The Most Melancholic of Questions
I've been wrapped up in Joyce Carol Oates' latest work of fiction, Wild Nights, in which she playfully, brilliantly, audaciously reimagines the last days of 5 iconic American writers - Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, Samuel Clemens, Ernest Hemmingway and Herny James. One excerpt from the Samuel Clemens story struck such a chord:
"Now Mr. Clemens had no wife - and no wish for a wife - his daughter Clara had assumed that role. Clara could notbear it that, at an age beyond thirty, she was yet unmarried...in her angry eyes was the plea Papa why aren't I enough for you.
"That most melancholy of questions, asked of us, as we ask it of others! And what possible reply?"
