I loved this story, and it shook me, too. It's such a sly, gentle, and delicious comment on the way women are educated--by men, usually--to have exquisite literary and artistic tastes--and to be proud of them and intolerant of any taste for lesser degrees of the arts and thought. And then they, if they are lucky, marry someone very like Tarzan, and set about trying to "improve" him. It was both funny and sad.
Mr. Picard, you made me miss my Tarzan, who left me after 36 years, and has been married to someone less deluded than me for 20 years now. He and I talk, wistfully, now and then; he must spend 48 hours a week on a long grassy field in a forest, hitting a ball with a stick, or he will lose his feral strength. I had to let him go.
Charlotte Harrell replied on Sun, 11/06/2016 - 09:14pm
I loved this story, and it shook me, too. It's such a sly, gentle, and delicious comment on the way women are educated--by men, usually--to have exquisite literary and artistic tastes--and to be proud of them and intolerant of any taste for lesser degrees of the arts and thought. And then they, if they are lucky, marry someone very like Tarzan, and set about trying to "improve" him. It was both funny and sad.
Mr. Picard, you made me miss my Tarzan, who left me after 36 years, and has been married to someone less deluded than me for 20 years now. He and I talk, wistfully, now and then; he must spend 48 hours a week on a long grassy field in a forest, hitting a ball with a stick, or he will lose his feral strength. I had to let him go.
Wow, what a wonderful story! I like the idea being explored here and at the same time loved the paradox! Imaginary yet so real at many places!