The myth of the perfect man
We could closely follow Leila’s search of the ideal man step by step, man by man, just to realize probably that none of them holds the holy grail of creativity. All the five of them - Thom, Elmore, Dart, Danny and Renzo - bring to the fore a highly suggestive number of de/mythologemas and thus contribute to Leila’s artistic personality. The readers of Leila’s love stories will enter a world of ex-lovers and ex-husbands such as Thom and Elmore; would-be ones such as Danny and Renzo, and the omnipresent, most-talked-about lover - Dart. Within the love/art narrative of Erica Jong they are not equals. Thom and Elmore share the novelistic space of the III Chapter only; Danny and Renzo are also limited to a single chapter each, while Dart is darting everywhere within the book. Not surprisingly all of them will be ‘invading’ Leila’s professional world, cutting it into art periods.
Thom & Leila
Thom is Leila’s first husband who is an English Lit graduate and a WASP. Although Thom ‘aided and abetted her in all these ventures: buying the art, financing all her brash, hare-brained schemes’, he proved too weak for her strong, craving for recognition and her artistic ego. Despite all his encouraging efforts he appears inevitably attached to his swollen WASPdom, being too much in love with himself. We will later resort to the social aspects of the myth of WASPdom versus Jewishness when approaching the relationship Dart/Leila.
Even at this early point of Leila’s career she is characterized with everything that evokes strength: her brash, i.e. bold and impudent projects; her ventures, rather than simply art activities. No wonder that Thom treats her as ‘the great achievement of his life at that point’, taking a considerable pride in marrying her (p.56/II). Isn’t this attitude of Thom enough to boost Leila Sand as a myth herself? Read on to find out what happens a bit later with this myth-making process:
Copyright © : Iliyana Nedkova,1996-7
N.Paradoxa : Issue No.6, 1998