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Book Review: Gordon’s ‘The Love Of My Youth’ Is Romantic Nostalgia
By Alice Shaw
Contributing Writer
Because of Judy Garland, I finally got around to reading the Mary Gordon novel, “The Love of My Youth,” which had been in my “books-to-be-read” pile since I bought it last year.
PBS recently aired a Judy Garland special made before the star’s tragic and untimely death and one of the songs Judy sang in her spectacular way was “The Man Who Got Away.”
After hearing Judy sing it, I hummed the song off and on for days. I was humming it when my eye caught “The Love of My Youth” near the bottom of the books-to-be-read pile.
I had bought it because I thought, as a long ago English major, I had a duty to own and read at least one work by one of America’s most esteemed current writers. Mary Gordon has won a mountain of literary awards.
I chose “The Love of My Youth” because of the title. It intrigued me. Don’t most of us carry about in our heads the memory of our flaming first love that was snuffed out by the passage of time that transforms tempestuous teenagers into adults who have different dreams and needs?
Adam and Miranda, the subjects of Ms. Gordon’s book, were teenage lovers but their love succumbed to time. Adam doesn’t understand that time was the culprit until he and Miranda meet again after 40 years at a luncheon given by a mutual friend.
The reunion is in Rome where Miranda is attending a convention of a charitable organization she works for and Adam is chaperoning his young daughter, Lucy, a promising violinist who is taking lessons from one of Italy’s foremost teachers.
Adam and Miranda have not seen each other since the breakup of their youthful romance. Both are now married to other people. Adam feels the breakup with Miranda resulted from the “blackest of sins” which he committed, and he accepts the luncheon invitation in hopes that he will find proof that he did not destroy Miranda.
Miranda, who is actually indestructible, goes to the luncheon out of curiosity to see what life has made of Adam, who once aspired to be a great concert pianist. As it turns out, Adam has a respectable career teaching music and doing some performing, but he is not a world famous concert pianist.
Miranda’s goal has always been to fight for social justice and that is what she has done with her life. In her late 50s, she is as energetic as ever. Adam, on the other hand, has serious heart disease and as a result is physically frail. Despite this, he suggests to Miranda that they get together every day that she is in Rome and visit a different Roman monument. Adam, of Italian descent, has spent a lot of time in Rome. He knows the city well and he speaks fluent Italian.
Miranda and Adam visit the famous churches, fountains, markets and cafes. They walk endlessly despite Adam’s weakened heart and they talk endlessly about art, the passage of time and old age.
Mary Gordon is a good descriptive writer but her book nevertheless cries out for color illustrations. Adam and Miranda visit such famous sites as the Villa Borghese, the Museum of Modern Art, the Pantheon, the Cloister of the Quattro Coronati and the Protestant Cemetery (where many famous English writers are buried).
Miranda and Adam try to focus on the monuments but inevitably the conversation turns to the past. They speak of their families and they speak of everything except their lost love and what caused its demise.
What intrudes constantly is the subject of aging. They are eating at a famous Roman restaurant when Miranda suddenly remarks that “we are more than halfway through.”
“Through what?”
“Our life.”
“Past the median.”
“Post meridian.”
“Post meridian, it just means after noon.”
Adam mourns what time has destroyed: “It frightens me that in a generation the music that I love, that I lived so much of my life for, will almost disappear. It was considered a necessary acquisition: People, ordinary people, had pianos in their living rooms. Everyone took music lessons, even if they were doing it only to be perceived as doing it, to be thought of as cultured, worthy to be taken into the middle class. Now almost no one thinks it matters one way or the other whether you take lessons.”
There are many conversations like this in the book, conversations about the disappearance of the world that Adam and Miranda knew as young people. They mourn their lost youth, they are envious of the young people they see. They all seem beautiful, wildly in love with someone or something, indestructible. The young are blissfully unaware that time can and will take it all away.
Miranda and Adam also talk about what is beautiful, and the joy that beauty brings to people. They talk about the sacredness of life and how lucky they are to be alive.
What they never talk about and what we do not learn until the end of the book is what terrible “sin” Adam committed when he dumped Miranda 40 years ago and if, as they grow emotionally closer and closer during their daily walks through the grandeur of Rome, Miranda and Adam will become lovers again.
(The Love of My Youth, by Mary Gordon, published by Pantheon Books, New York, NY, 2011, 302 pages, $25.95.)
By Alice Shaw
Contributing Writer
Because of Judy Garland, I finally got around to reading the Mary Gordon novel, “The Love of My Youth,” which had been in my “books-to-be-read” pile since I bought it last year.
PBS recently aired a Judy Garland special made before the star’s tragic and untimely death and one of the songs Judy sang in her spectacular way was “The Man Who Got Away.”
After hearing Judy sing it, I hummed the song off and on for days. I was humming it when my eye caught “The Love of My Youth” near the bottom of the books-to-be-read pile.
I had bought it because I thought, as a long ago English major, I had a duty to own and read at least one work by one of America’s most esteemed current writers. Mary Gordon has won a mountain of literary awards.
I chose “The Love of My Youth” because of the title. It intrigued me. Don’t most of us carry about in our heads the memory of our flaming first love that was snuffed out by the passage of time that transforms tempestuous teenagers into adults who have different dreams and needs?
Adam and Miranda, the subjects of Ms. Gordon’s book, were teenage lovers but their love succumbed to time. Adam doesn’t understand that time was the culprit until he and Miranda meet again after 40 years at a luncheon given by a mutual friend.
The reunion is in Rome where Miranda is attending a convention of a charitable organization she works for and Adam is chaperoning his young daughter, Lucy, a promising violinist who is taking lessons from one of Italy’s foremost teachers.
Adam and Miranda have not seen each other since the breakup of their youthful romance. Both are now married to other people. Adam feels the breakup with Miranda resulted from the “blackest of sins” which he committed, and he accepts the luncheon invitation in hopes that he will find proof that he did not destroy Miranda.
Miranda, who is actually indestructible, goes to the luncheon out of curiosity to see what life has made of Adam, who once aspired to be a great concert pianist. As it turns out, Adam has a respectable career teaching music and doing some performing, but he is not a world famous concert pianist.
Miranda’s goal has always been to fight for social justice and that is what she has done with her life. In her late 50s, she is as energetic as ever. Adam, on the other hand, has serious heart disease and as a result is physically frail. Despite this, he suggests to Miranda that they get together every day that she is in Rome and visit a different Roman monument. Adam, of Italian descent, has spent a lot of time in Rome. He knows the city well and he speaks fluent Italian.
Miranda and Adam visit the famous churches, fountains, markets and cafes. They walk endlessly despite Adam’s weakened heart and they talk endlessly about art, the passage of time and old age.
Mary Gordon is a good descriptive writer but her book nevertheless cries out for color illustrations. Adam and Miranda visit such famous sites as the Villa Borghese, the Museum of Modern Art, the Pantheon, the Cloister of the Quattro Coronati and the Protestant Cemetery (where many famous English writers are buried).
Miranda and Adam try to focus on the monuments but inevitably the conversation turns to the past. They speak of their families and they speak of everything except their lost love and what caused its demise.
What intrudes constantly is the subject of aging. They are eating at a famous Roman restaurant when Miranda suddenly remarks that “we are more than halfway through.”
“Through what?”
“Our life.”
“Past the median.”
“Post meridian.”
“Post meridian, it just means after noon.”
Adam mourns what time has destroyed: “It frightens me that in a generation the music that I love, that I lived so much of my life for, will almost disappear. It was considered a necessary acquisition: People, ordinary people, had pianos in their living rooms. Everyone took music lessons, even if they were doing it only to be perceived as doing it, to be thought of as cultured, worthy to be taken into the middle class. Now almost no one thinks it matters one way or the other whether you take lessons.”
There are many conversations like this in the book, conversations about the disappearance of the world that Adam and Miranda knew as young people. They mourn their lost youth, they are envious of the young people they see. They all seem beautiful, wildly in love with someone or something, indestructible. The young are blissfully unaware that time can and will take it all away.
Miranda and Adam also talk about what is beautiful, and the joy that beauty brings to people. They talk about the sacredness of life and how lucky they are to be alive.
What they never talk about and what we do not learn until the end of the book is what terrible “sin” Adam committed when he dumped Miranda 40 years ago and if, as they grow emotionally closer and closer during their daily walks through the grandeur of Rome, Miranda and Adam will become lovers again.
(The Love of My Youth, by Mary Gordon, published by Pantheon Books, New York, NY, 2011, 302 pages, $25.95.)