#la fugitive

Near the end, Michaels is back in graduate school in Michigan, without Sylvia. First they had separated, and then she’d died, just after their separation. She’d died abruptly while he was back in New York on a visit, hoping to talk to her about divorce and yet not daring to, for fear of setting off another of their fights.

This time, re-reading Sylvia, or rather, listening to Hiddleston read it, I found myself slightly dissatisfied near the end. After Sylvia’s death, Michaels feels numb ("I was numb… I had no human feelings"), and I wished I were feeling sad in his place. The audio recording was nearly over, only minutes left, and clearly Michaels's numbness was all the emotion there would be. I thought about not listening to any more of it, just turning it off. I'd already gotten what I’d come for, what I must have come for: the passage about going to the movies after fighting, the mention of The Moviegoer I must have been looking for when I’d downloaded the recording that afternoon.

The last words caught me all unawares; I’d forgotten them. Michaels dreams he's with her in the morgue: "…Sylvia was there, a white sheet up to her chin. It was like the old days, the two of us in a small room, Sylvia asleep, me miserable. I started crying, pleading with her, making no concession to reality. My need was the only reality, more real than death. Sylvia had to stop this. She had to open her eyes and sit up." 

I sobbed. I had to rewind to even hear the next few sentences, the very last ones of the book: