Break Up, Break Down

by Jayne Wilson

There’s a process that comes with dealing with a break-up. From what I’ve observed of my close male confidantes, modern 20-something males deal with their heartache by frequenting the gym, releasing their aggression on inanimate objects, and screaming their dark little hearts out to some hardcore heavy metal band. For myself and other members of the fairer sex, the process includes four-hour phone conversations with fifty of our closest girlfriends in which we proceed to dissect every aspect of the defunct relationship in the hopes of being able to conclude that the failure was 98% his fault, then an in-person venting session where everyone buys us a pint of our favorite ice-cream flavor and brings a terrible romantic comedy for the group to watch and yell obscenities over. (Digression: How unfair is it that the male process leads to them being all kinds of toned, all kinds of attractive, and all kinds of healthy, while the female process lands us on the fast track to diabetes and morbid obesity?)

What I’ve come to notice about my own process is that it changes each time depending on the latest guy who has decided to fail me (because no break-up of mine has ever been my fault, obviously). Once, when I was dating a bum poet, I found my chi by reading a lot of Keats, Yates, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson; currently I find myself spicing up my recent emotional funeral reception by dimming the lights dramatically in my room and wailing to Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” Every time, though, there’s always one (predictable) staple: I read. I read with the fervor of a spurned lover who would normally be watching bad-ass movies like both volumes of Kill Bill, but instead opts for a classic Julia Roberts tear-jerker like Steel Magnolias in a vain attempt to remind herself that at least she doesn’t have diabetes – at least not yet. (What? I wasn’t talking about myself…) In the past, I’ve turned to Pride and Prejudice every time. I mean, c’mon – Fitzwilliam Darcy can make anyone swoon with a single misguided smirk. This time around, though, I decided to let Darcy take a break from the exhausting task of redeeming all men for me for the umpteenth time, and reached instead for Elliot Perlman’s kaleidoscopic masterpiece, The Seven Types of Ambiguity.

I’m going to be honest: originally I reached for it because I figured Perlman’s protagonist, Simon Heywood would make me feel infinitely better about myself and my break-up pain. So what if I’ve listened to Johnny Cash’s beautifully tragic version of “If You Could Read My Mind” on repeat for the past three hours (and am now using phrases like “beautifully tragic”)? I thought to myself. At least I didn’t abduct a child like Simon over there. In reality, though, Simon Heywood stands as more than just a personification of lovelorn obsession and pain; he’s a stark representation of a very tangible and very human dark side of the romantic spectrum. We can’t all be vengeful kidnappers, but we are all capable, should circumstances permit. Simon’s circumstances are laden with heartache and failures both familial and romantic. He is at the beginning of a mid-life crisis that has spanned into an existential one, and what’s chronicled in Perlman’s novel are the events – large and small, inconsequential and glaringly relevant – that have led up to his single act, as well as the ones that transpire because of it. His story is one that’s mind-bendingly complex, with hidden corners that no explanatory why’s and how’s can justify with easy simplicity. But while Perlman could have shied away from telling a story so large and multi-layered in scale that it begs to question why it’s being told to begin with, he makes a prime case for it – and wins – by placing the story in the hands of seven different characters, each with their own motivations, backgrounds, neuroses, and pivotal plot contributions. What Perlman creates is a subtle voyeurism that shows, rather than explains, what happens and why. Because the truth is, there are no explanations; the truth is, there is no truth. When it comes to matters of the human heart, everything is, as the title suggests, ambiguous.

Perhaps it wasn’t as comforting as Pride and Prejudice and Fiztwilliam Darcy would’ve been, with no conclusive happy ending and no celebratory horns tooting for the triumph of “true love.” But anyone who’s ever been broken up with knows that no matter how many times you turn over the events and dissect the details with near surgical precision, sometimes the explanations just don’t come. And in many ways, being reminded of that is a different kind of comfort to relish. Some things just are. Simon Heywood kidnapped a child; I am listening to Johnny Cash on repeat, spooning globs of mint chocolate chip ice-cream into my permanently down-turned mouth, and demanding answers from some mythical, omniscient ruler of the universe. So be it.

Jayne Wilson writes fiction about the likes of decapitated gnomes, compulsive hoarders, and sardonic old men. She laughs pathetically at her own jokes and is generally an impish mess. She graduated from the University of California, Davis in 2010 with a degree in English-Creative Writing.