The last word, our series about emotions in books, looks at early flutters of the heart this month, from Adrian Mole and Malorie Blackman to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah
Some of us “would never have fallen in love in the first place” if we “hadn’t heard of such a thing” – or so the maxim goes. La Rochefoucauld’s take on romance, here, might sound a touch cynical, but it’s fair to say that the way our heart flutters is governed, at least in part, by the pages we flick.
For generation Xers, the formative love canon has a decidedly ironic edge. More bathos than balconies, young love 80s-style brings to mind Adrian Mole’s proclamations – “Pandora! / I adore ya!” – and Victoria Wood’s exquisite “Crush” on a lad at the bus stop (“If we went for a date I would just be in heaven / I know you’re 16, but I’m tall for 11”).
He kisses – how do I explain it? … Like he has nothing to lose. Like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can use only the present tense and only the second person. Only now, only you.
her skin felt as though it was her right size … The trust, so sudden and yet so complete, and the intimacy, frightened her. They had known nothing of each other only hours ago, and yet, there had been a knowledge shared between them in those moments before they danced, and now she could think only of all the things she yet wanted to tell him, wanted to do with him.
