"Don Quixote could never manage without his patient servant Sancho Panza."
-Nicholas Tucker
-Nicholas Tucker
Well, First and Foremost, I apologize for the lapse of posting. Woo! Now that that's over with, I have been reading the third section of Chang and Eng and it is perhaps the most enjoyable and interesting section yet. It concentrates alternately on Eng's yearning for Love in his Marriage and for Adelaide and on Chang and Eng's first few shows and touring in New York and London.
In married life, you see the seeds of the schism between Adelaide and Sarah being sown during a few volatile exchanges between the two. In one of these instances, Adelaide implies that Sarah had an affair with a slave, instead of being raped by him like she told Eng. Though he has no way know these statements are true, Eng becomes infuriated with his wife and their relations become cold and curt. His affections become directed at Sarah's sister, Adelaide, but because he is always never more than 7 inches away from his brother they can never manifest.
The second focus is Chang and Eng's touring. It is here that Chang developes a reputation of being of being a showman and a joker and Eng is labeled an Imbecile. Chang, even though his english is pitiful, can make a crowd laugh, becomes a favorite with the critics. In one of their earlier shows, they are confronted by P.T. Barnum (that's right! He's the famous circus promoter!). He tries wo sow doubts in Chang and Eng's minds about their lifestyle so that they may abandon their current promoter and go to him.
In the last reading section, it was explained how Chang and Eng had intimate relations with their wives. I didn't blog about it on the last post for dramatic tension (also the post was getting really long and I didn't want for it to be a wall of text). The brothers talked over the problem of sex. This way, the other brother and his wife could create the illusion of being alone. Of course, this method is not without it's flaws. Eng starts interpret the times when Adelaide accidentally brushes hands with him assome sort of secret intimacy-- Scandelous!
In any event, the section wass wonderful. I promise that the next section's post will arrive in a more prompt manner.
I too, must apologize for my late commenting, although I was not in any position to post anything until now.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this story sounds quite fascinating! I find it incredible that the twins worked out how they would have sex with their wives, even though both would always be there. It seems that it would be monstrously difficult to have any relationship at all if you were conjoined. The tension between the twins and their wives must also be enormous. I can hardly imagine what it would be like if so many conflicts were just compounding the fact that my brother was attached to me!
Again, this seems like a fascinating book, but I'm finding it a little difficult to really follow what is going on (and I mentioned this on Crystal's blog too.) It's nothing that you are doing wrong, Matt, I just feel that this project's design makes it difficult for the BBF's to really understand each other's stories.