Tessa Hadley's short work of fiction, "Married Love," ran in the New Yorker's October 8 issue. Hadley herself is an established English writer. In addition to numerous short stories, Hadley has written a book on Hnery James's novels.
"Married Love" is a stark portrayal of middle-class English life. Hadley skillfully tells the story of a young girl, Lottie, who falls in love with her music professor while she is at university. Lottie and her teacher, Edgar, marry after he divorces his previous wife. Initially, Lottie is happy and excited with her new, "grown-up" and artistically stimulating world, but the glamour soon fades when their flat is filled with screaming children and Edgar is spending increasingly more time at his ex-wife's house.
The tone of the story shifts drastically as Lottie's happiness and excitement steadily decline. While Lottie's character entered the is filled with beautifully written descriptions of everyday objects throughout. Whether she is describing Lottie's sister's "hooded, poetic eyes" or the flat that Lottie and Edgar share, filled with the "landlord's furniture," Hadley's story is a sterling example of literary restraint; her portrayal of a young woman who has been let down by her overly-romantic expectations shines through the bleakness of the setting overall.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment