Comments on: The language of unrequited love - Steven Conte

By: christi

christi — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:04:29 +0000

Now, that sounds more like an enticement than a warning, Steven!

By: S.Conte

S.Conte — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 04:42:09 +0000

Christi, your mention of love triangles has made me think of Alan Hollinghurst’s second novel, The Folding Star, whose narrator is an English teacher of English in a provincial Belgian city. The novel is an interesting variation on the love triangle, because for much of the novel the narrator finds himself on the outside of a love triangle that includes the boy he’s obsessed with. Be warned though: this is Hollinghurst’s most sexually explicit novel.

Steven

By: genevieve

genevieve — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:37:13 +0000

Blimey, that’s awful. And the parallel with Alain-Fournier is so acute.
Was fortunate to read ‘Le Grand Meaulnes’ in French at school, with a teacher who adored it. It is greatly loved in France I believe.

By: S.Conte

S.Conte — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:01:47 +0000

This is quite an experience to have such speedy feedback to something you’ve written. Thanks everyone for your comments. I started this post with the idea of trying to point out which are the better books among those I listed, but they all have something special about them. “Diana” is probably the most commercial of them. “Le Grand Meaules” (also known as “The Wanderer”) has a poignant back story: its young author was later vaporised by an exploding shell on the western front at the age of 27, one of no doubtless countless writers whose future work was eliminated by the wars of the 20th century. “Sophie’s Choice” is an interesting case, I think (this is quite a week, isn’t it, for literary Sophies). I’ve just read it for the third time and concluded that it comes within an ace of being one of the great masterpieces. It’s humane, capacious, deeply moving and (something that’s never mentioned about it) frequently laugh-out-loud funny. Its only shortcoming, as I see it, is Styron’s partial failure to sympathise with the pre-pill predicament of the various women who refuse to go all the way with his 22-year-old hero. Still, when I heard Geraldine Brooks describe how she discovered that Styron happened to be a neighbour of hers (he died in 2006), I was most impressed.

By: S.Mclaine

S.Mclaine — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:15:42 +0000

I must be at the same exciting point in “Zookeeper’s War” Christi and not sure which is the strongest urge - to disappear out of the office to sit in the sun during lunch time to get a little further along in the story or delay reaching any of the possible closures looming. Thank you Christi for not putting in any spoilers. I do however, having come this far in the book, know like you that us ‘readers’ are in very capable hands. Thanks Steven and your Beatrice story is so very sad.

By: Shauna McEwan

Shauna McEwan — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:13:49 +0000

Oh my goodness. Oh Steven - that is so sad. As someone who met her partner at 16 and ended up marrying him, I can only really read about unrequited love with a romantic view - not really understanding the pain that comes with it. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.

I also haven’t read any of those titles. I’m also off to the library catalogue.

By: christi

christi — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:50:06 +0000

Wow, what a powerful post Steven. I can hardly find words.
I can relate to being like Beatrice and also being like you. For me it was always the bizarre love triangle, not-so coincidently one of my favorite songs of that time. I yearned for the boy who only wanted to be friends with me, while the boy who actually wanted me was treated more like a must loved lap-dog. I have to say these days I feel a great sense of shame and yearning for the one who was the lap-dog as he was actually the most compatible male I have ever met. Ah, the benefit of hindsight. We still nostalgically chat on Facebook occasionally. As for the object of my affections, he married recently and I felt a little hurt, after 17 years, I mean really (I am married with three kids here. I hate “closure” too. It would obliterate all great literature and art if people really practised it.)
As for the novels of unrequited love, I haven’t read any of your selections so I am furiously checking the library catalogue for them. Mine were stories of violent destructive love like “Wuthering Heights” (which I re-read recently and was appalled at Heathcliff, but it was quite a different matter when I was 17), and lots of Jane Austen, where sometimes they got it right and sometimes not. Many of my English Lit books from that time were on the theme - I guess it always appeals to teenagers - “Romeo and Juliet”, “The Great Gatsby” and “Great Expectations”. I’m getting to a very exciting point in “Zookeeper’s War”, I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t read it yet. But I am glad I’m in the capable hands of an author who so entirely appreciates unrequited or impossible love!

By: S.Cunningham

S.Cunningham — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:32:23 +0000

This is a beautiful, beautiful post. Thanks, Steven.