Grey seems to have devoted his boyhood to violent brawling, fishing and getting beaten by his father, who encouraged his literary efforts by tearing his first finished story into shreds and giving him a sound thrashing. No wonder young Zane grew up with a troubled, tempestuous nature, prone all his life to depression. He was also - though this was perhaps unrelated to his early experiences - notably prone to sexual dalliance. As he frankly warned his future wife, 'I love to be free. The ordinary man is satisfied with a moderate income, a home, wife, children and all that... But I am a million miles from being that kind of man and no amount of trying will ever do any good... I shall never lose the spirit of my interest in women.' She married him anyway, accepting his tomcat ways, raising his children, managing his career and editing his work to such good effect that this inept, much-rejected would-be writer (and failed dentist and minor-league baseball player) soon achieved worldwide fame and became one of the first millionaire authors.
So now, when your young son proudly hands you his first literary effort, you know what to do.
Many women have turned a blind eye to their husbands' philandering, but I never know what to make of the ones who walk into infidelity open-eyed and suffer their partner's boasting about it on the basis that they are some kind of morally superior or much more interesting breed. Often they are either ultra-timid, spineless creatures with little self-respect or intellectuals, but Mrs. Grey seems to have been quite normal. Thankfully a little Googling seems to establish that, far from "accepting" his tomcat ways, she redeemed herself by trying to make his life hell through incessant nagging.
ReplyDeleteAh - good for her! Though they seem to have been living much of the time apart, so her opportunities wld have been limited.
ReplyDeleteSomeone should write a book on these women prone to self-inflicted wounds at the urgings of self-impressed misogynist shits--de Beauvoir, Brecht, H.G. Wells's and Russell's wives, Shelley's harem, one or more of Hemingway's wives, etc. It might change the face of modern feminism by taking it out of the destructive fantasies of the radical left and putting it back safely where it always belonged--in the parlour with a nice chat and cup of tea.
ReplyDeleteLaughing hard at the last line :D
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