Life, love, imitation

It’s never been lost on me that the stories with the most allure are often those that have pulled off the unnerving trick of taking elements from our own lives to reflect back to us via script, verse, or prose.

I went to watch the movie Genius yesterday, which opened at the cinema to zero fanfare — so I feel indebted to this review. It’s about Max Perkins, the man who edited F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway — who both have small roles in the film and whose books I have read. As well as Thomas Wolfe, whose character is the co-lead of the film, and remains unread by me.

I almost smiled to myself as the events played out on the big screen, as so much could have been transposed from thoughts I’d been having that very morning.

My father was a great editor of his own peculiar branch of publishing. He had insisted that I was a born writer for as long as I can remember. And I waited till he was blind and had lost his mind before I took it upon myself to begin trying to write a major work, so missed out on the chance to collaborate with him on it. By slight contrast, in the movie, editor Perkins finds the son he never had in writer Wolfe. The interplay between them as editor and writer served to very effectively illustrate something I already knew — that an author is generally only as good as his or her editor.

Then near the end, brain tumours become a key plot point. It was only yesterday morning that I’d been talking to my ex — the one whom I’d actually been in love with. I asked her about the brain tumour she has secretively been living with for the last twenty years — which may or may not have influenced her ability to stick with me. At first she reluctantly revealed that she had a checkup due soon. Being a no-nonsense kind of lady, she’s always played down the nature of her illness. But I know better; having been around when the lower half of her body became paralyzed for several months, when she whispered to me late at night that she didn’t want to die. And yesterday she revealed that in addition to the tumour in brain she now had more tumours in her uterus, and was going against doctor’s advice by not having a hysterectomy.

I had already resolved during the first half of the movie to try and find some time to block out the noise of life to complete at least one novel, albeit without easy access to a good editor. Should I be successful, I will also keep to my original intent of dedicating it to her.