Mush
When I was 15, a freshman in UP Diliman, I photocopied three versions, three English translations of Edmond Rostand’s French classic poetry-play "Cyrano de Bergerac." The best version was Brian Hooker’s which won the Pulitzer Prize (am not a fan of the Pulitzer, but this guy deserved all the prizes and honors he got for his translation). I was in love with the idea of Cyrano — swordsman extraordinaire, brilliant poet, firecely loyal friend to the oppressed and despairing, secret and silent lover of the beautiful Roxanne.
I would stay for hours in the main library reading and memorizing Cyrano’s lines, his words of adoration and unconsolable grief that he could never tell Roxanne because he feared she would find him and his big nose ugly and thus reject him.
It was a sweetly sad experience for me, falling in love with a play. I grieved for Cyrano, and when he died at curtain call, I was weeping with Roxanne. Pure unadulterated mush.
Wala lang. On this rainy night this girl’s thoughts run to romance literature. I know I should be focusing on writing stuff for Monday’s transport actions; but heck, I can’t fight off the urge to goof off and write nonsense when I feel it.
Anyways, a partial list of some of the best romance literature in no particular order but as they come to me:
1. Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte
2. Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
3. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
4. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
5. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
6.Possession by A.S. Byatt
7.Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
8. Certain poems by George Gordon Lord Byron (Such as She Walks in Beauty Like the Night) and e.e. cummings (who doesn’t know somewhere i have never travelled gladly beyond).
9.The Princess Bride by William Goldman (graaaaabe — remember Wesley the farmboy telling Buttercup "As you wish?!")
10. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.
Of course, strictly speaking, it doesn’t automatically mean that romantic stories end in bliss. For instance, most of these aforemetioned works had tragic conclusions.
Thomas Hardy was a sadist. Read Tess and bleed.
In The English Patient, Almasy is only able to go back and keep his promise to Katharine after three years. Katharine died alone in a cold and dark cave in the middle of the desert, and Almasy was unable to go back for her. As for The God of Small Things, in particular, hay, reading it is like stabbing yourself in the heart with a teeny-tiny but newly-sharpened fork every five minutes. The luminous Ammu and the beautiful Velutha with the leaf mark on his Paravan skin. The brutal murder perpetrated in front of Ammu’s two-egg twins.
Aaaaaargh!
I respect unhappy endings.In fact- despite the fact that right after turning the last page, reading the last paragraphs of tragic stories I want to maim and kill the author for giving me so much grief- I even prefer them. I dunno, maybe I’m really a masochist at the core of me; but really, there’s a certain fulfillment and satisfaction that come after reading something that has caused your world to oscillate wildly then crash. Because you survived. Because you learned something. Because the pain has made everything seem starkly brighter and clearer (pain makes everything stand out somehow; there’s a backdrop of pure white like lightning or a supernova), and when it has passed, you’re still whole. Changed, altered, but still there.
Sheesh. When I read something, it’s really like falling into a hole in the paper. (Like this insanely hilarious story by Woody Allen where Gustave Flaubert’s infamous Madame Bovary is transported to present day Manhattan).
Oh well. So much for mush. Unmushy work awaits!
September 10th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
Hay, Ina. Again and again I am awed by your writing. I wish I could be your brain. What? See how inarticulate I am?!? I, too, loved Cyrano and shed tears for him (confounded play!)…Hay, I would love to discuss books with you but like you said, freakin’ unmushy work awaits!