“She stroked my hair. ‘I want you to come to me without a past. Those lines you’ve learned, forget them. Forget that you’ve been here before in other bedrooms in other places. Come to me new. Never say you love me until that day when you have proved it.’
‘How shall I prove it?’
‘I can’t tell you what to do.’
The maze. Find your own way through and you shall win your heart’s desire. Fail and you will wander for ever in these unforgiving walls. Is that the test? (54).”
Louise wants the narrator to be something that they are not––a non-self, a blank journal, a space for a narrative that she and the narrator can write together. She wants to grow a new relationship on a bed of dust from her marriage, which is written and read and dead. She asks the narrator to be a part of her new story, but the narrator is unsure if they should begin again––if they should abandon their lone journey through the maze and let Louise guide them through it instead, adding to the palimpsest of their body instead of erasing it. The narrator has done this many times before, abandoning themself again and again for another love. Louise knows this, and wants the narrator to “come to her new,” despite knowing that she can’t tell the narrator “what to do”––the narrator can’t even tell themself what to do.
Written on the body, palimpsest-like, is everything we have ever been, everything we have ever been told we are, and underneath all of that––maybe––is what we will be. If you erase all of the writing on the skin, maybe there is blank space for a new narrative. But is erasure possible? This is what I imagine is going through the narrator’s mind. This is why they keep letting love guide them––out of fear that erasure isn’t possible.
The maze. It promises everything to the traveler who makes it through on their own. But if you make it through the maze by yourself, what else could you possibly want? Making it through the maze, erasing the palimpsest of their lovers, would be detrimental to our narrator, who knows nothing else than other people, and their relationship to other people. I think if the narrator made it through the maze, they would realize it is not Louise that their heart desires, it is not Louise or Crazy Frank or Bathsheba, but themself. And who is that? I don’t know, neither do you, and neither do they.
The maze. It promises nothing to the traveler who wanders its walls forever. And how does the traveler find themselves in such a situation? Maybe because they aren’t traveling alone. They are too busy wondering about their partner’s mindscape to notice their own walls closing in. I think the narrator finds Louise where Louise finds herself. Free, past the walls of the maze. Independent, irrevocable, and icy, like a statue.
But Louise cannot say, “Leave me now and meet me on the other side of these walls.” She says “I can’t tell you want to do,” because the narrator must find their own way through—they cannot follow Louise, like they followed all of their past lovers, getting lost in the maze while keeping their eyes fixed on the statue, the lover, at the exit. Walking in circles, thinking they are getting closer, maybe the narrator must close their eyes and trust their intuition instead. It’s not like they’ll find themselves more lost.
I think this passage ties into the reading “The Mountain” very nicely. They talk about how people use words to describe them, we describe people everyday, and place them into boxes or categories. While this may at times be damaging, the author also argues that they “use some, but not all,… to call out my pride, to strengthen my resistance, to place myself within community” (12). They even go so far as to say that the words are “burrowed into my body” (12). I think this connects to the reading because Louise is asking the narrator to come without a past, but the past and the words we use to describe ourselves are etched into our body and make us who we are. There is no separating because we would not be the same person. Overall, the books is actually called “Written on the Body” and “The Mountain” actually tells us how these words are on our bodies and a part of us. The narrator can not do what Louise is asking, and it honestly is unfair for Louise to ask it of them.
As another commenter stated, I was also reminded of Eli Clare’s writing in your analysis. For the narrator, whose life is described to the reader through a laundry list of failed romantic relationships, the notion of discovering satisfaction within themself seems near-impossible. However, for those rejected by society, happiness cannot truly be found in the larger perceptions of the majority. The narrator, by this point in Written on the Body, has been deeply changed by their love for Louise, but must learn to be on their own to truly find contentment