Love on Notes

2

After heating up some fish soup, I sat down in my reading chair, bowl in hand, and put the book I'd just borrowed on my lap.

My eyes raced through the first few pages as I regularly leaned over my soup to drink a few spoonfuls. Sarah Morgan had an exceptional talent for writing, both in the finesse of her descriptions and in the complexity of her characters.

At the beginning of the second chapter, I read this passage:

He was certainly incapable of imagining that anyone could be so lacking in self—confidence as not to dare approach a woman they found attractive. The same type of man as Rupert, in fact.

As I turned the page, I noticed a note on a beige Post-it with white stripes.

It's rather unfair of her to judge him so quickly. Even if we know that she's a psychologist and therefore comfortable analysing human behaviour, that doesn't justify her hasty comparison. How can she, who despises disrespect for others more than anything else, dare to behave in this way by considering him so dryly?

A single question echoed in my head:

What do I care?

And who did they think they were to write a note and leave it in a book belonging to the library? But then, the person wasn't completely wrong on that point: the heroine had indeed just made that deduction about a man she'd only caught a glimpse of in Central Park during her morning jogs.

When I glanced at the Post-it, the slanted handwriting seemed rather masculine and very legible, like that of a doctor. Well, perhaps my example wasn't quite right, as medical professionals are generally more adept at using flyswatters. But that didn't change my conclusion.

Frowning, I wondered if the man had left any other notes. Tempted to leaf through the pages, I stopped myself at the last moment, not wanting to risk his potential remarks spoiling the rest of the novel for me. So I read on.

I didn't have to wait long to find another Post-it at the bottom of the right-hand page, towards the end of the third chapter. Once I'd read the left-hand page to the middle of the right-hand one, I set about meticulously reading the next paragraph, with the commentary on the little note.

— Do you think you have the sexual energy for ten?
— Do you want to do the test?
— Never before breakfast, no.

If the context had been different, I wouldn't have said so, but given that the reader knows she's in a state of extreme panic, I draw the conclusion that she resembles me, hiding behind conversations with a touch of humour to avoid exposing her distress. But as a psychologist, that's rather weak of her. Well, she sounds like a lovely character, she reminds me of my sister. Since she's been able to talk, she jokes whenever she's uncomfortable, like the time when her teacher punished her for pushing another child and she felt so humiliated that she said "I can't help it if my need to pee makes me commit offences".

I found myself bursting out laughing at the little girl's completely absurd words. Because of the lack of space on the striped Post-it, the person had drawn an arrow to the right to indicate that the page should be turned.

And I saw a third Post-it note:

Well, to come back to his 'humour', it shows a lack of self-confidence. I'm not criticising at all, it's human after all. But I do wonder if, through this recurring humorous aspect, the author wants us to feel sorry for the heroine so that we'll buy into the refuge she'll find in Daniel?

I had to read his last note several times to take it in. I'd never thought about it.

Writers always manage to get us to agree with the main character's choices, but does that mean going so far as to characterise him so that we stay on his side and like the ending he opts for? Or is the author just a manipulator who gets inside the reader's head and makes sure we all finsih the novel satisfied?