INEVITABLY YOU FALL IN LOVE

"Moral considerations have little or nothing to do with artistic excellence," wrote Andre Gide in a 1940 Preface to Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos. Gide referred to the ability of art to temporary undermine our moral sense, and make us side with characters considered rebellious, immoral or even plain evil. I am currently re-reading Dangerous Liaisons, and I am again impressed by Merteuil and Valmont, the evil characters and evil doers!

I have to say that the same happened to me with Richardson's Clarissa. I was not impressed by the saintly protagonist (the eponymous Clarissa) but with the male protagonist hero-villain Robert Lovelace. Clarissa is the longest novel ever written in the English language. The prose is beautiful, elegant, lovely -- you do not get bored. On the contrary, you are attracted by the novel, and you inevitably fall in love with Lovelace: his beauty, passion, his dark soul, his evil strength.

I suppose this attraction for the dark side plays in endless novels and films. Most notably, for me, it plays in Fifty Shades of Grey, where we love Christian no less for his tortured mind and soul. No less? Nay, we love him more!!!!

Have a good Friday afternoon and be well! xxx