Those who love

?We are each the love of someone?s life,? observes Max Tivoli of The Confessions of Max Tivoli.

Spoilers ahead:

Max Tivoli, the man whose body ages in reverse, loved one woman all his life. In turn, she loved one man too - not Max - though she never married him. In the twilight of her years, she meets him once again. Just once. And when she sees him, her hand flies to her heart. Max watches as his beloved's startled gaze settles on a man who isn't him. It's a painful moment.

?We are each the love of someone?s life.?

The book is full of unrequited love. Each tragic character going through life and marriage without fulfilling his desire for that one person.

Another bitterly realistic story is Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle, a beautiful book that young girls should read. Dodie Smith wrote this novel before she wrote 101 Dalmations and I love it more than most coming-of-age novels. She doesn't give you a contrived happy ending and Cassandra, the protagonist, is smart, naive, kind, fearful but eager to love, and has her emotions hopelessly tumbled and tested. In the book, it's clear we can't always choose the ones we love, nor do we always win them. Love is a murderous thing, Cassandra tells us. In the DVD, a movie by BBC, the final scene shows her writing the last page of her journal. "I love. I have loved. I will love." It's a sad moment, but one brimming with hope and possibility.

Both Max and Cassandra repeatedly dream of loves that will never surface. And I found the perfect poem that captures their pain:

Summer Storm

We stood on the rented patio
While the party went on inside.
You knew the groom from college.
I was a friend of the bride.

We hugged the brownstone wall behind us
To keep our dress clothes dry
And watched the sudden summer storm
Floodlit against the sky.

The rain was like a waterfall
Of brilliant beaded light,
Cool and silent as the stars
The storm hid from the night.

To my surprise, you took my arm -
A gesture you didn't explain -
And we spoke in whispers, as if we two
Might imitate the rain.

Then suddenly the storm receded
As swiftly as it came.
The doors behind us opened up.
The hostess called your name.

I watched you merge into the group,
Aloof and yet polite.
We didn't speak another word
Except to say goodnight.

Why does that evening's memory
Return with this night's storm -
A party twenty years ago,
Its disappointments warm?

There are so many might have beens,
What ifs that won't stay buried,
Other cities, other jobs,
Strangers we might have married.

And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.

~ by Dana Gioia

Posted by Monoceros at January 31, 2005 12:01 AM