{"id":163219,"date":"2023-02-17T12:10:41","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T17:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=163219"},"modified":"2023-02-22T11:55:04","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T16:55:04","slug":"my-ex-recommends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/02\/17\/my-ex-recommends\/","title":{"rendered":"My Ex Recommends"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Mark Fenderson, An Idyl of St. Valentine’s Day<\/em>, 1909. Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

My first real lover was dumb, virile, hilarious\u2014I didn\u2019t trust a word he said. Certainly nothing he recommended. This is why, for years, I stayed away from his favorite book, Cormac McCarthy\u2019s <\/span>Blood Meridian<\/span><\/i>. Until now. I\u2019ve given in, and the epic Western is, predictably, blowing my mind, and, perhaps less predictably, my groin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I am never sure when carnage might strike\u2014when I might find men whose naked bodies have been \u201croasted until their heads had charred and the brains bubbled in the skulls and steam sang from their noseholes,\u201d when I\u2019ll come across a \u201ccharred coagulate\u201d of bodies or a decapitated man whose severed neck \u201cbubbles gently like a stew.\u201d While reading, my muscles stay flexed. Blood pulses through dilated vessels. Awaiting climax, I am in a state of constant tension. Groin on vibrate. I never uncross my legs. This is reading as grotesque edging.<\/span><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t help that the novel\u2019s landscape is excitingly predatory: \u201cThe sun rose \u2026 like the head of a great red phallus until it cleared the unseen rim and sat squat and pulsing and malevolent behind them.\u201d McCarthy\u2019s pulsing, penile sun has been making its way into my dreams. So have men\u2014naked, dangerously erect, charging off cliffs, their bodies bursting into constituent parts on the way down, blood running after them in silken crimson ribbons of \u2026 But fuck, I can\u2019t do it like him. I wake frustrated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adding to the tension is McCarthy\u2019s syntactical cadence. No matter the content, the persistent beat of his language (biblical, oratory, metaphorical, parodic, straightforward) generate a steady thrum\u2014a rhythm that seems to emanate from the throbbing, carnal core of the earth itself. Or perhaps it’s a lover\u2019s incantation\u2014or weapon. You might say that, while reading, McCarthy\u2019s language functions like straps fastened over my body. Hard as I might writhe, those straps are never tightened, they are never loosened\u2014and even though I\u2019ll finish, I will not be released.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Sophie Madeline Dess, author of \u201cZalmanovs<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absalom! Absalom!<\/em>,\u00a0William Faulkner
\nThe Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant<\/em>,\u00a0ed. Elizabeth D. Samet
\nBattle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era<\/em>,\u00a0James M. McPherson
\nThe Civil War<\/em>,\u00a0John Keegan
\nThe Civil War<\/em> (PBS documentary), Ken Burns
\nCivilWarLand in Bad Decline<\/em>,\u00a0George Saunders
\nThe Killer Angels<\/em>,\u00a0Michael Shaara
\nShiloh<\/em>,\u00a0Shelby Foote
\nThe Trees<\/em>,\u00a0Percival Everett<\/p>\n

\u2014Emily Stokes, editor<\/strong><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

My first husband, when we got together, wanted us to exchange our copies of our favorite books. He was carrying mine around in a bag and immediately lost them. Can\u2019t quite remember what all his were\u2014definitely Sartre, Hesse,\u00a0The Leopard<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u2014Lidija Haas, deputy editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

I heard the title song from The Avalanches\u2019 <\/span>Since I Left You<\/span><\/i>, an electronic album rumored to contain more than 3,500 samples, for the first time during an impromptu date at the library. A bearded new friend and I were exchanging our favorite songs, and he pulled up <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Since I Left You<\/span><\/a>\u201d<\/span> on YouTube. We stood at a computer console nodding our heads to the swirling, symphonic arrangement. I don’t know how I didn’t swoon right there on the spot; I don\u2019t know how the head-nodding and moon-eyed glances didn\u2019t segue into a <\/span>Lady and the Tramp<\/span><\/i>\u2013<\/span>style spaghetti kiss over the Avalanches\u2019 spaghetti western strings. I can’t remember if we actually split a pair of earbuds, but we did go on to spend seven years together. As I write this, I’m listening to \u201cSince I Left You\u201d for the first time in a long while. If the song has a hook, I’ve always heard it as: \u201cSince I left you \/ I found a world so new.\u201d In researching the song’s provenance (an admittedly difficult thing to do given the sheer amount of samples used to make it), I learned that the chorus comes from The Main Attraction\u2019s <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Everyday,<\/span><\/a>\u201d<\/span> which includes <\/span>the lyric<\/span><\/a> \u201cSince I met you, I found the world so new.\u201d What a difference a word makes. Between \u201cleft\u201d and \u201cmet\u201d there are thousands of memories and diametrical (last and first) impressions: the silent treatment and the music of early years; hiding resentment behind laptops and sharing a screen; standing apart and swaying in unison. The subtle shift in the article I hear in the lyrics of \u201cSince I Left You\u201d and its source material\u2014\u201c<\/span>a<\/span><\/i> world\u201d vs \u201c<\/span>the<\/span><\/i> world\u201d\u2014sums the tension one negotiates between idiosyncrasy and overlapping sensibilities when building, cohabiting, and disassembling a world with someone, and then again in starting over. In its opening seconds, <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Stay Another Season<\/span><\/a>,\u201d<\/span> the song that \u201cSince I Left You\u201d transitions into, seems to sample Rick Astley\u2019s <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Never Gonna Give You Up<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span> The potential connection between the sentiments expressed in those titles evokes the kind of excommunication, exhumation, and exorcism associated with parsing an ex\u2019s impact.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nearly fifteen years later, we\u2019ve been separate for as long as we were together, and it\u2019s hard to trace all of his influence. Like the work of a copyright lawyer tasked with identifying the scores of samples that might comprise an Avalanches tune, it\u2019s tough to definitively prove the origins of all the tastes we shared\u2014as in swapping spit, it\u2019s impossible to know where your DNA begins and theirs ends. The associations are loose and incredibly diffuse. I hear him when I play Marlena Shaw\u2019s cover of Carole King\u2019s <\/span>\u201c<\/span>So Far Away<\/span><\/a>,\u201d<\/span> (a song included in a mix CD he made for me) and MF DOOM (a master sampler himself) whom I listened to so much that my ex ended up adoring him. We covered each other in every sense of the word. As music aficionados will tell you, covering, sampling, and interpolating are the ultimate demonstrations of love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Niela Orr, contributing editor<\/b><\/p>\n

Read more meditations on love songs here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Because I grew up homeschooled, fundamentalist Christian\u2013style, I haven\u2019t seen many movies. My exes almost uniformly attempted to give me a crash course in cinema.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wings of Desire<\/span><\/i> (1987): <\/span>Almost caused a break-up. D., whom I\u2019d been seeing for a little over a year, had a transformative experience of cinema seeing it and wanted me to have the same. I promised I\u2019d watch it, then kept delaying\u2014because I was tired after work, or not in the mood. One evening he exploded: \u201cIf you don\u2019t want to watch <\/span>Wings of Desire<\/span><\/i>, just say so! Don\u2019t pretend you do if you don\u2019t!\u201d The ensuing argument\u2014about keeping promises, valuing a partner\u2019s taste, and prioritizing transformative experiences of art\u2014lasted till the early hours. I did watch it, after the relationship ended. It\u2019s the best film I\u2019ve ever seen about angels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lift<\/span><\/i> (2001): <\/span>Marc Isaacs stands in the elevator of an English apartment building, filming the residents as they go up and down. The best exchange: \u201cAre you in love?\u201d Isaacs asks a young man. \u201cYeah,\u201d he responds, ducking his head and facing away from the camera, toward the doors of the elevator.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chronicle of a Summer <\/span><\/i>(1961): <\/span>Recommended by a summer lover in France, all I remember of this film, an early example of cinema verit\u00e9, is the opening debate about whether it\u2019s possible to behave sincerely when you\u2019re on camera. And flashes of long-legged young women strolling around Saint-Tropez.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sherman\u2019s March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation<\/span><\/i> (1985): <\/span>Because S. and I were in the tumultuous period in which the end of an affair becomes visible as a destination, I interpreted this film as a coded message. Three hours of a straight man considering the crimes of history and modernity as well as his own romantic failures certainly didn\u2019t make sustaining love feel possible, and soon it wasn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Elisa Gonzalez<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was once in love with someone who loved W. G. Sebald. At the time I thought of this person as the great love of my life, and the intervening years have not exactly proven me right or wrong; he was a person I loved very much and we made each other happy and also miserable. I, especially, made him miserable. But I tried hard to read Sebald, because I wanted to be close to him. I brought <\/span>The Rings of Saturn<\/span><\/i> on a beach vacation, and I thought it was the most boring book in the world. I even admitted this to him, sort of, in one of our many emails\u2014we were always sending endless emails\u2014and wrote that while I found parts of it gripping, there were other parts that were just \u201ca drag.\u201d We lasted only a few more months, and then we did not speak for years, and during those years I fell in love again, and then out of love, and then back in it, and so on, and I also had occasion to pick up The <\/em><\/span>Rings of Saturn<\/span><\/i> again. I was living in England at the time, and maybe my mood was more attuned to it; maybe I had just grown up a bit. I thought it was brilliant! And sometimes even funny? I read <\/span>Austerlitz<\/span><\/i> too and I couldn\u2019t believe the existence of a mind like this, one that could synthesize these overlapping images and invented histories and twists and turns, all of it happening in these dense sentences inflected with magic. I wanted, of course, to tell this person about my change of heart, but I didn\u2019t. Part of me wants to say that this might be a metaphor for a relationship that I didn\u2019t recognize as special, or treat as special when I had it, but I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s quite true either\u2014I knew at the time how special it was, and things unfolded as they unfold, and some of that was my fault and some of it wasn\u2019t; we separated, we changed, and my tastes changed, and life goes on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Sophie Haigney, web editor<\/b><\/p>\n

Faces at the Bottom of the Well<\/em> by Derrick Bell, The Trees<\/em> by Italo Calvino, The White Album<\/em> by Joan Didion, the Old Testament, and something called Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee<\/em> were all given or recommended to me by different exes\u2014I don\u2019t have a type!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Maya Binyam, contributing editor<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book recommendations from our exes: some we read, some we never did. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68386],"tags":[2555,67827,68588,883,6382,722],"class_list":["post-163219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-reviews-review","tag-cormac-mccarthy","tag-featured","tag-issue-242","tag-staff-picks","tag-valentines-day","tag-w-g-sebald"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy Ex Recommends by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"February 17, 2023 \u2013 Book recommendations from our exes: some we read, some we never did.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/02\/17\/my-ex-recommends\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Ex Recommends by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"February 17, 2023 \u2013 Book recommendations from our exes: some we read, some we never did.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/02\/17\/my-ex-recommends\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-02-17T17:10:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-02-22T16:55:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/an-idyl-of-st-valentines-day-drawn-by-mark-fenderson.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"373\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/02\/17\/my-ex-recommends\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/02\/17\/my-ex-recommends\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4a14f739935c82f100675b84e220252e\"},\"headline\":\"My Ex Recommends\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-02-17T17:10:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-02-22T16:55:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/02\/17\/my-ex-recommends\/\"},\"wordCount\":1751,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/02\/17\/my-ex-recommends\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/an-idyl-of-st-valentines-day-drawn-by-mark-fenderson.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Cormac McCarthy\",\"Featured\",\"issue 242\",\"staff picks\",\"Valentine's Day\",\"W. 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