Heartburn...a tale of food, marriage and heart ache
I have just started reading nora ephron's heart burn and I have to ask myself why I never read this novella sooner. It's heartbreaking, funny and you learn new recipes what's not to love. Also, I see influences from her book in her romantic comedies such as when Harry met Sally, you've got mail, sleepless in Seattle, heartburn, etc..
One thing that intrigues me though his her thoughts on marriage through out the book, it feels like men in sex and the city with busses, if you don't get this one, you will find another one to ride. Her men aren't disposable persay but they do have many character flaws, and I am sorry to say this but the women in the book are too good for them. I digress, for nora ephron marriage seems like the thing you do at a certain age so you don't turn into a silver haired bachelor with not so many options, or the stereotypical woman in a one bedroom apartment with her many pets. Marriage in this book, feels like it's supposed to be a tradition, a rite of passage in life one is required to take.
But I disagree with this 1980s nora ephron who was dealing such fads as shoulder pads, crazy hair and reganomics, and a women's options at this time even with the feminist movement of the seventies were not that great. Women still had to fight to get a seat the boy’s table. I say this because her first husband in this book is an ocd neurotic mess who cares more about his hamsters more than her. While, her second husband is a philandering, elitist, liar who things all aspects of his life could be turned into a newspaper article. I would begrudge him thinking everything in his life his copy and would make an interesting story, but I view my life the same way some times. The problem though is she is with these men for two plus years and yet still thought these flaws was okay to stay married to them, I am sorry, but no, this nora needs higher standards for her spouse. I think however, after one has been wooed and we'd that the you settle into this quiet complacency in a marriage. All the things that attracted you to the person starts to drive you crazy, and you get used to the fact that you are stuck with this person on this ship called marriage/or long term partnership with insert time frame here. But you can't leave this person because you are codependent on them, or you love them but somedays you do not like them. Or in some cases are to scared to leave because you rather live with evil you know than the evil you don't know in the wild west of dating that consists of one night stands, crappy dates, blind dates, being breadcrumbed, ghosted, insert generation z term here, and wondering why you got out of your pamtless existence in your apartment/house, etc. to put up with this circus.
Nora aka rachel in trying to deal with the madness of being and alone but together with her husband through all the recipes seen through out the book. She is the proto-julie in Julie and Julie. These recipes are consistent, dependable, and you don't have to worry about then cheating on you with a Thelma or helen's assistant. She compares these recipes to crosswords which I can understand because is certain newspaper crossword puzzles you know what words are commonly used and which ones are not, and their is some dependability to them. One cannot say the same thing about people. People are mercurial in either being too stuck in their ways or a people pleaser too eager to change their stripes for friends and lovers.
This is also a motif throught out the book can people change, will they ever change, and what do you do when the person you are with you don't even recognize them at all? Also, if this case do you change and evolve together or hit the road. It is due to questions like this that gives covid, funerals, babies born get people thinking is the life I have the life I want?
P.s. on a positive note this book shows how complex divorce can be, and I have been searching my local library for books that might show the wife and husband's point of view and the only ones I can think of are Kramer vs Kramer and the marriage story, I think novels need to show how hard it is figure out whose in the right/wrong,what went wrong if we hear both sides of the story but that's just me
Xoxo, the multifaceted nerd