Vox

Shopgirl

I recently saw the film Shopgirl and have been intending to review it over at my Word Of Mouth Blog. I figured, though, that I would review the book at the same time. Realizing how long it has been since I read it (at least 5 years) I decided to read it again to give the most thorough review. I LOVE the way Steve Martin writes, the way he presents his characters, the way he caresses their emotions.......


Anyway, I am not doing the review yet, but simply posting a paragraph that has stuck with me for the last week:

He continues his quest elsewhere for a single appropriate love with occasional dates, road trips, and flirtations, but he continues to care about Mirabelle in a way he cannot explain. His love for her is not the crazy love he expects to feel, the swinging delirious rhapsody that he has promised himself. This love is of a different kind, and he searches his mind for definition. Meanwhile, he maintains a belief that their relationship can go on undisturbed until the absolute right woman comes along, and then he will calmly tell Mirabelle and she will see clearly how well he has handled everything, and wish him well, and congratulate him on his reasonable thinking.

That hits soooo close to home, as I know (or have known) many men (and a couple of women) who feel this way. It doesn't matter how good of a relationship they are in, they are always sure they are missing something better. Often these are the same people who don't look for a better situation in any other part of their life; work, home, finances. In those areas they are perfectly content to settle in where they are, but in relationships they are never satisfied, thus ensuring that the relationships fail, and causing undeserved pain and damage to their (in)significant other along the way.

Posted by Vox at May 20, 2006 01:01 PM | TrackBack | books