Beginning as early as A Descant for Gossips (1960), gay men and gay love come and go in Thea Astley's prose oeuvre. The responses that these characters and this topic invite shift with point of view and under the impact of varied themes. Astley's treatment refuses to be contained, either by traditional Catholic doctrines about sex or by Australia's delay in decriminalising homosexual acts. Driven by love for her gay older brother Philip, whose death from cancer corresponded with her final allusions to gay love in The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow (1996), Astley's only constant message on this, as on other topics, is humans' responsibility to treat each other with kindness. This essay draws on Karen Lamb's biography and on writings and reminiscences by Philip Astley's family and fellow Jesuits to reveal his significance as his sister sought to resolve through her fiction the conflict between an inculcated Catholic idolisation of purity and her own hard-won understanding and acceptance of gay men.

中文翻译：

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“致我的兄弟”：Thea Astley 小说和故事中的同性恋爱与性

早在 A Descant for Gossips (1960) 开始，西娅·阿斯特利 (Thea Astley) 的散文作品中就出现了男同性恋和同性恋爱情。这些人物和这个话题引起的反应随着观点和不同主题的影响而发生变化。无论是传统的天主教关于性的教义，还是澳大利亚推迟将同性恋行为合法化，Astley 的待遇都拒绝受到限​​制。出于对她同性恋哥哥菲利普的爱，他死于癌症，这与她在雨影的多重影响（1996）中对同性恋爱情的最后暗示相对应，阿斯特利在这方面唯一不变的信息，和其他话题一样，是人类有责任治疗彼此善意。本文借鉴了 Karen Lamb 的传记以及 Philip Astley 的著作和回忆录。