calamitila

The doppelgänger, that persistent haunt of Romantic fiction, is our incessant reminder of the literal doubleness, the fact that the self with whom we live in intimacy can become deformed and a stranger; and a sobering reminder as well of the mask of commonality that passes for family happiness. In Romantic fiction by women, however, including that of Jane Austen, the sense of doubleness tends to take on a narrower focus. Its pervasive philosophic awareness of the self's protentional self-betrayal becomes a more concrete, if ambiguously shifting, vision of the double face of male authority.

“Only Lila can say if, in fact, she has managed to insert herself into this extremely long chain of words to modify my text, to purposely supply the missing links, to unhook others without letting it show, to say more of me more than I want, more than I’m able to say. I wish for the intrusion, I’ve hoped for it ever since I began to write our story, but I have to get to the end in order to check all the pages. If I tried now, I would certainly get stuck. I’ve been writing for too long and I’m tired; it’s more and more difficult to keep the thread of the story taut within the chaos of the years, of events large and small, of moods. So either I tend to pass over my own affairs to capture Lila and all the complications she brings with her, or worse, I let myself be carried away by the events of my life, only because it’s easier to write them. But I have to avoid this choice. I mustn’t take the first path, on which, if I set myself aside, I would end up finding ever fewer traces of Lila - since the very nature of our relationship dictates that I can reach her only by passing through myself.”

my favourite thing about Tanya being the self sabotaging asshole she was is just how fragile her whole image was. It really only took Will calling her out on her bs (in an incredibly kind and mature way) for it to become clear she was just lashing out from pressure. She has this air of a complicated individual, but it's really that simple.