THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 3, 1996 TAG: 9611010702
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY DIANE SCHARPER
LENGTH: 71 lines
MY SUMMER WITH GEORGE
MARILYN FRENCH
Alfred A. Knopf. 243 pp. $23.
My Summer with George by feminist author Marilyn French opens as George Johnson tells Hermione Beldame that he does not want to get involved with her because he fears he will end up a character in one of her romance novels.
Yet he already has. And so has Hermione herself. How that happens is the subject of My Summer with George, which looks at the interior life of a 60-year-old woman.
That woman is Hermione Beldame, the pen name of Edith Schutz. Hermione has recently met George Johnson, editor of the Louisville Herald. And she thinks she is in love - hopelessly, adolescently (waiting for his phone calls) in love.
George is good-looking, in his mid-50s, and prone to contradictory body language, such as when he tells Hermione he doesn't want to get involved while leaning close to her.
Hermione meanwhile fantasizes. One of the story's plot lines concerns Hermione's fantasies. Another concerns George's motivation. Why does George so frequently take Hermione to lunch? Why does he spend only an hour with her? Why does he say he'll call and then not call? Does he love her? Or doesn't he?
Hermione tries to answer these questions through heart-to-heart talks with several women friends - Naomi Gold, Hazel Heron and Doty Dunn. Professor, executive, artist, they're feminists in their 50s, self-made women who have ``reinvented'' themselves.
Perhaps because they are reinvented, none of them seems real. When they discuss Hermione's relationship with George, they ``ooh'' and ``ah,'' but offer no insight.
They do offer irony, however, saying things with double meanings, such as ``Speaking of unbelievable characters . . . what about Hermione's heroines? Have you ever met women like them in real life?''
The answer of course, is, ``Oh, God! Oh, yes! We're all Hermione's heroines gorgeous, aggressive, masculine hero . . . or villain . . . who wants only to get us in bed.''
The irony suggests another plot in another story. This one is playing in Hermione's head. It consists of passionate love scenes (deeply purple passages) seemingly occurring in Hermione's New York apartment and her Sag Harbor, Maine, summer condominium.
The love scenes go like this: ``I kept seeing George and me, our mouths permanently swollen from kissing, full and soft as overripe plums. Our eyes were electrically connected; they set off sparks when their gaze met. Our short shallow breathing was fast and uncontrollable. Our bodies were constantly aware of being alive, tingling with knowledge.''
At first, the reader may wonder whether such passages are actually happening. But soon one catches on, realizing these are Hermione's thoughts. But they are not idle thoughts. She is not merely daydreaming. She is daydreaming with a purpose.
In addition to dreaming about George, Hermione is also remembering her past sexual encounters. The youngest of five children, raised by a widowed mother, Hermione received a scholarship to college. Bright and talented, she lost everything when she became pregnant and was forced to marry.
Three marriges and three kids later, she meets George, who does not want to be used as grist for Hermione's fiction. Since George does not fit the profile of Hermione's hero or villain, the idea at first seems farfetched. By the end of the story, however, Hermione has marvelously expanded her ideas of heroine, hero and villain. MEMO: Diane Scharper is a poet who teaches writing at Towson State
University in Maryland. She is the author of ``The Laughing Ladies'' and
``Radiant.'' by CNB