City of Night by John Rechy

When I first started reading John Rechy´s City of Night I never thought I would undergo such a journey with a book which I´ve now finished after almost two months. This book took me longer to read of two reasons. One is that the book is much thicker than the previous ones I´ve read since I started on this project, second, it was a hard book to get through. Sometimes I thought that I lacked interest in the world which the narrator is telling about. Other times I didn´t understand it completely or it didn´t compell me enough, or I was just simply enduring it. But I promised myself that I wouldn´t shut my eyes, I would go into this world and have an open mind about it. If there´s something that I´ve learned ever since the beginning of May, is that nothing is what it seems like when you first start to read a book and when you have finished it. What I feel now is wonder and fulfillment. The book had a greater power over me than I ever thought was possible. Especially the ending. The ending that left me with such an inspiration to write, to express myself in a way I didn´t think was possible.

It got me thinking and I started questioning topics like lonliness and the fear of intimacy. The narrator searches for some kind of way to subdue and remove the fear of getting too close to someone and he does it through sex. Every person he´s with is like a substitute for something else, something to fill out his lonliness. I sensed it like he´s afraid of being trapped and feeling like he´s got to move from place to place in order to escape from his lonliness and his endless search for something. A search for an identity perhaps or happiness or an escape from himself and what he is feeling or the lack of it even. An endless stream of conscious wonders and selfsearching for the soul. He calls it soulsearching of the city of night. The book is kind of dark, but still it reflects some lights too. The people in the book are in some ways tragic, funny and individual and I found that very interesting. A lot of happy faces or voices masking the true sadness and lonliness of their lives. Despair mixed with happy emotions and expressions. As I´m writing this I´m filled with confusion myself about numerous things in the world. Perhaps that´s why I feel like I can relate to the narrator in some ways. He´s search for something and the feeling of being lost within yourself, whether it´s by choice or not.
Overwhelming feelings comes over me just as I´m writing this. Fellings that I can´t put my finger on what it means. Just words coming out, pouring like raindrops from the sky that seems endless sometimes. When you are flying above the clouds and they look like big chunks of snow, but if you touch it, you´ll know it´s kind of like an illusion. A cover for space and air. It´s like nothingness. Sometimes I wonder why I was placed on this earth. Is it for someone or something? As I feel it, I haven´t figure that one out yet, and that´s ok. Being ok with not knowing is perfectly alright, it doesn´t change anything, it´s just there hanging like a big questionmark.