthologies, writings on art, political writings, literary travel guides...
His works are marked by the question of meaning. It includes avant-garde texts, the "Eclogues", conceived as a response to the aporias of the Nouveau Roman, and "Burn Boats", an immense hypertext in perpetual growth. The political work is organized around the monumental "Du Sens" (P.O.L., 2002), "Le Petit Remplacement" (Chez l'auteur, 2017) and "Le Grand Remplacement" (Chez l'auteur, 5th edition, 2019).
Cultural animator of the Château de Plieux for a decade (exhibitions Jean-Paul Marcheschi, Eugène Leroy, Miro, Jannis Kounellis, Josef Albers, etc.), Renaud Camus is also the author of abstract paintings ("YHWH", "Alephs", "Enjambements") and figurative, as well as photographic albums ("The Day nor the Hour").
To fight against the industrialization of man and the massacre of landscapes, against a pan-economism that treats men as Undifferentiated Human Matter, and against the change of people and the violence it implies, the author founded the party of In-nocence (2002) and, with Karim Ouchikh, the National Council of the European Resistance (2017)
His works are marked by the question of meaning. It includes avant-garde texts, the "Eclogues", conceived as a response to the aporias of the Nouveau Roman, and "Burn Boats", an immense hypertext in perpetual growth. The political work is organized around the monumental "Du Sens" (P.O.L., 2002), "Le Petit Remplacement" (Chez l'auteur, 2017) and "Le Grand Remplacement" (Chez l'auteur, 5th edition, 2019).
Cultural animator of the Château de Plieux for a decade (exhibitions Jean-Paul Marcheschi, Eugène Leroy, Miro, Jannis Kounellis, Josef Albers, etc.), Renaud Camus is also the author of abstract paintings ("YHWH", "Alephs", "Enjambements") and figurative, as well as photographic albums ("The Day nor the Hour").
To fight against the industrialization of man and the massacre of landscapes, against a pan-economism that treats men as Undifferentiated Human Matter, and against the change of people and the violence it implies, the author founded the party of In-nocence (2002) and, with Karim Ouchikh, the National Council of the European Resistance (2017)
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 4, 2016
25 affairs, connections, one night stands, encounters...whatever you want to call them. not to be an essentialist, but urban gay men often have a nonchalant attitude to one night stands, often devoid of moralism or guilt....and Renaud Camus takes that attitude right on up to the next level. his portraits of his various activities, and often the mornings after, are interesting introductions to how folks can connect briefly, understand each other, move on, and experience no troubling after-effects. unfortunately, despite the sweetness, it all becomes pretty monotonous after a while. or maybe i'm just getting old!
March 20, 2024
I'm sure this was extremely scandalous when it came out in '81. But there's been so much sex writing since then, even before the internet made everything accessible with a click or two.
There's some nice writing here. But also a lot of accounting of furniture and clothing, mustaches and body hair, washing up, etc. And the kind of navel-gazing that is not uncommon unfortunately:
The sex acts don't change that much; after the first couple stories, I found myself skimming the sex, in favor of the conversations and descriptions of the few specific unusual settings. It's nice that Camus had a lot more fun than I did, but I don't publish a book with the (ahem) blow by blows.
There's some nice writing here. But also a lot of accounting of furniture and clothing, mustaches and body hair, washing up, etc. And the kind of navel-gazing that is not uncommon unfortunately:
Of all the tricks I describe in this book, this one was incontestably the handsomest; and except for Jeremy, the only really handsome one, maybe, according to all possible and objective criteria, and regardless of what one's type might or might not be.
The sex acts don't change that much; after the first couple stories, I found myself skimming the sex, in favor of the conversations and descriptions of the few specific unusual settings. It's nice that Camus had a lot more fun than I did, but I don't publish a book with the (ahem) blow by blows.
January 5, 2024
gesammelte hookup erzählungen aus ende 70er paris, wird schnell eintönig
December 3, 2011
Tricks is a book of first encounters: twenty-five hook-ups from 1978, from spring through fall. In his introduction, Roland Barthes calls a trick "the encounter which takes place only once: more than cruising, less than love: an intensity, which passes without regret" (x). The encounter may actually recur; some of these tricks may become more than tricks, but at the time of meeting, that's what they are: someone to go to bed with. But it's not strictly about sex: I think Barthes's point that it's about "intensity" is right on: there's so much openness and sweetness in this book, an openness to experience and an openness to connection and an openness to other people. Barthes goes on to say that the trick becomes "the metaphor for many adventures which are not sexual; the encounter of a glance, a gaze, an idea, an image, ephemeral and forceful association, which consents to dissolve so lightly, a faithless benevolence: a way of not getting stuck in desire, though without evading it; all in all, a kind of wisdom," which I think is absolutely lovely—both the thing itself and how Barthes puts it (ibid.).
Each chapter is an encounter in its entirety: a name, a date, a meeting, a seduction, sex, a parting; each has a paragraph-long coda that says whether the narrator saw this partner again or not. It's sometimes funny, as meetings can be: the narrator meets a guy at a club, the guy says something and the narrator doesn't hear him properly, thinks he's suggesting sitting on the back of a bench that actually isn't stable enough to sit on, says "I don't think that's a very good idea," and only later realizes the guy was actually asking him to come dance with him. Or there's a running joke about the trouble Americans have pronouncing "Reynaud" - one guy says "Rano," others say "Wono," and the narrator sometimes pretends he's called "Bruno," that being easier to say. The sex itself is sometimes good, sometimes bad, sweet and playful at its best; encounters are punctuated by laughter and smiles. Tricks may or may not have much in common, socially or intellectually or occupationally, with the narrator: one corporate lawyer notes that he doesn't have any books around, because they "wear [him] out"; another guy asks "if a framed text by Gilbert and George was some kind of diploma" (8, 86).
Meanwhile, the book itself is smartly constructed: the writing of Tricks becomes a presence in the tricks themselves, cleverly and pleasingly: while sitting at his desk trying to write the story of a trick from a few weeks ago, the narrator is interrupted by his latest trick getting dressed in front of him, pausing for kisses and undressing and more sex; that trick's story, later on, includes drinks at an outdoor café with a view of various street performers, including an acrobat whose own acrobatic tricks keep getting interrupted (he's always about to climb onto the roof of an empty kiosk on the sidewalk, but the presence of policemen passing by keeps stopping him).
Each chapter is an encounter in its entirety: a name, a date, a meeting, a seduction, sex, a parting; each has a paragraph-long coda that says whether the narrator saw this partner again or not. It's sometimes funny, as meetings can be: the narrator meets a guy at a club, the guy says something and the narrator doesn't hear him properly, thinks he's suggesting sitting on the back of a bench that actually isn't stable enough to sit on, says "I don't think that's a very good idea," and only later realizes the guy was actually asking him to come dance with him. Or there's a running joke about the trouble Americans have pronouncing "Reynaud" - one guy says "Rano," others say "Wono," and the narrator sometimes pretends he's called "Bruno," that being easier to say. The sex itself is sometimes good, sometimes bad, sweet and playful at its best; encounters are punctuated by laughter and smiles. Tricks may or may not have much in common, socially or intellectually or occupationally, with the narrator: one corporate lawyer notes that he doesn't have any books around, because they "wear [him] out"; another guy asks "if a framed text by Gilbert and George was some kind of diploma" (8, 86).
Meanwhile, the book itself is smartly constructed: the writing of Tricks becomes a presence in the tricks themselves, cleverly and pleasingly: while sitting at his desk trying to write the story of a trick from a few weeks ago, the narrator is interrupted by his latest trick getting dressed in front of him, pausing for kisses and undressing and more sex; that trick's story, later on, includes drinks at an outdoor café with a view of various street performers, including an acrobat whose own acrobatic tricks keep getting interrupted (he's always about to climb onto the roof of an empty kiosk on the sidewalk, but the presence of policemen passing by keeps stopping him).
January 21, 2016
So hot it led to many indelicate moments on the airplane and on the subway but so precise and acutely observed it rose above mere smut or porno. A diary turned magical time machine back to being a certain kind of man in a certain kind of time--a sexually active homo cruising up a storm in Paris and Italy and New York and San Francisco in the 1970s (!!!)--Tricks is written extremely naturalistically and, unlike many contemporaneous pieces of gay literature, unburdened by extra garnishes of style or plot or moral judgments. It's minimally perfumed with cultural and sociological references and milestones along the way, like little 1970s breadcrumbs for locals and tourists alike. Camus excels in describing his encounters with a matter-of-fact, near clinical detachment that, for the most part, succeeds (the novel begins to sag and never recovers upon travelling to the US). A true testament to the many and varied amazing and awkward ways men can relate to each other. Also another book for which I wish I could read the original French.
P.S. I do wish there had been a cinematic version by an avant garde European filmmaker, like Taxi Zum Klo, which shares Tricks' tone and appreciation for simple beauty, if only because the men Camus describes deserve to be physicalized in more places than just our minds.
P.S. I do wish there had been a cinematic version by an avant garde European filmmaker, like Taxi Zum Klo, which shares Tricks' tone and appreciation for simple beauty, if only because the men Camus describes deserve to be physicalized in more places than just our minds.
January 13, 2015
I really enjoyed reading about Camus' sexual exploits -- and it brought back some bittersweet memories -- of the way gay men used to approach sex, before HIV/AIDS, and of what life was like in youth, specifically my own youth, where I did my fair share of tricking. As one of the jacket reviews says, it's a very prosaic approach -- we get dates, locations, the choreography of cruising, descriptions of the sex acts, snippets of dialogue. All Camus' encounters are in the gay capitals of the 70s (and largely still): Paris, the Riviera, New York, San Francisco, West Hollywood. . . and I believe he also travles briefly to Italy. This is a world where you'd not only spend the night with your new found temporary love, but also invite him to dinner with your friends, perhaps even to stay the weekend if he was from out of town. I loved remembering how this transaction was so simple to complete -- it all seems rather complicated now, what with communication technologies and negotiations over safe sex, etc. Highly readable and fun, though I'd suspect primarily for gay men or those others who are interested in gay sex. Since it's broken up into 25 chapters, one trick per chapter, it was a great read on the subway/bus. Perhaps it will be for others, too.
June 22, 2018
The stories get really repetitive. That said, I enjoyed visiting this foreign world that truly edges upon the absurd. It read like "Waiting for Godot" with sex. As a window into gay history, this is informative and (at times) shocking but always honest.
April 28, 2013
OMG...just saying.
December 8, 2022
definitely some very successful parts in this. I cant help but compare this to other sex(ual) memoirs i've read this year like I LOVE DICK and THE SEXUAL LIFE OF CATHERINE M.... to me it fails to compare. The actual sex in this bores me. Also its crushingly crushingly white/upper class/pretentious. Not saying the others i mentioned arent, per se, but it was almost impossible not to feel constantly talked down to in multiple ways--and im a white gay man!! so like.. good luck other readers lol. It's good, i like it. I just think men cant write sex anywhere near as compellingly as women can
January 3, 2013
Stories are interesting, though I wish they were a little more like period pieces. I understand Camus was not going for that, though. Barthes' preface is compelling, a must for anyone interested in queer theory and constructions of homosexuality.
August 28, 2013
Mi sono rituffato nei gloriosi anni '70 a Parigi e New York!
December 12, 2014
It was...interesting? I guess?
January 28, 2024
"No, I'm good as gold! And besides, I'm only interested in certain spiritual nuances... No, it wasn't exactly that. Actually, it was all very typical."
“I’ve looked on beauty so much
that my vision overflows with it.
The body’s lines. Red lips. Sensual limbs.
Hair as though stolen from Greek statues,
always lovely, even uncombed,
and falling slightly over pale foreheads.
Figures of love, as my poetry desired them
. . . in the nights when I was young,
encountered secretly in those nights.”
- I’ve Looked So Much, Cavafy
“Renaud Camus's Tricks always begin with an encounter with the longed-for type (perfectly encoded; the type could figure in a catalogue or in a page of personal want-ads); but once language appears, the type is transformed into a person, and the relation becomes inimitable, whatever the banality of the first remarks.
The person is gradually revealed, and lightly, without psychologizing, in clothing, in discourse, in accent, in setting, in what might be called the individual's "domesticity," which transcends his anatomy yet over which he has control. All of which gradually enriches or retards desire. The trick is therefore homogeneous to the amorous progression; it is a virtual love, deliberately stopped short on each side, by contract; a submission to the cultural code which identifies cruising with Don Juanism.”
- Barthes
“I’ve looked on beauty so much
that my vision overflows with it.
The body’s lines. Red lips. Sensual limbs.
Hair as though stolen from Greek statues,
always lovely, even uncombed,
and falling slightly over pale foreheads.
Figures of love, as my poetry desired them
. . . in the nights when I was young,
encountered secretly in those nights.”
- I’ve Looked So Much, Cavafy
“Renaud Camus's Tricks always begin with an encounter with the longed-for type (perfectly encoded; the type could figure in a catalogue or in a page of personal want-ads); but once language appears, the type is transformed into a person, and the relation becomes inimitable, whatever the banality of the first remarks.
The person is gradually revealed, and lightly, without psychologizing, in clothing, in discourse, in accent, in setting, in what might be called the individual's "domesticity," which transcends his anatomy yet over which he has control. All of which gradually enriches or retards desire. The trick is therefore homogeneous to the amorous progression; it is a virtual love, deliberately stopped short on each side, by contract; a submission to the cultural code which identifies cruising with Don Juanism.”
- Barthes
April 1, 2022
Been a long time since I read this, but my memory is that it was very sweet and funny and personal. I particularly like how he turns the trick / hookup / one night stand trope on its head and gets very deep into the lives of some of his casual sex partners.
It's worth noting the author later in his life became an odious piece of shit, a true philosopher of hate. My enjoyment of his book about casual gay sex is not an endorsement of his horrible racist later writing.
It's worth noting the author later in his life became an odious piece of shit, a true philosopher of hate. My enjoyment of his book about casual gay sex is not an endorsement of his horrible racist later writing.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews