A Long Slow Affair of the Heart
by Bruce Ansley, Longacre Press, $34.99
KEY POINTS:
This is a book to shatter your dreams. Most of us have at some time mused about quitting our jobs, selling up and heading off into the sunset for a romantic adventure. Bruce Ansley actually did it. But things didn't quite work out as planned.
It's a bit upsetting really. I had heard that Ansley had quit his job as a writer, gone to Europe, bought a boat and he and wife Sally were cruising the canals and rivers of France. It was somehow encouraging to know that it was actually possible to live out a dream life.
There might not be much chance of me doing the same, but until I read this book I was able to vicariously share the pleasure of tootling along picturesque canals lined with quaint cottages and fields of wildflowers, tying up at ancient villages, buying fresh-baked breads and superb local wines and meeting up with friends and family and leaving them green with envy at this grand lifestyle. And the Ansleys did do all those things, plus a lot more besides, during their months travelling from the River Maas, in Holland, where they bought their boat, all the way to Paris.
But, alas, after reading Bruce's account I now know that abandoning the security of a dull and settled life can bring pain as well as pleasure. And if one partner in the relationship hankers after the familiar while the other remains eager to experience the unknown, the dream can subtly transform into a nightmare.
As he writes in his conclusion, "It is very hard to grow old without having regrets, and if you have none, what sort of life have you lived? It is a close-run thing between living life and losing something, and not living life and regretting what you have not done. If you're going to throw your cards in the air you can't expect them always to come down into something nice and neat, or even recognisable."
This frankness about the messy personal stresses does lift the book from being just another run-of-the-mill story about a wonderful trip into something a bit deeper and more challenging. But even after reading it twice I still don't find the story entirely satisfying ... and I'm still not happy about having my dream shattered.
