Minding the American colloquialisms, it's great. But this is no book review, you see. This is a quotation of all the ironies that exist between the book and my life. It's not even that, it's a ridiculous exaggeration of the similarities, between my heart and my head.
You see, I wanted to go to Oxford ever since I was little. Not simply because my elitism and my wanting to be the best; but I loved the old university feel and the prestige that came with having an oxford degree. The book's main characters are student and tutor at Oxford right before the second World War, and although their names are seemingly irrelevant; Maude and Stephen have a special place in my heart.
Maude begins the novel as an old woman telling the story behind the book of poetry her granddaughter found in a trunk. In her times at Oxford, she falls in love with her tutor;
and that's where the similarities begin...
I'm older than Maude, probably discerningly alternative in tastes, but we share a story unlike any other: we both fall in love with the unattainable, and even if it loves us, it never matters.
P.105
"There's nothing to say, " said Maude dully, "this isn't a death. It only feels like one. Nobody ahs died; I can't expect anyone's condolences. And he wasn't even my husband, Edith, that's the thing. He was nothing to me, just an idea, just a fantasy about what we would have together one day."
This is more disheartening than I remember. As I write it, it all becomes clear. I'm not just Maude, I'm that idea. I'm the somebody's nothing.
p.110
They'd sat in the pub that long-ago afternoon, on a weekend when they shouldn't have been thinking about anything but that weekend, and he'd urged her to think about the future. Be realistic: that's what he'd said, and Maude, foolishly, had assumed he was only talking about the war.
They'd sat in the pub that long-ago afternoon, on a weekend when they shouldn't have been thinking about anything but that weekend, and he'd urged her to think about the future. Be realistic: that's what he'd said, and Maude, foolishly, had assumed he was only talking about the war.
Who knew that She'd end up like me? cold, alone; And longing for something and someone that doesn't exist for us anymore. That Stephen is just like mine; he has grown hard and worn from the war, and my war has only just begun.
p.113
"It sounds to me like you were only wishing for a happy ending."
"I suppose I was," Maude said.
"But isn't that what we all want?" Edith asked.
Bad things happen to good people too, right? I'm so sick of waking up tired, not knowing where I am; this one won't be like you, neither will that one, or that one. And music meant something to someone who didn't have a girlfriend. fuck.
That was just what went through my mind as I read that. I don't know what to do. It's not like I'm not good enough, so I don't know who to blame.
The story goes on, and so does Maude. She moves on.
I put down the book, and look around.
Will I?
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