2003-04-04 - 12:55 a.m.
To marry an artist is not a dreadful thing, though I did think so for a few weeks. But one must know you will never get all of him, you have to share him with his creation, and if he is successful, with the world. Any man who cares about his work will give some of himself over to his job and you can’t be a part of that either unless you understand his work, e.g. law, computers, science, etc. But you stand no chance against his creation. Coming into the study with cookies and hot chocolate at 2 am, inspiring him through some slump, he may kiss you with enthused gratitude then but forget all about your contribution the next time he wakes up. This is what The Tale of the Rose taught me.
Comparing the style of this book to The Little Prince I think much is lost in translation. The styles are too similar, so similar that I could have believed Antoine de Saint-Exupéry had written both himself, or Consuelo had written them. A. suggests that this might be because certain languages lend themselves to certain translations.
Nevertheless, the autobiographical letter is a brutally honest story about love and marriage. To make it worse for me, he is the type of man for whom I unintentionally fall. He is the artistic Scarlet Pimpernel. By that I mean he led two lives -- one of honorable adventure, and one that risks the bank account but not his neck. Here the literary figure and the man are quite different, but equally charming.
This reminds me of one of the two thematic parties we never followed through with Freshman year -- and probably for the best. ---- personally invited a diverse group from the dorm to think of their favorite man from literature to invite to the “Invisible Man Party”. Obviously this was the year none of us except --- knew any guys on campus. Since there seemed no way of hosting such a party, we had fun instead just talking about the virtues of our “dates” without ever taking them out. Now, I would grant Mr. Percy to --- if her husband would not be offended by her imaginary date, and take Peter from The Broad Highway. That way I would not arouse the jealousy of anyone because no one knows him.
The other party that never happened was the goddess party that was to occur on “Mount Olympus”, the pile of concrete pads in the back courtyard of Olds. This came about because we all read too much of Homer our first two weeks and began calling eachother various names of the goddesses. Umm, I think I started it actually by embarrassing --- across the quad. She had a way of turning the joke on me. But the joke took hold, and there was some battle over names, beginning with some confusion over Hera and Aphrodite. We incidentally insulted --- in calling her Persephone, but she never had any spirit in the game so it did not matter.
Can you tell I am about to graduate? I can’t finish a purposeless book review without pointlessly reminiscing.
