The author is quite transparent in that her bond with that man was an unhealthy obsession. But it's an interesting exercise in tying it to older conceptions of

The author is quite transparent in that her bond with that man was an unhealthy obsession. But it's an interesting exercise in tying it to older conceptions of romance and lust, instead of settling for the view that it's just a peculiar, pathological form of something normal as we convene today, and we're doing in this subthread. We don't have to agree with her on that argument either. That's what makes the piece more interesting, that she made this work instead of just telling of her protracted, intermittent affair with a married man. Which is candid and has an element of voyeurism for the reader, but there's lots of places to read of sordid tales and gossip for their own sake. Heck I've been someone a couple of women have come back to in between relationships that they wouldn't hold on to in the end, but didn't want one with me, something I'm grateful for looking back, and that's about as much as it's worth saying on those relationships of mine. If I were somehow to tie it to a few thousands of years of literary history on the subject, it'd be a different matter.