In Year 9 at school my English teacher was an intimidating, learned, snobbish English woman with grey hair tied up in a French roll. She wore her black flowing academic cape at all times and, being tall and lean, she looked down on us with what appeared to me to be considerable disdain.
The first thing she asked us to do at the beginning of that year with her was to write down the books that we had been reading in the past few months.
'The titles will tell me something important about each of you.'
I understood what she meant. She was sorting us into categories - those worthy of her great intellect and those destined to disinterest her; those who would go on to study English Literature and those who would not.
I wondered what she would make of me. I had been reading Jane Eyre, yet again, Wuthering Heights, of course, and short stories from Reader's Digest, mostly romance stories, as I recall. It was so obvious from my list that I was a hopeless romantic, deeply entrenched in reading stories of gripping intensity about love.
I was a sucker for Mr Rochester. His aloofness and apparent disinterest in the orphan Jane Eyre didn't put me off a bit. I somehow understood at the cellular level that he loved her, although his words made it difficult to really know that on an intellectual level. Indeed, the love for her had to be felt. I could watch the closing scene of the film endless times, the discreet way that these feelings were portrayed by each other for one another. There's not a doubt that the story affected the rest of my life and that in some way I looked to create for myself this sort of scenario which I saw as a very deep and desirable love to have and to receive.
Sometimes, I return to novels such as Portrait of a Lady, an old favourite. I'm particularly partial to Chekhov's short story Lady with the Dog. I'll happily read more current novels where love is a focus, Burial Rites, The Marriage Plot, The Interestings. Michael Faudet's collect of poetry Dirty Pretty Things is tantalising.
One of my earliest 'power exchange' type fantasies (although I had no idea of the concept in a formal sense) was that I worked as an assistant to a English Department Professor. He would ask me to do research for his papers and lectures. He was fond of me, impressed with me, secretly wondered how he would do without me, but he expressed none of these thoughts openly. It was up to me to know of his feelings towards me without any words being said.
'Good work', was the best I could expect, and a sharp reprimand for work not fully fleshed out was inevitable if I didn't turn over every stone on his behalf.
I revelled in this fantasy for years and years, just so comfortable in being the helpmate to a sophisticated, educated, able, older man.
From where might I have got such an idea...?
Such is the power of the remarkably well told story. Ah, Ms Charlotte Bronte, if you only knew what power you have held over me!
The first thing she asked us to do at the beginning of that year with her was to write down the books that we had been reading in the past few months.
'The titles will tell me something important about each of you.'
I understood what she meant. She was sorting us into categories - those worthy of her great intellect and those destined to disinterest her; those who would go on to study English Literature and those who would not.
I wondered what she would make of me. I had been reading Jane Eyre, yet again, Wuthering Heights, of course, and short stories from Reader's Digest, mostly romance stories, as I recall. It was so obvious from my list that I was a hopeless romantic, deeply entrenched in reading stories of gripping intensity about love.
I was a sucker for Mr Rochester. His aloofness and apparent disinterest in the orphan Jane Eyre didn't put me off a bit. I somehow understood at the cellular level that he loved her, although his words made it difficult to really know that on an intellectual level. Indeed, the love for her had to be felt. I could watch the closing scene of the film endless times, the discreet way that these feelings were portrayed by each other for one another. There's not a doubt that the story affected the rest of my life and that in some way I looked to create for myself this sort of scenario which I saw as a very deep and desirable love to have and to receive.
Sometimes, I return to novels such as Portrait of a Lady, an old favourite. I'm particularly partial to Chekhov's short story Lady with the Dog. I'll happily read more current novels where love is a focus, Burial Rites, The Marriage Plot, The Interestings. Michael Faudet's collect of poetry Dirty Pretty Things is tantalising.
One of my earliest 'power exchange' type fantasies (although I had no idea of the concept in a formal sense) was that I worked as an assistant to a English Department Professor. He would ask me to do research for his papers and lectures. He was fond of me, impressed with me, secretly wondered how he would do without me, but he expressed none of these thoughts openly. It was up to me to know of his feelings towards me without any words being said.
'Good work', was the best I could expect, and a sharp reprimand for work not fully fleshed out was inevitable if I didn't turn over every stone on his behalf.
I revelled in this fantasy for years and years, just so comfortable in being the helpmate to a sophisticated, educated, able, older man.
From where might I have got such an idea...?
Such is the power of the remarkably well told story. Ah, Ms Charlotte Bronte, if you only knew what power you have held over me!
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