"An Independent Organ"

I've just finished reading "An Independent Organ," the third short story in Haruki Murakami's Men Without Women--and the first story in the collection not to have a Beatles-related title.

And it was good. Beyond good in the sense of the time passed and I was not conscious of its fecund stench.

Good in the sense of it caused me to look into my own life, my own memories, my own sense of self.

It was a story about love.

With as little spoiled as possible, I will say that it was a story about a man who is destroyed by love.

Of course it made me think about the women who have been in (and out) of my life. But especially of Clare, who caused me the most pain, and who almost destroyed me.

I don't think that I really understand how low I'd been brought until a month or so ago. Which is, I suppose, a good measure of how low I'd been brought.

Caring about someone else so much that your life becomes almost meaningless without them might well be what love is. But I am pretty fucking sure that I will never feel that way about anyone else again except for my three children. 

The funny thing is that it seems to me that in some ways I've come around to the attitude of the stereotypical guy, who doesn't really give much of a shit about the women in his life. I can't help but think of my friend John, who summed up his attitude to woman as "They're like postage stamps: you lick 'em, stick 'em, and send them away."

That is some seriously cold shit.

But what's behind it? I can't help but think that it's the fear (or knowledge) of the vast destructive potential of strong emotional attachment. 

The basic premise of Murakami's "An Independent Organ" is that women have the ability to lie about anything they want to lie about without remorse or hesitation.

It's a horrid idea. A misogynistic attitude.

I've seen evidence of it in every woman I have known since my first girlfriend (when I was 17) until my last "girlfriend" (age 58). And that isn't just a knee-jerk, blanket condemnation. I've really thought about this. And every woman I have known . . . girlfriend, friend, wife . . . has shown an ability to use that Independent Organ. Now, of course it may be true that men are the same. I don't know about that, since I have no romantic interest in men. 

But . . . 

Well, fuck, I don't know where to go with that shit.

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