Unbeknownst to each other, in an O. Henry style, my husband and I exchanged gifts on valentine’s day.
Separately we each found a book for the other in the used book store sources we haunt.
I gave him a book about tanks. As I suspected, he already had it. But we had a chance to look over it and discuss it, even comparing it to the one he had. This new one will recirculate out again.
He gave me a book he knew I had already read:
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
I read it in the original English, because it had been printed in Russia while I was living there..during that year and a half, I read every English book I could find. Our translators had a copy they lent me: the Forsyte saga.
Chris discovered my appreciation for this story after PBS ran TV series of the story.
I was riveted, and enjoyed the period scenes this time.
And here it is in my hands again
I will read the story again, remembering the 19 year old perspecpective thr, and the 30 year old who saw the tv series
And what will I think of it today?
I have a whole suitcase of new experiences and knowledge to bring to writing now.
As I set it on the pile of books to be read, I discuss it with Chris like he talked tanks with me.
This period romance is different
Because
The story is told from the tortured perspectice of a man. Soames Forsyte was a highly eligible bachelor, but the books pick up after the marriage has happened.
This is the “ever After” which is usually vieled by the curtain.
Soames loves his wife but is desperately and terribly unable to capture her love in return.
His locked-up turmoil keeps me coming back.
It is rare in fiction to see a man so powerless against his nature. That same nature which draws him to his wife keeps him from her.
He is so good at what the world demands of him. At the tail end of the Victorian period, he got the prize: he is rich and a man of substance.
And it has also left him powerless and grasping for the woman he can’t connect with.
Even in Victoria era the male point of view is an exotic landscape.