Of love and literature.

Am I alone here? A breakup can ruin a book for me. Or at least, a book can become forever associated with a breakup, which is not much better. Really, I don’t know which I will run out of to ruin first, books or men. (I’m working my way through them both pretty steadily, it would seem… I’ll certainly let you know when I’ve crossed over from Bookslut to actual slut.)

When I was eighteen, I broke up with Billy. (I know, I already told this story, bear with me.) That was the hardest breakup of my life so far. I was old enough to be blissfully expectant and passionate, but young enough to have almost zero real relationship experience behind me. When we broke up, it destroyed me. I cried day and night for two weeks. At eighteen, I thought my life was over – no kidding. Billy was the one to request that I read Atlas Shrugged. When we broke up, I didn’t touch it again for over a year. In fact, I had to hide it from myself so I wouldn’t have to look at it every day.

I’m going to skip through the next two very quickly. I was with Blake for almost two years in college. We were each crazier than the other for staying together, we made each other so miserable. Needless to say, I never really did get around to reading I Am Legend, but I will forever associate that book with that relationship.

Sidenote: next I dated Pablo. He didn’t speak English, so he didn’t ruin any literature for me. I did, however, have great difficulty listening to my RBD CDs and watching Rebelde for a while afterward.

Next to screw my reading was Bobby, and unfortunately this blog remembers that well. It was painful reading Anna Karenina as Bobby and I were breaking up in August. We had been together a few months short of a year at the time, but I was determined not to let it keep me from finishing the book. Thankfully, I only had about one hundred pages left when we broke up and I muddled through the end, not managing to enjoy it, in about a month… when it had taken a week for me to read the first eight hundred pages or so. But I stuck it out. And now I have the silliest idea that it was actually Kitty breaking up with Bobby in August, not so much me. (Booknerd = delusional?)

And now this: John and I broke up Tuesday night. For quite some time he had been giving me crap because I actually liked Great Expectations, and the more he talked about it the more it made me want to read it again. I haven’t read it since high school, and although I read it voluntarily I still can imagine that I didn’t have the greatest understanding of the book. At least, not compared to the experience reading it now would be. So I picked up the book on Tuesday. I began reading it shortly before going to John’s. I continued reading at John’s while I waited for him to get home from work – I beat him home – and then flaunted the fact that I was reading it when he arrived home. Then, at about midnight that night, I was packing up my toothbrush and razor and handing over the key I had to his condo. Now Great Expectations is breaking up with John.

And so it goes.