Arnon Grunberg

Meadow

Grudges

In an introduction to three works by Richard Yates Richard Price writes: “He was a nurturer of grudges; an incubator of slights.
His personal gods were Hemingway and Fitzgerald.
He was bitter.
He had every right to be bitter.
He was really bitter.”

Richard Yates himself writes in “Revolutionary Road”: “Everything about her seemed determined to prove, with a new flat-footed emphasis, that a sensible middle-class housewife was all she had ever wanted to be and that all she had ever wanted of love was a husband who would get out and cut the grass once in a while, instead of sleeping all day.”

What else is there to want of love but a husband who gets out once in while to cut the grass?

Or should we side with Isaak Babel, who wrote: “Both of us looked upon the world as a meadow in May over which women and horses wander.”

Whether we opt for a husband who cuts the grass or a meadow with women and horses the right to be bitter is a human right.