From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Books in the time of Love
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 19:32:20 GMT


I wrote:
 
> Anyway, it seems like a good thread.  What books were you reading
> during the start or end of love, where the book was viewed in a
> different light because of what was happening in your life?  And,
> HEY, I don't want any of these SMART WOMEN, FOOLISH CHOICES type
> books.  I want to know how the start of love affected your reading
> of LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA or the end of love changed your
> outlook on WUTHERING HEIGHTS or how your first sexual experience
> altered the way you look at SLOUCHING TOWARDS KALAMAZOO or how your
> narcissism made you think just a little differently about PORTNOY'S
> COMPLAINT.  For those who have never been in love, write a short
> description about how your xenophobia has affected your reading of
> THE LOVESONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK.
 
 
A full day has passed, and only one response has shown up.
 
My imagination is running wild with the potential stories of some
of the r.a.b.ble.
 
Surely some of you must have literary associations with the start or
end of love.  Surely there are interesting stories.
 
If I don't get some soon, I am going to start making them up for you.
They won't be pretty.
 
I imagine Mike Morris quoting Latin during coitus ("vidi vici veni"
at the moment of truth).
 
Surely, Barbara Hlavin has some interesting story about falling in
love with someone whom she met as they were both grabbing for the
last copy of PORTRAIT OF A LADY in a bookstore, during her youth.
 
Infidel must have a fascinating story about some Chinese book that he
was translating while meeting his one true love in an opium den in Burma.
 
And Mike Godwin: he must have several stories about books and women.
I picture him having showed up on first dates with a dozen roses and
a book that would wow them.
 
Perhaps Kate Catmull's literary/love connections are more related to the
stage.  She could tell us a story about how she will always think about
that leading man who fell for her when she was in Streetcar, or Cat on A
Hot Tin Roof, or one of those other plays where the leading man always
falls for the leading woman.
 
Even Francis must have another love in his life besides Thomas Love Peacock.
Perhaps he will tell us about that night he read passages from A ROOM WITH A
VIEW to the sweet young woman, and swept her off her feet, or at least what
he did as he read MY SECRET LIFE during his Public School Days.
 
And what about Sburgfort.  He must have some funny story about trying to
check into a motel with a mysterious woman under his travelling name of
William Smith.  Perhaps one of these stories has an association with
a book he was reading at the time.
 
And surely, Mikhail Zeleny must have some romantic associations with Lolita.
 
And Tom Maddox?  I'll bet there is some literary connection to the story
about his dances with the sailor Guillaume (if this is the sailor
that Joe Green means) <to new r.a.b.ble -- this is a reference to Joe
Green's classic "Well Met in Minnesota" thread last spring>.
 
And how about the lurkers out there?  Surely some of you have been storing
up that one GREAT story about the time you dumped some poor guy after reading
a Norman Mailer novel -- deciding that you wanted to go back to your
dangerous "dick-waiving fathead" former boyfriend rather than continue
to go out with the caring sensitive man who would actually (and for the
first time in your life) make sure that YOU were sexually satisfied (if
you only gave him the chance).  This is your chance to tell us about it.
 
Is there no one who will tell me about the time that Love fled and hid
among the stars?
 
Mark
 
 
 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books