Chapter 17 and Postscript Summary and Analysis

Chapter 17

After Sheri, Anatole had hoped for a normal relationship. Sexual mores in 1947 were quite conservative—characters in movies who had extramarital affairs had to be punished. Lady Chatterley's Lover and the Tropic of Capricorn were banned. But sex was exciting then—because it was taboo, rare and revered. The upper middle-class girls who were in Anatole's circle were raised by the novels of George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. Sex was the last thing this kind of girl gave a man. Anatole, like many young men his age, had not learned how to be friends with girls. Once he did reach physical intimacy with a girl, he became bored with the girl when they weren't engaged in lovemaking. He hadn't matured enough to have a meaningful relationship with a girl—he was acting, not...