The Genre of Love Lost

A few musings on romance

In case you were wondering, I did end up finishing my draft. I always go “I don’t know how many novels I have in me” but evidently I have at least two.

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There’s something to be said about the films and books we consume at our most porous that affect the way we see the world. “Most porous” for me means from childhood to our late teens. When I revisit some of these titles, a phrase or philosophy that I’ve held for decades was really just lifted from a particular piece of art. I took it along with me to see how it stuck when brushed against my own experience.

I wrote a few newsletters ago about an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote mentioned in the Criterion essay for Joan Micklin Silver’s films. Defining a “sentimental person as someone who ‘thinks things will last’ and a romantic person as one with ‘desperate confidence that they won’t.’” Since an almost precocious age, I have been in the latter camp. Mostly due to pragmatism and a particular distaste for anything sentimental, but especially anything naive.

The most romantic thing for me has always been love lost. So much of what is romantic is made up of throwing caution to the wind not knowing how long anything will last. Once it’s gone there’s a particular yearning and wonder that comes with the loose ends of it. What if, what if, what if!