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David Rakoff on Stuart Little, closet case.

White does give Stuart a love interest. A small, wren-like bird named Margalo who stops briefly in the Little household. And Stuart's devotion is ardent to be sure, but not precisely romantic. It is closer in nature to Janet Reno's self-admitted "abiding fondness for men": somewhat theoretical and confusing. I'm not advocating that Stuart prove himself by engaging in a little hetero-normative trans-species loving; it is, after all, still a children's book. But even within that chaste context, Stuart is only playing at lover, as he plays at everything.

He is unable to resist stepping back in commentary, even as he is saving Margalo from the jaws of Snowbell, the Littles' cat. He grooves on the theatrics of the situation, casting himself in the Sidney Carton role: "'This is the finest thing I have ever done,' thought Stuart." But feelings of devotion and protective nobility are not love. Almost every gay boy I know had that awkward adolescent moment when he made his very close female friend doubt her own desirability because he displayed no interest in jumping her bones, even as he himself was thinking, "Well, lip-synching into hairbrushes to the Supremes in her bedroom ... this is really romantic ... right?"

Margalo eventually flies from the Little home, possibly tired of waiting around fruitlessly for a little action (the official White version being that the feline peril in the house has become too great). Stuart takes to the open road, ostensibly to find her and make her his own, although he doesn't entirely commit to the he(te)roism of that romantic quest, either. "While I'm about it, I might as well seek my fortune, too," he muses. It's a little bit like resignedly hoping that there might be some cute guys at your engagement party.