I can't remember where I read that – but it's true. Stories- books introduce us to the wonderful insane world of adult love- not the plot device of children's stories, the Prince falling in love with Cinderella, not the boring matrimonial life of our parents, aunts, and uncles but real, beautiful love, the kind you feel in your stomach, except writers and poets felt it would be more poetic to say heart (and of course they are right).
The kind of love that makes you do insane things.
You're not going to believe this, but for me, it was Joseph Heller's God Knows, a book that literally no-one else I know has ever heard of, and that I've never heard mentioned outside my head, a book that despite going to a churchy elementary school where we recited the Lord's Prayer every morning (none of this wussy national anthem shite kids have forced down their throats these days!) completely shaped my understanding of the Bible, not to mention Judaism, god, parents, children, sex, rape, love, music, poetry, madness, being young, growing old, life, death and everything else that remotely matters.
David and Bathsheba. Funny, huh? Of all the great lovers of history, they are the pair that I randomly stumbled upon first in my early teens. Later of course there were others- I think I wrote about Brideshead Revisited in an earlier post. But Heller imprinted those two on me first.
David fell in love with Bathsheba the moment he laid eyes on her, bathing naked on her rooftop, when he was also out on an evening stroll on the his rooftop, trying to relax from the worries of ruling his war-torn kingdom. (He was part of the reason it was war-torn, at that point. He just loved fighting, couldn't get enough of it. Also was very good at it, by his own account, and that of the Bible). Later he finds out she was there bathing on purpose, to catch the king's eye. It works. His eye is caught. He summons her and lays with her that same evening. Then he plots for her husband's death, so he can marry her. Completely logical.
Bathsheba is a blonde bitch. Heller goes on and on about her fair skin, her weight gain in her later years, her freckles and moles, her misshapen toes, her scheming manipulations. Despite the dark beauty of his slim Semitic concubines, David can only think about her. We get it, we get it. Blond girls have more fun, since ancient times. I have no idea if Bathsheba was blonde in the Bible, but she certainly was by the time Heller laid his hands on her. Or rather, pen. Hehe. Get it? Pen.
Anyway. Tell me which book taught you about love, which opened your eyes to the possibility of having big feelings for someone – so big that you can't breath, can't eat, you can only cry and hope and pray and scheme. Tell me about it.
by 1000andonenites