The remainder of Damage took me on a twisted rollercoaster ride. Ingrid begins to question if there is something that he has not told her and feels like he might be cheating on her. He covers up her suspicion with lies and then admits how his marriage never had any passion. The physical contact between them was diminishing. He says, “A sickness for Anna wrenched my being. It was as though Ingrid had been trying to invade the space which the ghost of the absent Anna filled.” The entire family decides to go to Hartley for the weekend to celebrate Ingrid’s father, Edward’s birthday. This is where Martyn proposes to Anna. In the middle of the night, Anna tells him how his son is going to tell the family the news the next day. She tells him, “I am everything you need in me. You live in me. Remember – everything, always.” The next day he was filled with pain. Everyone congratulated them and he had to force himself to send his best wishes. With their marriage set to June, the family then meets her step father, father, and mother who spill out all of her secrets. It turns out that Martyn has a shocking resemblance to her deceased brother Aston and that Anna still maintains a relationship with her first romance Peter. No wonder she lost contact with her family! He eventually calls Peter and later meets Anna where she gives him a key to the flat she promised. When he goes to visit, he finds a note that reads, “This room will contain nothing but us. A world within a world. I shall visit it to know your wishes. For in this world I have created, you rule and I am your slave. I will wait at the times you designate. Being obedient, I will always be there.” I could not believe that they were really going through with this and thought it would be that easy to maintain their secret life of “love.” On the day before Martyn and Anna’s wedding, he walked towards his new life with Anna with nothing, but happiness filling his heart. He says, “I accepted that my life would continue on a dangerous edge.” This is when he leads himself into self destruction. While making love to Anna, Martyn storms in to tell her that her father suffered from a stroke and catches them in the act. He is frantic and cannot believe his eyes. Martyn falls over the stair case banister and on to the floor where he dies instantly. What amazed me was as his father was trying to tend to his body, Anna simply left with no shame to the tragedy that just happened, as if she never existed. He makes a statement with the police and tells them the truth about their five month long affair and figures out how Peter must have given his son the address to the flat. When he goes home to Sally and Ingrid, they already know everything that has happened. Ingrid tells him, “Why oh why didn’t you kill yourself?” He replies how Aston had killed himself for Anna and now Martyn has died too. Ingrid then realizes how evil of a girl Anna was. She then says, “You and Anna match each other well. You cause agony in others’ lives. She’s always had that talent. Clearly you’ve just discovered it.” I bet that this must have been a horrible realization to come too. He loses his wife, resigns from his job, and unbelievably says, “The pain of Martyn’s loss was equaled only by the pain of longing for her. The name that my voice cried out was Anna, Anna, Anna. After everything that had happened, this man still wants his Anna! She disappeared and obviously wanted nothing to do with him or his son, but he could not see that. He goes to Peter to pick up a letter that she left for him where he finds out how Anna did not find it possible to continue their relationship. Peter delivers the cold truth to him when he says, “Anna could handle guilt all right. Actually, most people can. For example, you managed perfectly well to deceive your son. One barely finds it necessary to refer to the minor betrayal of your wife. Yet you are here days after your son has died, his death undoubtedly all but occasioned by you. You are here to search for Anna.” It was messed up when he learns how the whole affair allowed Anna to say goodbye to her brother and that he was essentially there to be a part of her healing process. In the letter she mentions how she was a fatal gift and that she has given him his own pain now, which he was destined for from the start. In the last chapter, he goes to the airport where he says, “Anna appears before me. She moves towards me. She takes my dark glasses from me. She looks beyond me as though gathering herself from me for ever. Silently, she wrestles for the part of her I still keep. She is all-powerful. It is an act of repossession.” He then notices how she is pregnant and is back with Peter. What a conniving bitch! Anna made him the victim all along. He is then left to deal with the damage and live a life alone in agony and misery where he stares at a life-size photograph of his son, Martyn and his lost love, Anna. He lost them both and destroyed his life because he allowed himself to lose control. The affair was the only thing he had in mind that was ultimately a fake act of passion on Anna’s part. I loved the wording of this book, which is why I jotted down so many quotations. I can now understand how one’s hasty behavior can have a disastrous toll on the impact of one’s life. When one enters an affair they really do not know what they are getting themselves into until they are caught. Passion at that moment in time drives them risky costs. Josephine Hart wrote such a brilliant work of art.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Hart: Damage Chapters 1-25
“Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive because they have no pity.” Damage tells the story of a fifty year old man who seems to have the perfect life. With a prominent political career, a beautiful marriage with his wife Ingrid, and two sweet children: a son, Martyn, and a daughter, Sally, it’s as if he has it all! He soon realizes that there happens to be something missing in his life: passion. He himself says, “The passion that transforms life, and art, did not seem to be in mine.” This all changes when he meets his son’s girlfriend Anna Burton. He and Anna develop an instant attraction to one another where he suddenly becomes sexually obsessed with her. After their first time meeting he says, “My soul has rushed to Anna Burton. I believed that in such a private matter between myself and God I could freely let it tumble forwards, without fear or damage to heart or mind, body or life. It is in that essential misreading that many lives stumble; in the utterly wrong idea that we are in control.” This turns out to be his exact downfall. He also says, "My life had already ended. It had ended in the split second of my first sight of her. The only truth that matters to me: Anna." Their love affair is surrounded by lies and deception towards the ones that they supposedly care about. I found it crazy how he especially chose Anna over his own wife and son. He was actually considering leaving his wife and not caring about his son’s feelings just to be with this woman. I never knew that passion could cause one to lose sight of important things in one’s life. This man felt possessed by her and thought that he had acquired this passion that he had been longing for. When Anna gives this man an insight to her dark past through a letter she wrote to him, one can see how heartless she has become. She suffered a lot through the death of her brother Aston and does not care if she causes anyone else pain. I think that this is why Anna did not want to give up Martyn or his father. I guess she figured why not have them both to herself because she is already damaged. What more damage can be done? She comes off as being very sneaky and manipulative where she makes her own decisions and would never allow herself to be controlled by any man. Anna is simply playing a game. She does not want to have a life with Martyn’s father as badly as he does. Instead, she just wants to continue to use him on the side, as a secret from Ingrid and Martyn. I felt like Anna had no concern for consequences and used sex to keep men in the palm of her hands. She admitted that she would say yes to Martyn if he ever asked for her hand in marriage and that she would marry his son, “Because Martyn asks no questions. Martyn lets me be.” When was shocked when he heard this. In his mind, she was his and it was naïve of him to think that she would chose him over his son. Even after he learns about her true feelings, he still wants her. He is still willing to stay and risk it all! It’s as if nothing can change his mind or stop him from attaining this passion that she alone gives him. Anna even tells him that she will by a flat for them to meet in if she and Martyn ever marry, when deep down he hopes that Martyn will not marry her. It’s as if there is no bond between him and his son. He starts to view Martyn as a rival for her affection and does not care if he ends up unhappy. Already halfway through this book and I cannot wait to read about what will happen next!
Nabokov: Lolita
After reading Lolita, all I have is one word: disturbing! The narrator H. Humbert, is what we would refer to today as a pedophile. I could never understand the mind of a pedophile because one would think since they are mature enough to know right from wrong they would fight the temptation of ever allowing themselves to be attracted to young, innocent and helpless children. It’s disgusting! H. Humbert is obsessed with young girls, which he calls “nymphets.” His obsession started with the death of his childhood sweetheart Annabel. From then on, he lusts over nymphets and visually possesses them while they play in the park. Yuck! I could not stand how he continued to pull me in, as a reader, to try and consider his way of thinking. H. Humbert becomes excited when he meets twelve year old Dolores Haze, which he gives the nickname Lolita. Lolita’s mother allowed him to live in their house as a tenant which was a bad move, in my opinion. He refers to Lolita in his diary as Lo, L, Lola, and even Dolly. H. Humbert develops a strong passion for this “nymphet” and spends his days watching her like a stalker. He wants nothing more than to remain in that house with his dear Lolita forever. H. Humbert was a sick and dirty man! I could not believe how he was actually sexually attracted to this young girl. He even had a hard time describing her beauty as his feelings intensified. It’s hard to imagine how millions of people, just like H. Humbert, exist in our society today.
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.
My sin, my soul.”
Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love
Limerence enters your life when someone takes on a special meaning. Tennov describes this term as an unconscious state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person. When Limerence sneaks up on someone, this overwhelming, obsessive need to have one’s feelings reciprocated comes upon them. This is said to happen when one experiences “being in love.” All of the examples of Limerence showed a deep infatuation towards another person. It reminded me of what happens in our mind when one sees someone either for the first time or many times, where out of nowhere we develop a crush on that person. It could have been a smile, eye contact, or nothing at all that just triggers these sudden intrusive feelings of Limerence inside of us. Limerence has different levels of arousal and intensity on each person. When Limerence is in control, the person has a strong desire to feel in return one’s feelings in order to provide emotional assurance in that person’s mind. I remember when I first met my boyfriend, I felt like I was on a cloud that was making its way up to heaven. I was so happy and I could not stop thinking about him. At that point, my life was transformed. Limerence made my perceptions grow stronger and my passion for him blossom. Everyone has experienced the works of Limerence at least once in their life.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Obsessive Sex and Love
In Chapter 6, Davis gives interesting information about how people viewed sex in the past in comparison to how we view sex now in the present. Society is more open to discussing sex because it is no longer considered taboo. It is has become normal to talk about sex. Many of the advertisements on display boards or that play in commercials use sex in some type of way because as we all know sex sells. Calvin Klein, for example, uses sex in ads as a form of pleasure. The way the models are presented to advertise his clothing or perfume lines provide a fantasy for some people. They all draw people closer to their own sexuality. If advertisements did not use sex, a lot of people would not show much interest to the product. I like how Davis says, “You can’t have obsession if you don’t have a clear sense of normality.” Our human nature has a feeling for sexual needs and it is totally normal to perform acts while having sex. In the beginning of the twentieth century, the mechanics of sexuality continued to be a central area of cultural and social obsession. Sexologists thought of the natural path of sexuality to be toward reproduction and any diversion from this was known as a perversion. A ton of manuals were made to promote sex. They were used as a guide on how to perform during sex which caused a problem. These manuals were telling people step by step information about what to do and how many times to do it which made sex turn into an addiction for some. Davis argues about what it is considered “normal sex” and was is considered “abnormal/obsessive sex.” People usually consider normal sex to be an intimate encounter between two individuals that are in love. Obsessive or abnormal love, on the other hand, refers to when the act is done excessively. Obsessive passion is both a desirable and a dangerous thing. Love plays an important role in sexual development. We should all try to have a balanced sexual life.