Love is always revelation and risk. In order to find out if she has really fallen in
love, the subject submits to some (truth) tests and, to find out if that love is returned, subjects the potential
object of it to tests of reciprocity. This delicate process can lead to misunderstandings or even destroy the nascent
state altogether.
When one falls in love the beloved is transfigured, because each partner is the charismatic leader of the other.At the same time,\
When one falls in love the beloved is transfigured, because each partner is the charismatic leader of the other.At the same time,\
For as long as my father lived in Kathmandu, he spent his Sunday mornings in
Dayaganj, buying second-hand books off the pavement, and for dozens
upon dozens of those Sundays, I went with him. My father’s protocol for
book-buying was pretty simple: I identified something I wanted to read,
and he bought it for me. Champak and Mad magazines; William stories;
collected science fiction (including a couple of really chilling books
by Nicholas Fisk that I recommend to everyone but lend to nobody); the
hilarious (and tragically out of print) Bagthorpe Saga by Helen
Cresswell (which I did lend to somebody, and then spent a year getting
back, my friend and I strategising with all the stealth of military
manoeuvre); a battered old Richard Armour called The Classics Reclassified,
the loss of which I mourn even today (though I read it so many times, I
have much of it memorised) — those Daryaganj Sundays taught me the
rewards of browsing, of picking out books I’d never heard of by writers I
might never read again, with no expectation, not even pleasure. It made
me believe, with almost mystic faith, that the books you’re going to
read wash up at your door. Somehow.
But, of course, some don’t. In my case, it was a love story. The blurb
was explicit on the point: there was a beautiful woman and a rakish man,
and they didn’t like each other, but who knew what the turn of a page
would bring? I handed the book to my father, barely glancing to check if
he was performing the customary function of fishing out wallet and
handing over money. He, instead, coughed. I suppose saying ‘No’ to his
children didn’t come easy to him — it still doesn’t — so maybe that’s
why he looked so uncomfortable as he shook his head and said, “Not
this”.
I was so surprised, I barely mumbled a query. And maybe he was
embarrassed, because all I remember him saying is something about “Mills & Boon’s…”
and trailing off, letting the disdain in his voice complete the
sentence. It must have been really top quality disdain, because not only
am I yet to read a Mills & Boon, I’ve never so much as
skimmed a Jackie Collins, or, blithely spreading prejudice across
genres, a Sidney Sheldon or Jeffry Archer. (Only recently, I read my
first few John Grishams, and was entirely taken aback by how good he
is.)
Instead of paperback romances, then, I was reading the collected works of Jane Austen. But Pride and Prejudice doesn’t
quite satisfy the romantic aspirations of an 11-year-old, so you can
imagine my delight when I read my first real love story. It was called Ladyhawke. And Ladyhawke was
just wonderful. (‘Soppy’ is my sister’s technical term for it. But
then, she was eight, and therefore hardly equipped for grand passion.)
Basically, it’s a story of love first nursed then cursed (secret, then
black magic), in which ethereal woman and gruffly handsome man must
wander in exile — from their kingdom and their bodies, both. She is a
hawk by day, he a wolf by night, and so they will never truly meet,
unless… Well, unless is the plot, and it’s a fantastic plot, full of
twists and funny dialogue. (Also, until half an hour ago, I thought Ladyhawke was
the book on which a rather insipid film of the same name was based.
Google tells me it was actually the other way round, but no matter,
because this does, in a roundabout way, bear out another of our family snobbery: The book is always better than the film.)
I finished reading in one breathless gasp, and then I wandered into the
living room, where I declared to my poor mother, “I want to be in love!”
She reacted with a wry mixture of bewildered worry and subdued
encouragement — though I don’t know what she said, exactly, because I
was too busy imagining myself united with Perfection, us, unassailable
and one against the world.
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