Paul
Roberts, a septuagenarian, looks back at his life, specifically the romance that
defined his life: “Everyone has their love
story. Everyone. It may have been a fiasco, it may have
fizzled out, it may not even have got going, it may have been all in the mind,
that doesn’t make it any less real. . . . Everyone [has their love story]. It’s the only story.” He then proceeds to tell his only story, the “only
one that matters, only one finally worth telling.”
In the
first part of the novel, 19-year-old Paul meets Susan Macleod, a 48-year-old, married
mother of two. They embark on a love
affair. The second part outlines how
their relationship falls apart, and the third part shows the aftermath with
Paul seeking to understand love and make sense of his experience with it. The first section is narrated primarily in
the first person, appropriately so because “first love always happens in the
overwhelming first person.” Then as
passion becomes dispassion, the narration moves into second person and then, as
Paul becomes more and more detached and seems to want to distance himself from
the past, the third person: “But
nowadays, the raucousness of the first person within him, was stilled. It was as if he viewed, and lived, his life
in the third person. Which allowed him
to assess it more accurately, he believed.”
The novel
opens with a question: “Would you rather
love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less?” Paul chooses the former; he throws himself
into a love affair, believing “that love was incorruptible, proof against both
time and tarnish.” He is entirely happy;
he describes these days “as a time of cock-vigour so insistent that it forbade
examination.” Later, as things become
more difficult, he realizes “love, even the most ardent and the most sincere,
can, given the correct assault, curdle into a mixture of pity and anger.” It’s difficult to give up because “You still
believe, however, in love, and in what love can do, how it can transform a
life, indeed the lives of two people.
You believe in its invulnerability, its tenacity, its ability to outrun
any opponent. . . . So you do the best you can.” And he stays because “Love was a Duty in and
of itself. You had a Duty to Love, the more
so now that it was your central belief system.
And Love brought many Duties with it.
So, even when apparently weightless, Love could weigh heavily, and bind
heavily.” In the end comes the
realization that “loving one another does not necessarily lead to happiness” so
he, though he doesn’t mind seeing people in love, “was superstitious about, and
preferred not to witness [marriage proposals]: the moment when they flung away their lives
because it just felt so right . . . The fear of such a scene would often lead
him to an early night.” Perhaps love
does survive but at a cost; perhaps a deep love can only leave one “walking
wounded. That’s the only choice, after a
while. Walking wounded, or dead.”
The
characterization of Susan is interesting.
Paul is drawn to her high spirits and her quick wit. She has perfect nicknames for everyone and
speaks in phrases which Paul sees as signs of intelligence (though “when she
first heard people talking about adultery, she thought it referred to the
watering-down of milk”). Later, however,
she just keeps repeating these phrases so they are not original and become only
tedious. Did Paul see her as she really
was or did he make assumptions: “Naturally,
I assume that she laughs at life because she has seen a great deal of it, and
understands it.” She warns him that, “We
all have an act” but he doesn’t see that sometimes she is acting and doesn’t “realize
that there was panic inside her.” She
also tells him, “Because at some point everyone wants to run away from their life. It’s about the only thing human beings have
in common” and “That’s one of the things about life. We’re all just looking for a place of
safety. And if you don’t find one, then
you have to learn how to pass the time.”
These statements explain so much of her behaviour later in their
relationship but he doesn’t seem able to see things from her point of
view. Susan’s favourite act is what she
terms her “disappearing act”; in a print dress with flowers on it, she sits on
a chintz sofa so she is largely camouflaged.
Gradually, as Paul points out, more and more of her disappears.
I would
love to read Susan’s version of the romance.
We only see her from Paul’s viewpoint and he is not always a reliable
narrator. Though the reader may guess as
to her motives, it would be interesting to know more fully her reasons for
getting involved with Paul. He is a
callow and self-absorbed. He is pretentious,
taking pride in having a transgressive relationship and railing “about the sham
or respectability, the sham of marriage, the sham of suburbia.” He makes an extensive list of what he
dislikes and distrusts about adulthood! Susan
does not seem particularly interested in sex, even describing herself as
frigid, and that is a good thing because Paul is certainly not knowledgeable
about sex: “I know little about the
female orgasm, and somehow assume that if you manage to keep going long enough,
it will at some point be automatically triggered in the woman. Like breaking the sound barrier, perhaps.”
I love the
author’s turns of phrase and his imagery.
There’s a perfect image for Susan and Paul’s relationship. Instead of holding hands, Paul often holds
Susan’s wrists. Later he dreams of Susan
having climbed out an upstairs window and his holding on to her by her wrists. Her weight makes it impossible for Paul to
pull her back inside. He fears his strength
will fail and she will fall. This image
is used to great effect throughout but especially at the end.
As is
typical of Barnes’ writing, there is so much to analyze in this novel. I haven’t even touched on his examination of the
role of memory. The book’s tone is
melancholic and the tale is almost overwhelmingly sad in its portrayal of how
love can consume a person’s entire existence, but it deserves a reading and at
least one re-reading.
Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from
the publisher via NetGalley.
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