CSotD: Searching for the thing that will make it perfect
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Sometimes I like "Between Friends" because it provides a comic insight into women's lives. Sometimes I like it because it provides a comic critique of women's lives. Other times, both.
Susan obsesses over what she ought to be doing and seems incapable of just letting life unfold. There's always something missing, and it's her fault. She needs to fix it.
One of my favorite passages in "War and Peace" is Tolstoy's initial description of Pierre:
"He felt as though he were the center of some important and general movement; that something was constantly expected of him, that if he did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many people, but if he did this and that, all would be well; and he did what was demanded of him, but still that happy result always remained in the future."
Throughout most of the novel, Pierre bumbles around looking for the one thing that he can do to make it all work, the "something" that is expected of him, and so he marries the wrong woman, gets tied up with Freemasons, wanders out onto battlefields and finally uses numerology, rearranging the terms until he comes up with a solution to convince himself that he is fated to assassinate Napoleon.
Susan doesn't go that far, but she does take advice on how to achieve personal contentment and fulfillment from Maeve, who has plenty of advice to hand out on the topic perhaps because she uses so little of it on herself.
… and still that happy result always remains in the future.
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