Notes on The Two Hotel Francforts by David Leavitt
This book to me is captivating in its writing, in the questions it raises, in the intriguing nature of the characters. What makes this book so much "better" than most other contemporary books of fiction?
In the midst of the political turmoil of fleeing from Paris in 1940, two couples meet in Lisbon and the men "fall in love".
This is one of the few fiction books for which I wish I owned a copy so that I could write in it.
Quotes and questions:
"It's always the doubt. . . . And so we disregard every warning sign, no matter how blatant, rather than let anything interfere with our getting what we want---which makes us all liars and frauds" (p. 43).
How much can we trust our own desires and instincts?
If we are all liars and frauds, does that mean lying and fraud is "natural" and not bad? Only bad in certain contexts? Why do we seem to see "liars and frauds" as the worst kind of behavior?
We see these relationships that from the outside seem so self destructive and yet people stay in them. I don't mean ones where people are being physically assaulted and obviously "injured" but relationships where it does not appear as if one or both people are getting "anything" out of it that is healthy. But, this presupposes a certain definition of what healthy is. . . and perhaps, as good literature attempts to illustrate, things are a lot more complicated than they appear.
Raises the issue that there is a continuum of sexual attraction and not (usually, often?) an either/or.
"Aren't you afraid of the future?"
"What's to be afraid of? The future doesn't exist. It's the past that frightens me."
"Why?"
"Because it can't be undone and it can never be known . . . That's the trouble you see, these days we all spend so much time worrying about the future that the present moment slips right out of our hands. And so all we have left is retrospection and anticipation . . ."
Clearly, the past can not be undone. We have to live with it always . . . And, we don't know it because it is always a reconstruction influenced by who we are at the moment we are reconstructing it, who we are with, what other details we bring to bear on it, etc. It's like this incredibly influential enigma.
"In retrospect, it looks like it [that he had a plan]. Iris would certainly say so. It's her worldview. She thinks everything is plotted. Whereas my worldview is that things happen at random and people act on impulse, and its only afterward, when we look back, that we see a pattern. I suppose it's a matter of which part syou shine the light on, if you get my drift. My great failing is that I can't cope with time. I want to combat the degradation that memory suffers at the hand of time. And the effort is futile . . . " (p. 116)
"And yet what does that mean--that she loved Edward? I mean, if you put a drop of that vital fluid under a microscope, what would you see? In Iris's case, I think what you would see would mostly be fear: fear of the Earth opening up under her feet, fear of Edward's loss--which meant her own. She thought she loved him as a saint loves God. Yet isn't the love of saints a kind of monstrosity?" (p. 155)
How similar/identical are love and fear?
In the midst of the political turmoil of fleeing from Paris in 1940, two couples meet in Lisbon and the men "fall in love".
This is one of the few fiction books for which I wish I owned a copy so that I could write in it.
Quotes and questions:
"It's always the doubt. . . . And so we disregard every warning sign, no matter how blatant, rather than let anything interfere with our getting what we want---which makes us all liars and frauds" (p. 43).
How much can we trust our own desires and instincts?
If we are all liars and frauds, does that mean lying and fraud is "natural" and not bad? Only bad in certain contexts? Why do we seem to see "liars and frauds" as the worst kind of behavior?
We see these relationships that from the outside seem so self destructive and yet people stay in them. I don't mean ones where people are being physically assaulted and obviously "injured" but relationships where it does not appear as if one or both people are getting "anything" out of it that is healthy. But, this presupposes a certain definition of what healthy is. . . and perhaps, as good literature attempts to illustrate, things are a lot more complicated than they appear.
Raises the issue that there is a continuum of sexual attraction and not (usually, often?) an either/or.
"Aren't you afraid of the future?"
"What's to be afraid of? The future doesn't exist. It's the past that frightens me."
"Why?"
"Because it can't be undone and it can never be known . . . That's the trouble you see, these days we all spend so much time worrying about the future that the present moment slips right out of our hands. And so all we have left is retrospection and anticipation . . ."
Clearly, the past can not be undone. We have to live with it always . . . And, we don't know it because it is always a reconstruction influenced by who we are at the moment we are reconstructing it, who we are with, what other details we bring to bear on it, etc. It's like this incredibly influential enigma.
"In retrospect, it looks like it [that he had a plan]. Iris would certainly say so. It's her worldview. She thinks everything is plotted. Whereas my worldview is that things happen at random and people act on impulse, and its only afterward, when we look back, that we see a pattern. I suppose it's a matter of which part syou shine the light on, if you get my drift. My great failing is that I can't cope with time. I want to combat the degradation that memory suffers at the hand of time. And the effort is futile . . . " (p. 116)
"And yet what does that mean--that she loved Edward? I mean, if you put a drop of that vital fluid under a microscope, what would you see? In Iris's case, I think what you would see would mostly be fear: fear of the Earth opening up under her feet, fear of Edward's loss--which meant her own. She thought she loved him as a saint loves God. Yet isn't the love of saints a kind of monstrosity?" (p. 155)
How similar/identical are love and fear?
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