Books

Hit me with the canon. I need it.

Maura writes:

Dear Girl Doesn’t Get Boy:

Jane Austen and I feel your pain. In “Sense and Sensibility,” her character Marianne Dashwood has a very similar experience. She and a charming young guy named Willoughby are thick as thieves, as my grandmother might say; he seems to be just as besotted by her as she is by him. But then he moves away unexpectedly, to London. When she shows up there, for an unannounced visit, he gives her the cold shoulder so hard that all of us readers shiver, and pull the couch blankets up around our necks. He is — like your man — evasive, flaky and flat-out jerky. Marianne later figures out why Willoughby is blowing her off: He’s gotten engaged to another (much wealthier) woman.

But my guess is that your guy isn’t a player as much as a commitment-phobe. He was perfectly into you when he didn’t have to take the relationship seriously; now that he does, he can’t be counted on for anything. Commitment-phobes abound in literature, and run the gamut from unremitting scalawags, like Lucas Burch in Faulkner’s “Light in August,” to people so obsessed with ambition that they just can’t be seriously involved in relationships, like the main man in “The Aeneid,” to more deeply conflicted characters, like Esther Greenwood in “The Bell Jar,” who fears getting too close to anyone will only set her up for a great emotional disturbance, like the one she experienced when her father died in her childhood.

I don’t know why your guy is acting like he is — whether it’s because he’s a plain old scalawag, someone who’s scared of loss, or because, like Aeneas, he believes he’s destined for great things. But one thing is for sure: He’s not treating you right. Trying to change him is likely to be a losing battle. (Just ask Pip Pirrip, of “Great Expectations,” who spent the better part of a lifetime trying to get the girl he loved to pay attention to him.) But you can change yourself. Detach yourself from this ball of confusion. Get out there and see what your new city has to offer.

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Dear Jack and Maura,

I am absolutely, head over heels in love with my man of two years. I think about him constantly, and we each dream of the future and have joked once or twice about what our wedding would be like. That is not the problem. This is a fairy-tale love and we are perfect for each other. Except … There’s a time limit of three years. He’s enlisted in the U.S. military and will be reassigned (likely far away) in one year. Great, I could marry him and move with him, you say? Everyone says that to me, but no. I’m a single parent and can’t see myself moving out of state — I don’t want to take my child away from his father. So I go on and enjoy each day that I have him, knowing that as this charges ahead my heart will eventually break — harder than if I ended it today. I go on, and I love him more and more every day because it’s better to have love and lost than never to have loved, right?

Jack writes:

It’s a sad fact that there are great loves that aren’t destined to last, but, for my money, I’d much rather love hard and lose than not love at all. And, yes, he’s going to be reassigned, but who knows what will come of things after that. If you can keep your connection strong, he might be able to arrange to come back to you in time.

To me, the beauty and wonder of real romance is worth a lot of risk and sacrifice — and even a lot of heartache. If you were to walk away now, you’d always wonder what you might have had, and, over time, that could end up more frustrating than taking it all the way and seeing what happens. I say go for it!

As for books to read, I’d go for the subtle love story of “The Odyssey.” Odysseus is forced to leave his beloved wife, Penelope, to go and attack Troy with a slew of Greek ships, and it takes him 20 years to get home (granted, a few too many of those are spent in the caresses of Circe, but forget about that part …). When he finally does get home, his love for Penelope is as strong as ever — and my, what quick work he makes of all the other guys trying to get her hand. It’s an excellent parable of the endurance of real love.

Moreover, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who is as much of a romantic “blank slate” as I am. Because I’ve never been in a relationship, I don’t have a reference point; I have no idea what kind of partner I’d be for a woman (whether I’d be clingy, whether I’d be open to the possibility of commitment, etc.). So not only do I think I’ve missed out on a wealth of experiences, but I’ve also missed out on the self-discovery (or whatever Disney cliché you want to use) that goes along with those experiences.

If you have any literature to recommend me, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Maura writes:

Dear Never Been in Love:

You haven’t missed out all! Very few people who are 23 truly know what they’d be like in a relationship. These are the years — your 20′s and 30′s — for figuring this stuff out. I know it’s hard to remember in our hyper-sexualized age, but you still have plenty of time for all sorts of experiences and self-discoveries — even if you may need to push yourself out of your comfort zone a bit to have them.

Read a book like “Jane Eyre,” and you’ll meet a main character a bit like yourself, even though she’s female. She lives a very lonely and solitary life — and surely has no idea what she‘d be like in a relationship — until she meets a true kindred spirit in her employer, a man named Edward Rochester. You might, however, feel more affinity with Margaret Schlegel, the heroine of “Howards End.” A thirty-something spinster, she’s pretty sure she won’t ever fall in love — until the day when an older male friend unexpectedly makes it clear that he’s deeply enamored of her by asking her to become his wife. His love for her is so strong that her own love grows out of it — and they go on to build a remarkable marriage.

But there are also male characters who think they’ll never find love, only to discover it unexpectedly — like Karim, a computer programmer who gets into a sweet relationship with his office mate, in the novel “Kapitoil,” by my friend Teddy Wayne. Or Raskolnikov, the murderer from “Crime and Punishment,” who is redeemed by the love of a good woman (who happens to be a prostitute). Although, come to think of it, maybe it’s not Raskolnikov who thought he’d never find love, but I who thought no one could ever love an over-educated, self-important jerk like him.

So please, Mr. Never Been, have faith! Remember how much opportunity and possibility there is out there — and how young you are. Life is yours for the living, friend.

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Dear Jack and Maura,

Two years ago I met a very sweet guy from out of town at a friend’s party. We kept in touch primarily via letters and saw each other once or twice a year. Since I met him I have been irrationally in love with him, but he always seemed a little cold to me (even though he supposedly cared for me). We didn’t declare our mutual love for one another (and he didn’t explain why he had been so paralyzed by his feelings for me) until after I had already moved a continent away. We’ve since decided to try being friends (leaving a romantic relationship to the unforeseeable), and I have a great new French boyfriend, but I don’t know how to let go of this guy back in the States. Help!

Jack writes:

My guess is that what you call “irrationally in love” is really just honest-to-goodness infatuation; you guys have only seen each other a few times, and each visit got to be a reunion. That doesn’t add up to the reality that long-term relationships have to go through.

A good literary example of this is Hans Castorp in Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain.” He convinces himself he’s in love with Claudia Chauchat, another patient at the sanitarium he is staying in, but he’s barely exchanged introductions with her. Seeing how far he can go down the road of “love” without having real information is a warning to us all.

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Dear Maura and Jack,

My plight is simple: my beloved husband died in 2008 after a several-year struggle with cancer. While he was not my first husband or love, he was the best. Also the one I had a daughter with (she’s now away in college). I guess the woe is this: I’m 58, look OK, have a good job (though always precarious) and live in a metro-New York family town chock-full of younger Park Slope émigrés. I’m interested in finding someone, but know how hard it is, and I’m weary at the prospect. No one on Match.com who’s also interested in me seems interesting. I listen to live music, read and write a lot; I’m a little cynical; I’m a lot of fun. I do seek out books and movies that I can relate to, but somehow my life isn’t turning into “Shirley Valentine.”  I’m not Olive Kittredge, or some 70-plus widow either. Find my literature that balms my soul! Or gives me hope that even one such as I will serendipitously find love again.

Maura writes:

Dear Aging Cynically:

When I was 33, I had a tearful heart-to-heart with a friend of mine that ended with me saying, “I just feel too old to find love — like if my love juice hasn’t been activated yet by now, it’s probably expired.” He said, “Maura, sweetheart, you realize you’ve been saying that kind of thing since you were about 25, don’t you?” This is a long way of saying age might be a matter of perception more than anything else.

What’s more, I know of plenty of people who have found love unexpectedly much later in life — like my friends Donna and Ari, who found each other online when she was in her 50s and he was in his 60s. They’re like two newlyweds whenever I see them: always affectionate, holding hands, and kissing. If Match.com isn’t working out for you, why not try another site, like OkCupid? Or Alikewise, which caters especially to bibliophiles?

Or you could take a cue from “Love in the Time of Cholera.” The two main characters in that get together, finally, for the first time, when they are quite old … though the man, Florentino, has held a candle for the woman, Fermina, since they were kids. Do you happen to have any high school reunions coming up? Maybe you should go!

Another great — if far more bawdy — novel about love in older age is Philip Roth’s “Sabbath’s Theater.” The main character lives in a little Massachusetts town that might be a little like your New York town — and he and the town’s innkeeper fall into a passionate love affair when she’s in her late 50s, he in his 70s. It’s far from  a conventional relationship, but it brings them both new zest for life, inspiring in them deeper feelings (and lust) than they’d imagined they could feel. So perhaps it’s worth attending a few Chamber of Commerce meetings … or getting involved in local politics … or maybe just treating yourself to a drink at the little hotel in town, where that charming older bartender works.