The Equations of Love

Informationen zum Autor Ethel Wilson was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in 1888. She was taken to England at the age of two after her mother died. Seven years later her father died, and in 1898 she came to Vancouver to live with her maternal grandmother. She received her teacher's certificate from the Vancouver Normal School in 1907 and taught in many local elementary schools until her marriage in 1921. In the 1930s Wilson published a few short stories and began a series of family reminiscences which were later transformed into The Innocent Traveller . Her first published novel, Hetty Dorval , appeared in 1947, and her fiction career ended fourteen years later with the publication of her story collection, Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories . Through her compassionate and often ironic narration, Wilson explores in her fiction the moral lives of her characters. For her contribution to Canadian literature, Wilson was awarded the Canada Council Medal in 1961 and the Lorne Pierce Medal of the Royal Society of Canada in 1964. Her husband died in 1966, and she spent her later years in seclusion and ill-health. Ethel Wilson died in Vancouver in 1980. Klappentext In the two novellas that make up The Equations of Love! Ethel Wilson describes ordinary people in perilous circumstances with extraordinary insight and compassion. "Tuesday and Wednesday reconstructs the events of two days in the life of Mort and Myrtle Johnson! whose uninspired marriage is strangely transformed by the tragic intervention of fate. "Lilly's Story is the study of a woman who! protecting her daughter! invents a new identity for herself! only to live as a fugitive from her own happiness. Fist published in 1952! these intuitive and richly ironic stories reveal the unspoken longings and surprising motives that balance the equations of love. Zusammenfassung In the two novellas that make up The Equations of Love ! Ethel Wilson describes ordinary people in perilous circumstances with extraordinary insight and compassion. Tuesday and Wednesday reconstructs the events of two days in the life of Mort and Myrtle Johnson! whose uninspired marriage is strangely transformed by the tragic intervention of fate. Lilly's Story is the study of a woman who! protecting her daughter! invents a new identity for herself! only to live as a fugitive from her own happiness. Fist published in 1952! these intuitive and richly ironic stories reveal the unspoken longings and surprising motives that balance the equations of love. Inhaltsverzeichnis Tuesday and Wednesday Lilly's Story Afterword...

Autorentext

Ethel Wilson was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in 1888. She was taken to England at the age of two after her mother died. Seven years later her father died, and in 1898 she came to Vancouver to live with her maternal grandmother. She received her teacher’s certificate from the Vancouver Normal School in 1907 and taught in many local elementary schools until her marriage in 1921.

In the 1930s Wilson published a few short stories and began a series of family reminiscences which were later transformed into The Innocent Traveller. Her first published novel, Hetty Dorval, appeared in 1947, and her fiction career ended fourteen years later with the publication of her story collection, Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories. Through her compassionate and often ironic narration, Wilson explores in her fiction the moral lives of her characters.

For her contribution to Canadian literature, Wilson was awarded the Canada Council Medal in 1961 and the Lorne Pierce Medal of the Royal Society of Canada in 1964. Her husband died in 1966, and she spent her later years in seclusion and ill-health.

Ethel Wilson died in Vancouver in 1980.

Klappentext

In the two novellas that make up The Equations of Love, Ethel Wilson describes ordinary people in perilous circumstances with extraordinary insight and compassion. "Tuesday and Wednesday” reconstructs the events of two days in the life of Mort and Myrtle Johnson, whose uninspired marriage is strangely transformed by the tragic intervention of fate. "Lilly's Story” is the study of a woman who, protecting her daughter, invents a new identity for herself, only to live as a fugitive from her own happiness.

Fist published in 1952, these intuitive and richly ironic stories reveal the unspoken longings and surprising motives that balance the equations of love.

Zusammenfassung
In the two novellas that make up The Equations of Love, Ethel Wilson describes ordinary people in perilous circumstances with extraordinary insight and compassion. “Tuesday and Wednesday” reconstructs the events of two days in the life of Mort and Myrtle Johnson, whose uninspired marriage is strangely transformed by the tragic intervention of fate. “Lilly’s Story” is the study of a woman who, protecting her daughter, invents a new identity for herself, only to live as a fugitive from her own happiness.

Fist published in 1952, these intuitive and richly ironic stories reveal the unspoken longings and surprising motives that balance the equations of love.

Leseprobe
One
 
The fresh light of the rising sun touched, and then travelled – losing as it travelled its first quality of morning – down the Golden Ears, down the mountains northeast of Burrard Inlet, down the Sleeping Beauty, down the Lions, and down the lesser slopes descending westwards to the Pacific Ocean, until the radiant sunrise deteriorated into mere flat day. Milkmen were up and about in Vancouver and some railway workers and street railway workers and some hospital attendants; but the phenomenon of sunrise, being only the prelude to another day, slid away unobserved by anybody.
 
Because Mortimer Johnson’s bedroom faced westwards and was darkened as much as possible, the sun had risen fairly high before Mort woke up. Then, because he had to get up some time or other, he got up. He got up quietly and gently pulled the grey blankets back again over the warm bed because he did not want to disturb his wife Myrtle who still slept. Mort emerged from bed in his underclothes and stood sleepily regarding the curved pile in the bed, which was Myrtle. He stretched and rubbed himself slowly over his stomach and sides and back and shoulders and arms. The feeling of the woollen combinations rubbing on his skin gave him a slow obscure pleasure. Mort’s angel, who usually woke at the same time as Mort (but sometimes awoke at night and plagued him to no purpose in dreams), stepped for a moment outside its domicile, also stretched, and then returned to its simple yet interesting spiritual or shall we say psychic quarters. Mort’s angel had some time ago found out that the insecurity of the quarters wherein it often rocked as in a rough mountainous sea before settling down again facing in a different direction, was due to a weakness in Mort’s potentially strong inner structure, but, as it had discovered that it could do nothing about this weakness, had rather given up.
 
A man’s angel, after a long residence within or around a man, knows its host (or charge) very well indeed; far better than you or I, who, looking, see perhaps only a stocky middle-aged man, strong but now flabby, frowsty at the moment but when his face has been washed and shaved and his hair parted on the side and brushed back (as it will be in an hour’s time), and his shirt and suit and socks and boots pulled on, and his hat put on, too, at a debonair angle, are justified in believing that this is Mr. Johnson who is coming to do the garden, and seems a very nice man and you hope you’ll get a little satisfaction at last. You are inclined to believe this, because Mort turns upon you his kind brown eyes and tells you that he is a gardener, that he doesn’t pretend to be a carpente…