Well, CJS, your comments about connections between my fascination for Heathcliff and feelings for my brother left me reeling. This is a big topic, but I'll make a small start.
I was in my late 20s when I read "Wuthering Heights" for the first time. It made a huge impression on me. Until that time, I had never encountered a character with whom I'd identified so strongly (Catherine Earnshaw) or a perspective on romantic love that so matched my sensibilities (mirror image connection).
In my own experience, love is involuntary. It bypasses conscious processes and operates on very deep and basic levels. Of course, managing relationships requires a lot of conscious effort and skill, but the motivation to do so is either there or not. You can neither create it nor kill it.
It's a bit like McLelland's theory of work motivation: what gives you a buzz and drives you in life is innate. Your values, on the other hand, are shaped culturally and can change through life experience. When I encountered these ideas in the corporate world, a lot of things fell into place for me. I was putting myself under immense stress because what I wanted to do frequently conflicted with what I thought I should do.
Sooo, back to "Wuthering Heights". No credible character is all light. What gives me a buzz about Cathy AND Heathcliff are their self-reliance, resilience and passion. Their dark sides are vile -- selfishness, callousness, and arrogance -- but these are the very flip sides of their positives.
Like Cathy and Heathcliff, my brother and I effectively raised ourselves. Which means we have just as little patience as they did with sweet, pampered Linton types. Arguably, we haven't take our dark sides to quite their extremes. Then again, maybe we have.
We all have darkness in us. But we bond with others who share our shadows. It's only natural. I've learned to let myself enjoy my buzzes and duck a few truly loathed shoulds.
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My turn to write with more wines than is prudent. Whatt perfect timing. I have been away for weeks and returned on the day you posted two blogs.
ReplyDeleteParagrpah 3 : Amen sister. IMHO it is even possible to be in love with someone you don't respect, but this does not lessen the deep feelings it arouses; fellings that stay with us for decades.
There was no insult implied in my Heathcliff rant. (I did wonder whther I had stepped over the line.) As a stranger I merely tried to provide an insight that a friend would be too polite to state. Of course a friend would have more facts and less supposition. It would not be the first time I speculated on a person's inner workings and found I was wrong.
Post natel depression? It seems we have a friend in common. Perhaps the days will come when I share some of my soul.
Anyway I have a small piece of news. Following in your footsteps, I sent my spiel to Curtis Brown. I will post the outcome in a few weeks.
And the desire to write? Sometimes we carry an unexpressed emotion that we want to get out there. "I came to cast fire upon the earth and would that it was already kindled. I have a baptism to be baptised with, but oh how I am constrained until it is acomplished." Is your book progressing? I recently viewed "Julie Julia" and "Motherhood." It seems both started out as blogs that became books and then films. Julie's blog had her mother as the only reader for some time.
CJS
Hearin your story of the Curtis Brown feedback gave me the courage to try the same.
ReplyDeleteI guess my pitch was not up to your standard. My manuscript came back in less than a month. No blistering critique. No dog eared pages. Not even a single pencil mark. The polite rejection note was not even a full sheet of paper.
CJS