fromheretouncertainty.com

I'm finally reading Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates. The same Revolutionary Road that was made into a movie, staring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, this year. I was told over and over again not to go see it as we were getting ready to leave Los Angeles. The story centers around a couple with two kids who decide to chuck it all and move to Paris. As Bob and I, and our two kids, were in the middle of chucking it all to move to nowhere in particular, the movie reminded friends of us. From the tone of friends voices, and words like, "Just don't go see Revolutionary Road!!", I gathered things didn't work out all that well for this fictional couple, and so didn't see the movie.

So why am I now reading the book? For two reasons:

1. David Sedaris, whom I love with an unabiding passion, (and who perplexes and annoys my father to such a degree that I can't stop wondering why), said that he reads this book every single year, because, "I love how the characters deceive themselves." Analyzing how people - both fictional and real - deceive themselves is a life-long compulsion of mine.

2. It was on the 3 for 2 stand in the bookstore. I also bought The House At Pooh Corner, and Foreskin's Lament.

I am halfway through the book, and I smell doom looming on Revolutionary Road. The whole idea must just fall apart for this couple. The delicious exhilaration of flinging caution to the wind in a grand and noble way will start to deflate and shrink as details loom large, and reality settles backs in. I know that feeling. The terribly romantic, "you and me against the world Babe," stage turns into, "How much did you get done on your list today?" all too quickly.

I have spent the last few hours hiding my face in my hands in chagrin as I recognize the smug mirror-image of Bob and I during those first heady weeks of planning and paring. I keep gasping and blushing and then insisting that Bob, "listen to this!" as this couple, so sure that they have found THE ANSWER, grow more and more insufferable to all those around them. Oh God Oh God, I apologize to everyone in my entire world. But hey - at least you got a cheap fondue pot out of it!