Lately I've been thinking a lot about love. Of course if one is married, one would hope that the subject of love would come up from time to time in one's daily life, but for the past few weeks, I've been thinking and talking about this thing called Love much more than usual. And why? Because the question of love keeps throwing itself at my feet, so much so that I cannot kick it out of my way. There are people in my life who are getting divorced, after being married for many years. I recently read online that Lynn Johnston's husband has left her for another woman. Not too long ago I reconnected via email with a couple of great guys I knew in highschool, which got me thinking about years past, and the heart-breaking romance I experienced from age 17-21. And then last week I watched a fascinating documentary on TVO, about the life and work of the Canadian writer and poet Elizabeth Smart.
If you're not familiar with the writings of Elizabeth Smart, you might have at least heard of her most well-known work, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. I had known of this book for many years, but had never read it, and really did not know much about what the story (if you can call it that) was all about. Though it is a fictional piece, it is inspired by Elizabeth Smart's very intense love-affair with the British poet George Barker. Smart came from a privileged background, but eventually turned away from that lifestyle and embraced the bohemian life of a writer and poet. She fell in love with Barker before she even met him, having become smitten with the man from simply reading his poems. Barker was married, but Smart was besotted with him, and though they never married, during their tumultuous affair she had four children from him, and struggled as a single parent in England after WWII, earning her living as a copywriter and freelance writer for various magazines. She eventually wrote another novel, The Assumption of Rogues and Rascals, but she shall be forever linked to By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, because of it's mirror of her own life, and her unapologetic, obsessive (and in my opinion) unhealthy love for a man who did not seem to return his love with the same raw, vulnerable passion. In fact Barker ended up siring 15 children from a variety of women, including Smart.
The book (novella?) is very short – only 112 pages. It's broken down into 10 tiny sections, but there really isn't a great deal of continuity or story for that matter, in this work. To me it reads like the emotional outpourings of someone's very private diary, albeit someone who is an above average writer. But that does not mean that By Grand Central Station is flawless. Far from it, in fact. Smart's writing is smothered with flowery metaphors which at times are so embarrassingly bad, they are laughable. I am a bit confused as to why this book has received so many rave reviews over the years. Perhaps I am old and cynical, but this kind of writing just makes me roll my eyes:
For excuse, for our being together, we sit at the typewriter, pretending a necessary collaboration. He has a book to be typed, but the words I try to force out die on the air and dissolve into kisses whose chemicals are even more deadly if undelivered. My fingers cannot be martial at the touch of an instrument so much connected with him. The machine sits like a temple of love among the papers we never finish, and if I awake at night and see it oulined in the dark, I am electrified with memories of dangerous propinquity.
The frustrations of past postponement can no longer be restrained. They hang ripe to burst with the birth of any moment. The typewriter is guilty with love and flowery with shame, and to me it speaks so loudly I fear it will communicate its indecency to casual visitors.
Just a little too rich for my tastes, I'm afraid. Though perhaps it is not just Smart's writing ability that is entirely to blame. I truly do believe that when one is in love, in that heightened passionate state of love that we know does not last, I think one is a little insane. I only have to read some of my own poetry during my own wretched romance to know that I was suffering from some strange sickness. Everything he touched I adored. I loved the way he walked, the way he held a pencil, even the way the smelled. One night, early on in our relationship when we were just friends and I desperately ached for the return of his love, he forgot his grey pullover at my house. All night I held it close to me, drinking in the smell of him. He, on the other hand, wanted to change everything about me – the way I dressed, the friends I chose, how I presented myself as a woman in front of others. And sadly, for many years I acquiesced to all his demands, because I was convinced I was nothing without him. Most people thankfully recover from this illness, and are thus resistant to any future insanity, not unlike catching measles in one's youth, and thus being free of the disease for the rest of their lives. Of course if we're lucky we fall in love again, but we've built up scars and scabs that hopefully protect us from making stupid decisions and letting our emotions completely overtake our lives. To love, rather than to be in love, is I think, the preferred condition. A very wise cartoonist friend of mine recently said, "Love transcends illness, infirmity and the ravages of time." Perhaps for some that seems so very unromantic. So be it. I do not want some slick Ken doll who whispers poetry to me every evening – I want someone who will see me and still love me at my most physically and emotionally worst, someone who will laugh with me, cry with me, and hold my hair when I am sick and puking into the toilet. I want someone to play Scrabble with, someone to dance with in the kitchen, someone to read to, and be read to, someone who is the first person I always want to tell all my good and bad news to, and hopefully someone who will share with me all their sorrows and joys. I want a best friend.
Sadly, Elizabeth Smart did not have such an experience with George Barker. The love she experienced was selfish, cruel and irrational. I'm perplexed as to why anyone would admire this kind of relationship, or rave about this kind of self-indulgent writing. As I read Smart's story, I was reminded of Somerset Maugham's novel Of Human Bondage and the two kinds of love the main character Philip Carey experiences, one with the selfish Mildred, and the other with the stable Sally. Which type of love do you think is best?
I'm also reminded of a fascinating documentary I saw many years ago about the life of comedian John Cleese. In his later years, Cleese has become very interested in psychology and human relationships, and together with therapist Robin Skynner, they penned two books, Life and How to Survive it, and Families and How to Survive Them, both very funny, insightful books (and trust me, I usually make a habit of staying far away from self-help books, but these works are quite exceptional). At the time of this documentary Cleese was married to his third wife, Alyce Faye Eichelberger, a psychotherapist (I believe they are still married). Parts of the documentary discussed Cleese's childhood, his problems with his mother, and his difficult past marriages. I recall him talking about the different kinds of love, and comparing the passionate love one experiences to a Van Gogh painting, and the more stable, warm and lasting love to a painting by Constable. He said given the choice, he would choose the Constable painting.
So would I. And thankfully, I did.
