![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ruuger posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
freddiemercuryfansHas anyone else read this book yet? I got it for Christmas and I'm not quite sure what I thought about it.
The biographical stuff was mostly second hand sources (only people really close to Freddie that the authors had actually interviewed themselves were Peter Straker and Jim Beach) so there wasn't much new there. The main premise of the book - putting Freddie's life into the context of the gay scene of the 60-80's and the rise of AIDS - was quite interesting, and it sometimes felt like the actual biographical parts were just padding.
My main problem was that there seemed to be a lot of speculation. There was a list of sources in the back, linked to the text with footnotes, but other times there would be long sections without any linked sources that were given just as much weight as interview quotes. Sometimes these parts would even contradict things that were sourced. For example, the writers clearly had their own theory on when Freddie contracted HIV and how long he knew about it, and ignored all the evidence contrary while latching on to the ones that supported their theory. The writers were also *really* obsessed with trying to connect Freddie with Gaetan Dugas (the much-maligned "Patient Zero" of AIDS).
I also got the feeling that the book had been rushed so that it could be published in time for the anniversary of Freddie's death. There was a lot of repetition, and several parts of the book could have used heavy editing.]
The biographical stuff was mostly second hand sources (only people really close to Freddie that the authors had actually interviewed themselves were Peter Straker and Jim Beach) so there wasn't much new there. The main premise of the book - putting Freddie's life into the context of the gay scene of the 60-80's and the rise of AIDS - was quite interesting, and it sometimes felt like the actual biographical parts were just padding.
My main problem was that there seemed to be a lot of speculation. There was a list of sources in the back, linked to the text with footnotes, but other times there would be long sections without any linked sources that were given just as much weight as interview quotes. Sometimes these parts would even contradict things that were sourced. For example, the writers clearly had their own theory on when Freddie contracted HIV and how long he knew about it, and ignored all the evidence contrary while latching on to the ones that supported their theory. The writers were also *really* obsessed with trying to connect Freddie with Gaetan Dugas (the much-maligned "Patient Zero" of AIDS).
I also got the feeling that the book had been rushed so that it could be published in time for the anniversary of Freddie's death. There was a lot of repetition, and several parts of the book could have used heavy editing.]
no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 08:15 am (UTC)Did he take some silly risks in the early eighties, and behave in a reckless fashion? Yes, though that was his choice, and appears to have been an informed one. But he wasn't infected then. The fact that it seems to have happened later, after he had made the decision to live more sensibly, only makes it all the more sad (and ought to make for a better tale in a book, really, but what do I know!)