12-14-2025, 04:33 PM
Quote: MARTHA: . . . I know nothing about this sort of thing, that’s the whole trouble. I never knew one of these people before coming to Rome. I knew about them, but not even that, really, no—but believe me, Oscar is not one of those people, he simply isn’t, I can’t believe it. The ones I knew in Rome were not at all like him. In the first place, he is not effeminate. He is lean and hard, not muscular exactly, but he is firm. And he is wonderfully sure and deliberate in his movements. It is marvelous to see him walk, specially in dangerous places. I feel always so secure with him, so protected. Besides, I don’t have to tell you why he isn’t. Of course he isn’t! But then what is this story? Tell me. Is it just a fad? Some new and strange experience he wants to have? Then let’s get it over with, I say it again. He couldn’t possibly continue afterward, I don’t think.
OSCAR: But the fact remains that the word is out. You see—it concerns a rather unusual friendship I have with a boy of thirteen. Please don’t squirm in your seat: it is not what you think—it is almost nothing, in fact, which is why I so much prefer that you should learn it from me, rather than from someone else, as eventually you undoubtedly would: you know how such rumors spread. It is the one accusation that is always believed, from which no person is safe.
OSCAR: There was almost nothing at first. I had noticed the boy last year, and though we never talked, except the very last day, the very last hour, which is when I told him, too, that I would be back this summer, I had entertained for him a friendly and curious feeling. Which is why I wrote to him later, during the winter, and why there grew between us a strange and increasingly “sympathetic” correspondence. It turned out that he had noticed me no less than I had noticed him—which, when I think of it, he could have hardly helped, since I held him constantly under my eye. Such is his beauty. It alone would make me stop. It is unique: if you saw him but once you would understand. So he was aware, of course, of attention, annoyed by it too, perhaps (but I don’t think so, on second thought: I often observed him when he played with his friends, apparently intent on the game, but suddenly he would glance my way and search for me, almost anxiously, whenever I moved from my post; at other times, passing close to where I stood, he would affect that he did not see me, but then he revealed himself by a change in his movements, an almost imperceptible raise [as though to say: I’m quite at my ease] and by a certain rowdiness which he otherwise never displayed; or else, when he was alone, he passed by very quickly, without looking at me—but I would see him smile . . .). However he was not aware of the cause, of that I am certain; his beauty went quite unnoticed: it is what makes it unique and what allowed it to blossom. Like a beautiful bird or like a platinum fox in a forest. He was unaware . . . until I told him about it, until I embarked, was forced to embark, on this road of folly—but more about this later.
Quote: Told through a series of twenty-four letters, The Mail Boat is the story of Martha Baker and Oscar Tower's meeting in Rome at a bar catering to artistic people (read gay) on the Via Babuino, their relationship, and their subsequent time together on a tiny Tyrrhenian island where Oscar plans to work on his next novel. The mail boat that stops twice a week at the island anchors the activities of daily life.
Oscar corresponds with his friend Andrew (André) MaCloy, initially in Paris and later in Venice. Martha writes to her mother, Olga Baker and Janet Picard, a friend in New York, as well as Thomas Purdon, a former love interest and a professor at Yale. The recipient of the letter seems to determine the level of candor about the happenings on the island and Martha and Oscar's relationship.
Martha is deeply in love with Oscar and certainly has plans for their future. Oscar is much cooler and more casual about the relationship. He enjoys spending time with Martha but tends to ignore Martha when she suggests a more committed situation. Oscar is also distracted by a 13-year-old boy named Mario, the most beautiful of the local boys, with whom he would much rather spend his time. Martha is incensed at being ignored in favor of this street kid but also knows Oscar isn't really that way because he isn't effeminate at all. While Oscar won't admit it, even to himself, Martha is very clear in her understanding of Oscar's relationship with Mario, even going as far as telling Thomas in her letter that if Oscar would "just do something with the boy...it would be over in no time at all." (p.87)
Oscar's nature, although seemingly invisible to himself, is made clear by the author when friends visit from America, a literary agent and his 'esthetic' boy friend who plays tennis. In Martha's letter describing the visit and the dinner, she says, "They argued about a French poet who sounds like rainbow," (p.76) clearly a reference to Rimbaud. Later in passing, she also mentions that Oscar was wearing a black turtleneck sweater, which belonged to Martha.
Randolph is a bit coy in describing the island as Tyrrhenian. About half way through the book, when Martha is describing the day she and Oscar went to see the lighthouse, the description, while not a perfect match, comes very close to describing the Punta Carena Lighthouse on Capri. Given the long history of gay artists and authors on Capri and their relationships with the teenage locals, it seems fitting that Randolph would suggest this location.