life is more than a dress rehearsal

I finally understand why chick-flicks are so important.

Merle Oberon and Leslie Howard---begad!

I just finished reading The Scarlet Pimpernel for, like, the fifth time.  (Since I first read it in high school X many years ago, not, in, you know, a row…)  And I didn’t really want it to end.  The first time I read it ravenously; I couldn’t wait to see what happened!  This last time, I lingered long over the last chapter.

The prose isn’t anything fantastic.  Lots of repetitious phrases, and if I was the editor way back in 1905, I’d’ve said it wasn’t ready for publication.  So many repetitious phrases with variations like “the man who had won her heart,” “whom she loved with all her soul,” “the dearest being in the world,” “nearer to her than life,” etc. etc. etc.

the best frame in the world: a two-shot

…but, you know? Those phrases are why I didn’t want to stop reading.  The book is about two people in love.  Not only two people in love, but two married people in love who fall in love after they are already married.  It’s got the sweet charm of Golde and Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof: after 25 years, it’s nice to know.  Except, for Marguerite and Percy, it’s 25 months, haha!  That makes it all the more delicious.

It’s very nice to know about two people being in love.  That’s why chick flicks are important. Love isn’t just a nice way to live life; it’s the stuff of life itself.  I’m not envious of Romeo and Juliet, or even Marguerite and Percy for that matter.  I don’t really want to kill myself for love or be traumatically and uselessly devoted until I have to be carried back home by the man I went to save.  But I want to know that love exists, that love is happening.  Somewhere, between someones.  Even 25 seconds after closing the book, I’m ready to be told again.