Friday, June 15, 2007

Love

I think that Mike's tragedy with his child is a bigger impediment to an adult relationship with the narrator than his being married. Did you have that feeling?

Theirs — this broke my heart — is described as a "love that was not usable, that knew its place."

Do you think that would be true if they had just met, if they didn't have the weight of their shared childhood between them?
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6 comments:

Erin said...

I loved that line, too, about "love that was not usable." I did get the feeling, yes, that it was Mike's tragedy that held him back from a relationship with the narrator. I wondered if that was at least partially why he told her about it when he didn't tell anyone else.

It's hard to know, really, if they would have had any attraction or connection to each other at all without that shared childhood experience.

3:00 PM, June 15, 2007
kc said...

Yes, good point. He needn't have shared the story at all, but it seemed like he was compelled to tell her specifically that he had done this unthinkable thing. It seemed like an explanation, a way of saying If I could love anything ever again, it would be you.

Their meeting was such an unlikely thing, a weird twist of fate. The narrator describes it as comically dazzling, or something like that (I don't have the book with me). It's an opportunity for them to say this is what became of me, in case you were wondering, and then to go their separate ways.

3:24 PM, June 15, 2007
cl said...

I thought he was narrating a sort of obligation to his family by telling her that how the tragedy had bound him with his wife forever: Not that they would live at rock bottom. But they would a share a knowledge of it -- that cool, empty, locked and central space.

4:36 PM, June 15, 2007
Erin said...

Right. Like, you and I have a sweet shared memory of childhood love and freedom, but that tie is weak compared to the iron bond of shared unspeakable tragedy that I have with her.

5:10 PM, June 15, 2007
Ben said...

Yes, you all are right -- he told the story to apologize to her for what was holding him back -- both his tragedy that kept him from loving, and his unbreakable connection to his wife.

And I doubt they would have taken any notice of each other without the childhood experience.

11:29 AM, June 16, 2007
kc said...

I think they would have noticed each other, though perhaps not romantically. They seem to be people of similar outlooks and sensibilities. But, as Erin remarked, it's really impossible to know.

12:53 PM, June 16, 2007

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