Remember that song, “She’s Come Undone”, by the Guess Who? Really, who uses that word anymore? The only other instance of hearing this word is when actor Johnny Depp uses it in the movie “Chocolate”: “I am undone.” He makes it sound like a wonderful thing. “Undone”. I like it.
The reason I am thinking about the word, and its meaning is because I have recently finished reading Helen Humphrey’s The Reinvention of Love.
Who we are is not just determined not just by the choices we make , by how we sew events together into
narrative. What gives us the true measure of ourselves is how undone we can become by a single moment.
This is the reflection of Charles Saint-Beuve, who was Adele Hugo’s lover for a brief moment of time. It is that moment which defines his life – but this is hidden from the world, not visible to observers of his exterior life. It is an interior event which transcends linear time. He falls in love with Adele when her hair falls down out of her combs.
All I know is that I could not roll my feelings back up, twist them into position and secure them into a
place of propriety. I was undone. Nothing would ever be the same.
Adele’s daughter is not just undone; she is unraveled. Unrequited love. But it determines what her life becomes. Victor has her committed.
Romantic love. The reinvention of love? It was the time of the romantics. I wonder what our time says about love. How do we define love now? Do we still become undone?
Humphreys gives us a fictional biography that shows us a man's richly detailed personal thoughts and feelings, more about his inner life than his accomplishments. Real-life biographies never seem capable of this, which is why I am usually dissatisfied with them. I will keep this book in my library.
Undone
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