At the half way point of 2011, I guess I should assess my efforts so far on the lust list. It has not been all that I'd hope for ... including the latest novel, To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal. A bit reminiscent of The Last Time They Met, we have two middle aged people trying to reconstruct the passion of first love. Judith has her summer of Willy Blunt just before she leaves for Stanford from Nebraska. Willy marries her best friend Deena and Judith marries Malcolm. (I think the names have a subconscious, or not so hidden, class elitism implicit in them). Willy remains a carpenter, Judith an unfulfilled screen editor. Her boredom at work, her inability to connect with her daughter and her aloof husband who may or may not be having an affair, all contribute to her withdrawal from social engagements ... actually hiding out in a self-storage space with the furniture from Nebraska.
The stored bedroom set reminds her of the lazy summer afternoons of lovemaking with Willy and she hires an investigator to track him down, not difficult as he hasn't really moved. She calls, he says to come immediately.
Yes, all the key elements of passionate love are ticked off but rather formulaically. Rather than a lost love theme, I am left with the uber-theme of "what directs your life." Judith was already plotting her adult life out before she was legacied into Stanford. Malcolm appeared as the ideal husband to execute her plan. However, Judith also heard the chides of her mother along with the muted success of her father. She ends up as cynical about marriage and mothering and the book concludes with her living as before by default.
No, I wouldn't recommend TBSUW; but then again none of the R-rated French movies I'm watching appeal to me lately either. Rather than getting charged up from film or novels, I go to work happiest when I've seen a doe and her fawn in the yard followed by the rampant rabbits ... when I find two pair of jeans and two tees on sale for $42, total ... when I make three batches of kale chips ... when I read how my son and his fiancee didn't want to head back home after their visit. Yes, I am as restless as Judith; queasy at work, worried about my health, wanting to do something out of my normal boundaries. But I promised myself that over the summer I will live fully in the moment, the moment being my definition of pleasurable comfort.
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