Love in Spring

The Cat

'I have a lovely cat', he said.

She almost believed him. Who would lie about their cat? 

They walked hand in hand, towards nowhere. She wondered why she trusted him so much. They had only met two hours before and he could be a serial killer, for all she knew. Still, he was smiling at her and she felt comfortable once again.

‘I want you to see my cat’, he said, grinning.

‘All right’, she heard herself answer.

It was the beginning of September and the trees were still dark green. There were children playing in front of their blocks of flats. School hadn't begun yet. Alice was a primary teacher, she loved children and they loved her back. Oliver was still a stranger to her, but one with a supposedly lovely cat.

‘We are almost there’, she heard him say.

There was nothing she feared in his voice. She usually didn't trust people that easily, but this time something was totally different. He was looking at her as if she was this special girl he didn't want to let go. She could not remember when someone had looked at her like this.

‘I live with my cat, but we have room for one more’, he added, laughing.

‘I don't mind sharing you’, she whispered, thinking she was becoming too flirtatious.

‘Here's your key, then.’

She took it, smiled at him and unlocked the door. The white cat greeted her with a long meow. It was love at first sight. 

Fairy Tales Do Exist!

 I am not a huge Colin Farrell fan, but I had to watch this movie, maybe because the book, written by Mark Helprin, was so incredible I had to check they could not turn it into a great movie. Of course, it was not the case, the book is far more enchanting than the movie but it is still worth watching. "Winter's Tale" is a story about love that goes beyond any notion of time and place. It is about falling in love and staying in love forever. It sounds quite challenging, but then, "we love to save", says the main character, and maybe that is the true purpose of love, to surpass any trace of evil and, just like a white horse, to impress and create miracles. The trailer is here.
UPDATE: Since I was kindly asked to give a little more information on the story, here it is: Peter Lake, an orphan, is trying to rob a mansion in New York but accidentally - or not - falls in love with Beverly Penn, a beautiful young girl who is dying. Or is she? Their love is so strong that Peter is driven to stop time or wishes he could steal her from the almighty death. Read the book/ watch the movie to see if he succeeds. 

Jeanette Winterson on Love

Jeanette Winterson was kindly asked to define love. Here are her impressions: 

St. John of the Cross: “In the evening of life, we shall be judged on love alone.” 

W. H. Auden: “Let no one say I Love until aware / What huge resources it will take to nurse / One ruining speck, one tiny hair / That casts a shadow through the universe.” 

Freud: “Men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved.” 

From 19th-century novels, that love and money are fatally bartered as interchangeable currencies. 

From poetry, that love is a language that has to be learned. 

From the Bible, that love is as strong as death. 

From my novel “Written on the Body”: “Why is the measure of love loss?”

But 20 years later I discovered that love could be as reliable as the sun. And that there is one other thing in a world infatuated by wealth. Love never counts the cost.

Somebody is Camping in My Head

All I know about Gertrude Stein

"Sometimes I have affairs. But though I enjoy the bed, I feel angry at the fraud; the closeness without the cost. I know what the cost is: the more I love you, the more I feel alone."

This is not Jeanette Winterson's first encounter with the British literary journal GRANTA - in fact, it is her fourth - nor with Gertrude Stein, whose work and daring attitude are analyzed in "Art Objects" and this short story is available entirely to be read on their site here as part of the 115th issue devoted to Feminism (which is not such a bad word, after all :) )



As with other short stories in which Winterson mingles her passions and interest with the almighty creativity (in "Goldrush Girl" she mixes parts of Puccini's opera "La Fanciulla del West - one of her favorite operas - with the story of the two lovers) here, in "All I know about Gertrude Stein" she sets her story in Paris - Jeanette has been musing for a long time whether to settle or not in the city of lights - and names her character Louise (that's a clue for the more avid Winterson readers), while she also juxtaposes anecdotes from the lives of Stein and her lover, Alice B. Toklas.
If you want to discover how women can love you will truly savour this short story and why not, become a Winterson fan, just like myself.

"But love has no limits. Love seems to be a continuous condition like the universe. But the universe is remote except for this planet we call home, and love means nothing unless it is real and in our hands."

I Love Reading about LOVE

David Levithan's book "The Lover's Dictionary" is a true poem, some even call it a prolonged haiku. I sipped every word hoping I would not have to finish it so soon; I even allowed myself only a few definitions a day in order not to spoil their beauty by taking in too much. When the book ended I wanted to wrap myself up in half the definitions so I would not forget them. Then, I remembered I had a blog :)

* AUTONOMY, n.
"I want my books to have their own shelves," you said, and that's how I knew it would be okay to live together.

* CORRODE, v.
I spent all this time building a relationship. Then one night I left the window open, and it started to rust.

* HUBRIS, n.
Every time I call you mine, I feel like I'm forcing it, as if saying it can make it so. As if I'm reminding you, and reminding the universe: mine. As if that one word from me could have that kind of power.

* QUALM, n.
There is no reason to make fun of me for flossing twice a day.

* YEARNING, n./adj.
At the core of this desire is the belief that everything can be perfect.

Man and Boy

Harry and Gina love each other tremendously so they get married. Nothing seems to disturb their bliss, but after five years in which they raise their child, Pat, Harry has a one night stand with no meaning to him but unfortunately (or not) Gina finds out about his escapade, so she decides to start her life all over again, but this time away from Harry, in Japan.

The important question that Harry asks himself (and we should try to find an answer to it, just in case...) is: "Can one stop loving and give up on a relationship that they thought it would last forever just because of a mistake, be that sleeping with a colleague?"

"People don't break up because of a one-night stand, Gina. It's not what grown-ups do. You don't chuck it all away because of something like that. I know it hurts. I know what I did was wrong. But how did I suddenly go from being Mr Wonderful to Mr Piece of Shit?"


The answer is in the book, but what kept me reading on was how Harry managed to cope with it.
"Man and Boy" reminded me of "One Day"'s male voice and that was one more high point in the story, which also takes a look at how we (should) act at thirty, wondering if we made a good choice giving up some dreams just to follow others.

"That was my problem. When I thought of turning thirty, I thought of somebody else's life."

Find time to read it! ;)

Eat Pray Love (or a book about an American woman bored with life)

It is a wonder I went on to finish this book, taking into consideration that I stopped enjoying the main character, Elizabeth Gilbert, after the first fifty pages.
Still, I do understand why it has become a bestseller: it presents a rather selfish American woman who has it all, including plenty of money to take a year off and travel to three foreign countries - Italy, India, Indonesia - drops it all, messes with her life and, of course, just as in a soppy American movie (yes, I have seen this as well) finds happiness in the end. Don't we all want this?

I don't want to be married anymore. I don't want to live in this big house. I don't want to have a baby.



Surely, I understand her struggle with not wanting a baby, her wish to discover God and love after divorcing her husband, her craving for good food, her drive to feel free, her need to satisfy both spirit and body through her actions, but her journey was not at all convincing. I found her quite naive to just travel to Bali a second time because a Yodalike medicine man told her she would do so, to pretend to be such a post-feminist liberated woman and then long for a handsome Italian to kiss her, while still analyzing his status and not being satisfied with the fact that he lived with his mother (while she gave up a marriage to a powerful man who loved her very much)and he was younger (I found no reasonable explanation for this, only maybe that she was more into older guys, seeing that she chose Felipe, a Brazilian man much older that her).

I wish Giovanni would kiss me.

Oh, but there are so many reasons why this would be a terrible idea. To begin with, Giovanni is ten years younger than I am, and, like most Italian guys in their twenties, he still lives with his mother. These facts alone make him an unlikely romantic partner for me, given that I am a professional American woman in my mid-thirties, who has just come through a failed marriage and a devastating, interminable divorce, followed immediately by a passionate love affair that ended in sickening heartbreak.

Even if certain American critics claim that this is not chick-lit but an irresistible memoir, my view is that her whole spiritual journey is rather fake. It is a good book if you have nothing else to read and the only ideas that you remain with after the final chapter are a) people can be so superficial, even on a spiritual quest b) each person has his/her own word. Hers was "antevasin" (in the book) and "attraversiamo" (in the movie, demonstrating that, after all, anything is changeable when it comes to "serious" literature). As for my word, I haven't found it yet, maybe I will go on a spiritual journey in its search :)