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However, if we dig, and shovel, and get down till there are no pages left to read, ideas to uncover, thoughts to unpack and never find a shred of redemption in the words we read, are we are wasting our time? Is it possible to reach the end of a 'great American novel' empty of any shred of truth or redemption?
Here's a personal story. Nancy and I were conversing over coffee at Albina Press on upper Hawthorne. It was valentines day and we were discussing our favorite love stories. First she told me hers. She finds romance in the classic love stories like Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights. She told me about another novel she read growing up. It was the story of a young girl heading West in the early years of settling the American continent. On the wagon trail her husband died. She was in a desperate situation and goes to live with a man whose wife has also died, leaving him alone to care for their one year old son. As the novel progresses their love blossoms and what should have been desolation, destitution, possibly rape and despair is now the seed of true love, which lasts for a lifetime (and apparently a whole series of books). Hearing this story reminds me of the powerful ending to Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, where in the desolation of loosing a precious life another life is saved (I won't spoil it for you, but it's a powerful ending.).
I'm impressed with my wife's ability to tell a good story. I'm also, at this, point highly caffeinated and ready to impress her with my vast knowledge of love stories represented within modern fiction. I begin share my favorite authors of love and romance. I mention short stories by Woody Allen. I talk about Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma, Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job, John Updike and his Rabbit Run Series, Don Delillo and Cosmopolis, Philip Roth and pretty much anything he's written. The list goes on. I throw in Charles Bukowski just to show my ability to find love in poems written by a dirty old man in the trash of life. All these are met with skepticism. They fall like a thud on the floor of our conversation. She's not buying it.
We keep talking and decide to go thrifting...
Q: What are your favorite love stories of all time? (comment below):
(to be continued)
AB.
