"BORROWED TIME: AN AIDS MEMOIR" (PAUL MONETTE).   Term Paper ID:25272 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Critical review of work on last 19 months of the author's lover's life.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Critical review of work on last 19 months of the author's lover's life. Paper Introduction: Paul Monette, in Borrowed Time: an AIDS Memoir, writes about the last nineteen months of his lover Roger Horwitz's life, after Roger was stricken with AIDS. This study will focus on the love between the two men, rather than on the terrible disease which brought their relationship to an end on this earth. The book can certainly be read as simply another work about AIDS, but when one sees first that the author is writing out of a focus on love for Roger and for their time together rather than out of a focus on the disease which tore them apart and killed Roger. Of course, it is especially difficult to focus on the love when so much that goes on between Paul and Roger has to do with the disease and its effects. This is especially true when the reader realizes that the book's beginning and end refer to the fact that the author himself is carrying the virus that killed Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Now that he's gone, the cup of my own health is neither half full not half empty. As if I would not live in a world where my friend could be in pain like this (67). And here is the end of the book, which effectively coincides with thebeginning of the book: . This is the terrible paradox of humanlove--one seeks it out as nothing else in life is sought, and yet when itis lost, as it must be sooner or later (at least insofar as life on thisearth goes), the pain is agony, as Paul writes. I used up all my optimism keeping my friend alive. Another powerful factor of the book is the way the author presentsthe story so that the reader can be in on the slow awakening of the loversto the fact that Roger has AIDS. This is especially true when the reader realizes that the book'sbeginning and end refer to the fact that the author himself is carrying thevirus that killed his lover. First, Monette is a very fine writer. The book can certainly be read as simply another work aboutAIDS, but when one sees first that the author is writing out of a focus onlove for Roger and for their time together rather than out of a focus onthe disease which tore them apart and killed Roger. Monette's writing talent is not an extravagant one. The machine answered the phone. Borrowed Time. Doubtless there's a streak of self-importance in such an assertion, but who's counting? Death is always hovering aroundthe relationship, once the presence of the virus is suspected and thenconfirmed. Everyone knows he and the people he loves are going to die, but allare in denial about it, just as Paul and Roger are in denial about the roleAIDS is playing in their lives long before they come to that realization.Like Paul and Roger, everybody thinks that it is the other person who hasdone something that will bring death on. " Bernice and I hugged each other briefly, without a word, and I swam back to bed for the end of the night, trying to stay under the Dalmane [a drug]. Second, hedoes not keep himself from looking straight in the eye of his and Roger'sexperience, the ravages of AIDS, the impact on their lives, Roger's death,and his own fears and loneliness. He does not wastewords. If a man is heterosexual, he might say that the book isnot relevant because he is not gay and he cannot relate to two men lovingeach other and he also cannot relate to AIDS in any way and does not wantto read about the disease because he will never get it because he is notgay. The reader, of course, knows what is goingto happen, knows that both Paul and Roger are doomed, knows in fact thatRoger is already dead as the book begins. The love is what causes the pain to be so great for both Paul andRoger, but the love also gives the pain meaning that it would otherwise nothave if it were not for the love. Certainly that is onelegitimate way to look at the book by Monette in order to experience thebook more powerfully, although it is unsettling to contemplate. . There is much besides love in the book, of course, but even the ragewhich Paul feels toward the government and its callous neglect of AIDSsufferers is also another expression of Paul's love for Roger. A year and a half later I'd still be trying to explain to Rog, when the talk came round to the horror, how in that noon moment I died inside. Putting off as long as I could the desolate waking to life alone--this calamity that is all mine, that will not end till I do (342). Nobody wants tothink about it, and nobody wants to think about what it would be like to gothrough it, either the dying person or the survivor. . Nevertheless, the fact remains that there are a number of ways that aperson in denial about death can avoid reading or fully experiencing a booksuch as Monette's. So instead of holding him I had to cup my hands under his eye while he worked the lens back in, swallowing the scald of tears. Thefinal way of losing love, of course, is through death. Paul Monette, in Borrowed Time: an AIDS Memoir, writes about the lastnineteen months of his lover Roger Horwitz's life, after Roger was strickenwith AIDS. Thus the journey of Paul and Roger's love begins, in Paul's words,and in Paul's recollection. Work CitedMonette, Paul. . . However, the very real threat of mortality which plagues thelove between Roger and Paul also plagues the love between every other pairof lovers, male or female or both, on the earth. However, every single human being, gay or straight, male or female,is searching for love in the world, has a love in the world, and on somelevel is afraid of losing that love in the world one way or another. Of course, it is especially difficult to focus on the love when somuch that goes on between Paul and Roger has to do with the disease and itseffects. The reader who can finish this book by Monette and not be terriblymoved, who, if he or she has some homophobic tendencies, cannot feel thatat least there is something very ignoble and even inhumane about suchtendencies, is a hard-hearted person indeed. Here is the beginning of the book: I don't know if I will live to finish this. Of course, the author mat rewrite much before the writing iscomplete, but what has found its way to the page serves as a tribute to thelove he had for Roger and to the grief he lives through as Roger sickensand dies. . This is truly beautiful writing. It is a clear and economical style which sees life and everything init straightforwardly. New York: Avon, 199 .----------------------- 1 This study will focus on the love between the two men, ratherthan on the terrible disease which brought their relationship to an end onthis earth. after the beep a voice said: "This is UCLA Medical Center calling. All I know is this: The virus ticks in me. Paul is the closest to the reader because he is thewriter and because the reader sees the death of his lover through his eyes. . . Here, however, in this book, are two men who are going through justsuch an experience. It is not a mystery story, but adiscovery story--a discovery of the depth of love and what it can endure. The book could be simply another story about the loss of a lover toAIDS, another "disease" story. Mr. Roger Horwitz died. . It is the writing of a man whosefeelings and thoughts find words quickly and cleanly and those comes outonto the page. All human beingsto some degree are in such denial. Therefore,they believed, or hoped, they were safe from the disease. In other words, the book begins after Roger hasdied, after Paul has himself acquired the virus, and after the prevailingfactor in Paul's own life has become another imminent death--his own. . . Just half (1-2). The saying goes that all is fair in love and war, and Monette's bookcould be fairly called a book about the love between these two men and thewar of the disease which tests their love. One always searches for the factorin the dead person's death which distances him from one. . However, it is lifted far above that levelbecause of two factors. That specific helpless moment, the soft disk swimming out onto his cheek, stuck with me like a pivot of agony. This style and vision allows Monette to record eventsin such a way that humor and tragedy are often combined in one sentence orone paragraph, as in the following in which Roger, who has AIDS but doesnot know it, is informed by a doctor that he might have tuberculosis: Then he started to cry, and the burst of tears sent one of his contact lenses awry. In the case ofPaul and Roger, denial focuses on the fact that the two lovers did not livethe fast-lane lifestyle that AIDS victims' all seemed to live. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.