The Romantic Movement
I am awake. Whiled the hours away on the Internet, randomly surfing away reading internonsense, being a ‘Netizen’ (I hate that word-how terribly unfashionable and socially awkward). In my caffeine induced state, I find all ways and means to sleep. Tv is too stimulating for me. I can watch episodes of Desperate Housewives and thereafter, my head will be reeling, thinking about their predicaments. I ended up with my last resort – the yellowed and dog-eared copy of Alain de Botton’s The Romantic Movement. Alice, the protagonist, falls in love with Eric, an emotionally unavailable banker (did we hear ‘wanker’?) and I’m at the part when she is evaluating the first stage of their relationship. In an intellectual chick-lit way, de Botton (sorry, he has such an elegant and pompous name, I just can’t be on first names basis with him) intersperses basic philosophical concepts and musings with the narrative of Alice’s romantic pursuit. I’m somewhere ensconced in page 121, and I can see that they are NOT a good match. She is all clingy and afraid to be alone and he is Mr EU (Emotionally Unavailable, probably with a Deep Dark Past). Poor Alice, I feel for her. I think he is stringing her along. It’s quite clever, how de Botton weaves in themes such as Value Systems (Sentimentality, Emotional Nudity, Predictability) and the reader is tricked into some analysis (brain work people! Although the subtitle of this book is ‘Sex, Shopping and the Novel’, it has some pithy bits). However, I can just hear his documentary style voice piping up when it comes to these bits. A little like an annoying Oxbridge Pom.
The appropriate culinary accompaniment: To soften the intellectual bits and lull me to sleep (remember – reading before bed = good sleep), I trotted off to the kitchen, faced off with a 6 inch long house lizard (in my view – a Komodo!! on my kitchen window) and stocked up on the trusty mug of milk and 4 cookies. 3 pieces of CookieDuckie’s honey cookie and 1 of the Orange Chocolate nut type, to be precise. It’s not that I want to bore you with what I ate, saw, drank etc. but these were carefully rationed portions of CookieDuckie’s baking experiments, and until I receive another batch, I have to ration my skimpy portions. It all went down rather well.
I leave you with a nice chunk of text (otherwise known as ‘lifting’, ‘copying’) from de Botton’s book, to give you a taste of his prose:
from page 106…
“I strip myself emotionally when I confess need – that I would be lost without you, that I am not necessarily the independent person I have tried to appear, but I am a far less admirable weakling with little clue of life’s course or meaning. When I cry and tell you things I trust you will keep them for yourself, that would destroy me if others were to learn of them…I am stripping myself of a carefully sculpted illusion of invulnerability.”
I guess if The Romantic Movement were a dish or a food, right now I would label it as …. a hybrid Portobello black truffle mushroom. At times tasteless but big, fluffy and chewy and goes well with normal cheese but at certain sections – real rich and heady with lots to think about.
If you have’nt already guessed, I’m not a total fan of this novel, but I’m not quite giving up yet.
After all, it puts me to sleep, quite easily 🙂
I shall give this a miss. Am waiting for a stellar review from Ms. Q before running down to Kinokuniya to grab a copy of whatever it turns out to be.