Hello again fellow text junkies.

In a recent review of Diane Schoemperlen's At A Loss For Words, the reviewer claimed that it would be good for men to read this book so they..."might benefit from seeing the effect their frequently inexplicable actions have on the emotive sex.Somehow, though, I can't imagine one brave enough." Well, not one to shy away from a challenge - I have both the broken bones & emotional scars to backup my involvement in all sorts of scraps, this literary challenge didn't appear to be all that daunting.

I did finish the book. I wanted to stop. Permanently. Several times. I'm still asking why the main character didn't do the same. I mean, end the relationship with Mr. "I'm So Into You If Only I Could Bother". Reading this excruciatingly slow-motion emotional train wreck, I was reminded of the joke: What's the one thing a man will never ask a woman? "Could you please repeat that story...but this time don't leave out any of the details". We all know it takes two to tango on love's battlefield, but really, if one of the participants is willing to be an obsessive doormat then they shouldn't be surprised if they pick up a little dust along the way. Of course this scenario can be played out by either sex in either role & while it's clear that men take up the lion's share of passive aggressive behaviour in relationships, maybe the "smarter sex" in the relationship department, should be asking themselves why they put up with such evasive, non-committal behaviour. Some men excel in being gutless wonders while some women must find this condition somehow appealing. Maybe women who fall for these guys think of them as mouldable long term projects because they seem so pliable & compliant on the surface. Perhaps on some level, for some people, spinning their emotional wheels in a relationship that's going nowhere is better than not being in a relationship at all. I'm just sayin'.

Clearly, the author used this little e-mail littered jitterbug to shake her out of a protracted writer's block. Sadly, personal therapy rarely makes for good entertainment.Just ask anyone who's read John Irving's Until I Find You as a recent example. I'm not saying Schoemperlen can't write about this experience artfully, it's just that I knew where it was going from page 10 & felt every little telegraph of.".. he done me wrong...again..& again..but I can deal with it!" In fact she deals with it so much she turns her correspondence with the gutless wonder into a team sport with her pals. I really liked the dream sequence part though. I thought it was neat.Someone should send that passage to Kazuo Ishiguro. Remember Unconsoled? Yeesh.

Two observations though.The author likens writer's block to impotence, performance anxiety & insomnia. Why not low libido or dare I say it...frigidity? At the very last page of the book the main character thinks about the former wife of her long lost ex-lover & how he was "so uxorious,so solicitous,so obsequious" in her presence when she met them together. "You were like a gymnast, turning yourself inside out & upside down to please her." The protagonist muses that his wife knew him better than either of them did.

Too bad she didn't show up earlier.