The Mystery of Love
In this strikingly original and ambitious book, Andrew Meehan gives us an account of the marriage of Constance and Oscar Wilde seen through Constance’s eyes. Her inner life from their first association to their wedding, the birth of two sons, separation and Oscar’s public downfall are imagined in affecting and absorbing detail. Occasional responses to Constance’s narrative come from Oscar in footnotes.
‘…If you’re here to propose marriage, let’s get on with it’ says the unconventional Constance, who describes her wedding dress as ‘a handful of slimy satin’. Her motive for accepting the proposal? To leave home. His for making it? ‘Free passage for life in the disguise of a respectable man’. They are matched in unpredictability, wilfulness and complexity of character. Constance understands her famous husband and his favourite pastime of ‘smoking, reading and being looked at’, but struggles with his neglect, extravagance and long absences, always aware of the relentless public gaze. Despite the eccentricity of the marriage, they show some more familiar responses: the exhaustion and concern of new parents, the quarrels which begin with ‘why do you always…’
This story of their lives is excellently and wittily written, with many memorable descriptions. Constance is amazed at the fanatical and ornate detail with which Oscar approaches the furnishing of their house in Tite Street. She dreads living in ‘an extrovert house…’ in which ‘the room was just as important as what happened there’.
The end of Oscar Wilde’s outwardly glittering life is described by his estranged wife reflecting on their time together as she travels across Europe to visit him in Reading Gaol. Still she loves him as deeply as he does her – the mystery of love.
