Where My Heart Used to Beat

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O iubisem prea intens, asta era realitatea. T.S. Eliot, un poet descoperit de mine târziu, era adesea citat cu butada că omenirea nu poate suporta prea multă realitate. Mie mi se părea că lucrul pe care omul nu-­l putea suporta în exces era iubirea. Faptul că o iubisem pe Luisa Neri prea mult, după standardele normale ale lumii – din perspectiva familiei, paterni­tății, relației agreabile cu semenii – îmi ruinase viața.“ Such an exploration of broader twentieth century history gives the book arguably its greatest passage. Faulks writes about wanting ‘a better, older Europe’ – one where the political shifts of the twentieth century- moving ‘from this world of tsars and kaisers and archdukes and kings’ towards today’s democracy- could perhaps have been achieved without ‘genocide across the century, tens and tens of millions dead, pogrom upon purge, slaughter upon holocaust, throughout Europe into Russia’. You can feel the author’s passion burning behind these words, bridling at the senseless killings of the past hundred years; you can feel his sheer and utter incoherence at how such travesties occurred. And it is this that gives the novel an added vitality – Faulks is saying that the past does matter, that we do need to examine it, and then, perhaps, we can learn from it. Correctly, I would like to think, he assumes that anyone who predicted the monstrosities of the twentieth century in 1905 would be taken to a ‘small but well-run lunatic asylum’. It is little wonder that Faulks called the span of this book ‘a century of psychosis’. I WOKE UP in the middle of the night in a rage of jet lag. I enjoy these surges; it’s as though you’ve absorbed some of the kinetic energy of Manhattan. I went into the kitchen and made a pot of tea. One thing I like about Americans is that they take themselves seriously. You don’t need deep roots or self-deprecation in New York; you have a brass plate on the door, a diploma, a position—you’re ahead of the huddled masses who’ve just ridden in from Kennedy. And they’re right to think this way. Your life is a small thing, but why should you not value it? No one else will. Tune in to Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on Monday 21 September to hear a live interview with Sebastian Faulks talking about his book. The poem begins with the speaker describing standing in front of the house of Arthur Hallam, the deceased friend for whom ‘In Memoriam”was written. Tennyson, who is usually considered to be the speaker, is looking across the lawn at the house. It’s dark inside. The experiences he used to have there are long since gone. They passed on alongside his friend.

I pulled out some money and handed it over. With what looked like some reluctance, she undressed. When she was naked, she came and stood beside me. She took my hand and ran it up over her abdomen and breasts. The belly was rounded, and there were small fat deposits above the hips; the lumpy navel had been botched by the obstetrician. Her skin was smooth, and there was a look of concentration in her eyes—not kindness or concern, more a sort of junior-employee focus. I felt extremely tired and wanted to close my eyes. At the same time I felt an obligation to this woman; it seemed we were joined in this thing now, for better or for worse. A sweeping drama about the madness of war and the power of love, with passages as "compelling and alive as anything he has written since Birdsong " ( The Guardian )A FEW HOURS after the hooker had left, I had a feeling that my encounter with her had not been unnoticed. It was not just the way the super cleared his throat when I went out or the way the bartender in my usual place raised his eyebrow as he poured the drink; even the panhandler in the doorway seemed to be smirking as he eyed me. And the next day I thought I’d better get out of New York. This ‘ti-TUM ti-TUM ti-TUM ti-TUM’ rhythm is the norm for In Memoriam, although by the time we get to the final stanza, Tennyson is introducing some variations which success the troubling realisation he is experiencing:

Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives. Libraries have an important role to play here, too, as the amount of choice is so overwhelming. I have a vague but exciting idea that people are beginning to value books more and more as a source of ‘content’. It’s good to be a small part of that." Get involved For years, Robert has refused to discuss his past. After the war was over, he refused to go to reunions, believing in some way that denying the killing and the deaths of his friends and fellow soldiers, would mean he wouldn't be defined by the experience. Suddenly, he can't keep the memories from overtaking him. But can he trust his memories and can we believe what other people tell us about theirs?I pressed her to stay for tea or beer afterwards, to gloss the exchange with some civility. She told me she lived in Queens and worked part-time in a shoe shop. In a vague way, I had thought being a New York hooker was a job in itself, not one with “prospects” and a trade union but at least a full-time pimp beneath the lamppost. She seemed reluctant to tell me more, for fear, maybe, of breaking the illusion of glamour; I guess she didn’t want me to think of her as someone who would go to the storeroom to fetch a size-seven brogue. I had such high hopes for this novel by Sebastian Faulks having loved a previous novel called : Birdsong but while I didn't dislike Where My Heart Used To Beat it certainly didn't set my heart beating any faster either. Faulks also delves deeply into the problematic question of love. Robert has no easy ride in this area and therefore his bleak outlook on love is not surprising; to him, love consists of nothing more than misfired chemicals, a fault of the brain. Rather than viewing this as a depressing conclusion, Robert, a victim of the horrors of the twentieth century, initially finds a strange solace in thinking of love in this un-romantic, scientific way. Yet as the novel progresses this definition of love comes under intense scrutiny and Roberts’s acceptance of it turns out to be his fatal flaw. nu-­mi rămânea decât să cuget la straniul statut pe care-­l conferim noi, oamenii, ideii de „iubire“. E unica emoție căreia îi recunoaștem puterea de a ne schimba viața; nici un alt sentiment – dacă prin „sen­timent“ înțelegem eliberarea unor substanțe dezor­donate în creier – nu are voie să producă o judecată, alături de rațiune și intelect. Nici o persoană întreagă la cap n­-ar lua o decizie care să-­i schimbe viața pe baza invidiei, furiei ori disperării, dar l��săm bucuroși ca cele mai importante opțiuni de viață să fie determinate de emoția „iubirii“.