i am a bibliophile, or precisely a lover of the physical presence of books. my favourite past-times include wrapping them and placing them in a neat stack. don't ask me whether i still flip through them after the third day of purchase. but my nose is recently sticking into this notes on a scandal about a 60-year-old history teacher (barbara) betraying her middle-aged colleague (sheba) who's having an illicit affair with a 15-year-old. (the book should be read with its film adaptation, which gives an extra level to the original text, albeit occasionally spells things out too clearly.)
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barbara is never good at friendships. her previous gal pal has filed an injunction against her harrassment. her lonely spinster life seems to have brightened up with the arrival of sheba, the new pottery teacher. they have eventually become friends and barbara presents herself as sheba's only confidant especially when she later discovers sheba's affair.
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but things changes when sheba fails to give sufficient attention to barbara when her cat dies, and when a "pursuer" of barbara turns out to be sheba's secret admirer. barbara airs her friend's dirty laundry to him, who subsequently spreads the word among the school. barbara appears to be standing by sheba when she's bombarded by the boy's mother, the school, the press and the cops. sheba is not aware of the betrayal until she finds barbara's manuscript, a report on the series of events which begin as soon as the two women encounter. the book ends with sheba surrendering herself to barbara's arms and barbara's monologue "and she knows, by now, not to go too far without me". the film, on the other hand, wraps up with sheba imprisoned and barbara picking up her new prey (another younger woman)..
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may i just digress for the moment from the "scandal" to the "notes". barbara, as compared to the sheepish sheba, is a far more interesting character -- scheming, possessive, domineering, demanding and yet fragile. i remember from one episode of america's next top model, tyra banks commented that there's a broken heart in every "bitch". you can characterize barbara as the quissential spinster, but this "bitch" is in every lonely soul. in the film, there's a more blatant hint of barbara's lesbian inclincation towards sheba (secretly picking up a lock of hair sheba drops and pasting it in her journal), but the feelings are more complex in the book. is she a friend? a secret admirer? a fan? a psuedo-mother? a bystander? a detached scientist studying sheba as if she's a reindeer on national geographic? a lion eating that poor thing alive? or simply a god wannabe?
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is it someone's fault to be lonely? throughout the manuscript, barbara has talked about how she's unwelcomed by almost every soul wandering on earth -- her students, colleagues, sheba's family, and even strangers who just happen to have a glimpse of her on the streets, as if she's the sinister black cat. can we be so vicious to jump to the conclusion that loners deserve the way they are treated?
.is solitude a result of the domino effect when:
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1. you're unattractive or incapable of effectively expressing yourself
2. you become an outcaste or a laughing stock
3. you're angry and detest the humankind as a whole
4. you lose the last dose of charisma when you put up a poker face and picks on everyone as a defence mechanism
5. the world deserts you
6. you are left with no choice but to convince yourself that you're fine on your own
7. you get used to the solitude, believing that you need / want no one
8. you're left alone by the world and yourself
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what if in between phases 4 and 5, someone like sheba walks into your life -- how can you still end up at phases 5-8?
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4a. you lead yourself to believe that if you give 100% to the special someone, you deserve at least a 100% reciprocation
4b. it is proved to be just wishful thinking on your part
4c. you become an asshole demanding some "compensation", calculating everything in an almost scientific way
...
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at this point of my brainstorming "art", a french play by yasmina reza, slips into my mind. it is about a friendship crisis between serge, marc and yvan triggered by a piece of modernist painting serge has bought -- a few white scratch marks on a canvas painted white. in a nutshell, it's... white. and just, well, costing him 200,000 francs. dah. marc was extremely skeptical about its artistic value and the first half of the play is an aesthetic debate between the two men and yvan's vain effort of peacemaking. it is, however, soon discovered in the later half that marc's genuine concern is not the huge piece of whiteness, but the fact that his friends have "matured" or "moved on" and no longer look up to him.
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marc and barbara share the same need to be needed, and become destructive like a maelstrom when they can't prove their existence.
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no offence to mother teresa -- i simply don't believe in utterly unconditional love.
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