The novel, partly based on Kuzmin's experience of travelling to Italy in 1897, is full of conversation in the Platonic vein; the title itself alludes to Phaedrus. Although the book was competently written in an elegant style all its own, its reputation has been dogged by scandal.
Kuzmin was one of the first writers in modern Europe to argue that homosexuality "was not immoral or ungodly, but morally distinctive, ethically sanctioned, and even at times spiritually superior, a matter not of decadent immoralism but the personal creation of values".[1]
The central theme of aestheticized sensuality has spawned comparisons of Wings with contemporary works by Oscar Wilde and André Gide, which cover similar thematic territory. Nevertheless, Kuzmin was probably the first literary figure of some standing to approve same-sex love in print:
"Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) only hinted that his hero's inner corruption resulted from his suppression of his true nature; Gide did not dare to name the attraction of his hero in The Immoralist (1902); Proust felt impelled to engage in all manner of subterfuge, and Forster wrote Maurice for the desk drawer."[1]
Vladimir Nabokov parodied Kuzmin's novel in his own short novel The Eye, using "Smurov" as the name of a male protagonist and "Vanya" of a female one.
