September 24, 2010

Preparing Potok’s The Chosen for a lecture at the public library in Marion. At one point Reuven’s father says that every man has two duties, to find a teacher and to find a friend, and the definition of friends is one soul in two bodies. I have fulfilled neither duty. One is my fault, the other isn’t.

Watched Wyler’s The Heiress with Olivia de Haviland, Ralph Richardson, and Montgomery Clift. Great movie– smart script, brilliant, natural performances. Clift is so beautiful you know the film wanted to go on fire around him. The person Richmond looks like that I could never quite think of is Montgomery Clift. I was thinking, though, if money is what one has to offer, what’s wrong with being desired for it? It’s longer lasting than beauty, and I don’t see how it is any more superficial than wit or charm. What does it mean to be loved “for yourself alone”? How many people would love whom they love if their appearance were entirely different? The lucky few love soul to soul, but the rest of us are attracted to some particular thing, and the attraction would be different if that thing were different. How is marrying for money worse than marrying for any number of other imperfect reasons? I do see the difference, though, now that I’ve talked myself into it: it is possible to love the money and not the person, though I suppose not possible to love the beauty or the wit and not the person possessing it. Everyone in the film, in Washington Square, in most of James’s work is pretty ghastly on a moral level. How can one trust someone who expects so little?

All conversations about love are pure speculation.