Sent: Monday, June 21, 2004 1:50 AM
To: 'Isabella'
Subject:
> I wish I could write like this...
The Irish do have it, don't they?
That said....
The title is "Memorable Sex," and it must be ironic, because there's no sex in the story. In fact the painful and wordless (yet somehow nevertheless
comforting) *absence* of sex, or the torturous non-arrival at sex, is the subject of this story.
> I don't know whether to be proud that words had such meaning in the
> culture I came from. Or to accept that there must be a curious
> condition where part of the frontal lobe is burnt out by lust.
Ireland v. Arkansas. Catholicism v. Southern Baptist. And yet the same
exact results can happen across oceans. In some ways my adult life has
been an effort to avoid becoming the picture next to the above description in an encyclopedia. I could have written parts of that woman's story.
I feel it is vitally important to burst those bonds. My commitment to this mindset sometimes scares people. I think you are a little scared right now. Or could quickly become so.
-----Original Message-----
From: Isabella [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, June 21, 2004 1:54 AM
To:
Subject: RE:
>> I don't know whether to be proud that words had such meaning in the
>> culture I came from. Or to accept that there must be a curious
>> condition where part of the frontal lobe is burnt out by lust.
>Ireland v. Arkansas. Catholicism v. Southern Baptist. And yet the
>same
exact results can happen across oceans. In some ways my adult life has
been an effort to avoid becoming the picture next to the above description in an encyclopedia. I could have written >parts of that woman's story.
I'm taking it that you read this as a sad or even a tragic story. I didn't see it that way, necessarily. After all, O'Faolain has led quite a life as a writer, journalist and as a (sexual) human being.
And yet--to want something so badly that you can't speak of it coherently--I can sympathize.