Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Ah, so this is why I'm so f'ed up: Bronte broads and Russian bastards

I blame the Bronte sisters, especially Emily. Jane Austen should be charged as well. And Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are far from innocent here. F'n passion-filled geniuses. And while we are at it, toss in Thomas Hardy. He's fucked up enough.

While the PTA blasts videogames for their violence and movies are slapped with sexual-situations and adult-themes warnings, no one calls classic literature out for what it is. What it does. Where was Tipper Gore when I needed her? "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" was comedy. Did she listen to that whole album? "Dirty Nursery Rhymes" wasn't going to hurt anyone. But unrequited love for your stable-boy played out against fields of sweeping heather and forbidding class-structure? That does no damage? Bullshit. I say bullshit on thee.

I want my fucking Heathcliff. I want a love that transcends normalcy. I want a love that lasts. I want fucking-forever. And these people, these grand and great authors of lit class masturbation and holier-than-thou sentence structure (let's be honest, I've never met a run-on-sentence I haven't loved), they owe it to me.

How am I supposed to function in the real world when my first crush was Bronte's brooding, angry Heathcliff? I read "Wuthering Heights" when I was 11. I've been trying to save every boy I've met since. Do you know how messed up that is? - Aloysha Karamazov. Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. Count Vronsky. Jude Fawley. Yeah. I tapped all those asses. And they mind-fucked me back.

No one ever stepped in and told me they were just fantasies without the elves and the pixies. That they were unachievable examples of love and passion. That they have all the realism of porn just in much more acceptable Penguin Classics packaging. Catherine Earnshaw was just Jenna Jamison giving it up to her adopted brother and the rich-boy next door. - Heathcliff deserved better. He deserved me.

I'm trying to be better. Giving up the "leprechauns". The misunderstood 5'10", scrawny boys who can quote "Crime and Punishment" but can't hold down a job. - I know I can't blame my unrealistic views of love and relationships entirely on the books I read. They're called fiction for a reason I suppose. Still though. If such things weren't possible, if no one ever really had that sort of love, then we wouldn't be affected by them, would we? We wouldn't read them over and over and make them into movies. We wouldn't still believe the lie, would we?

I don't believe in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. But I believe in one-and-only and forever. I still want my Heathcliff. "He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, we're the same"

Here's "Wuthering Heights" in 1:09 minutes:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't forget modern literature - "Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"