Heart the Lover

by Lily King

I’ve noticed that about people who had stable childhoods. They like to create their own problems.

‘We are all our sins remembered.’ ‘What the fuck, Sam. That’s Hamlet, not the Bible. And it’s a load of crap.’

‘Someday we will remember even these our hardships with pleasure.’

It’s hard to return his gaze, the way he is looking at me. ‘You are so beautiful, babe,’ he says. Babe. A word from another universe. It’s physically disorienting.

‘Love in your novels, I think, acts as a form of hope. Why hope? Do you believe this?’

‘Most people ask me about sex, not love.’ ‘I know. I have seen this online. But I want to know about love.’ ‘Isn’t love a form of hope?’ I said. ‘No. Love is crushing. Love is something you let yourself feel at your own peril, despite your better sense.’

‘True. It’s all those things,’ I said. ‘But where would we be if we didn’t feel it? I think it’s the only form of hope we have. For our survival, I mean. What good is any other virtue without love?’ ‘In literature love is a weakness. Othello is easily manipulated by Iago because of his love for Desdemona. Anna Karenina throws herself under a train.’ ‘Othello places his trust in Iago, not Desdemona. Anna Karenina’s society does not allow her to be with Vronsky. Love is not the weakness. People get in its way. People are weak and perilous, not love.’

‘You know how you can remember exactly when and where you read certain books? A great novel, a truly great one, not only captures a particular fictional experience, it alters and intensifies the way you experience your own life while you’re reading it. And it preserves it, like a time capsule.’