Desert of the Heart

I just finished re-reading Desert of the Heart, written by Jane Rule, for about the twentieth time. It is a remarkable, perfect little book. I have almost memorized certain lines and phrases, and I am certain that this work, all Jane Rule's work, has influenced my own. It says what it has to say, in the first paragraph, and it says it again in the rest of the book, and it ends just as it should. "Conventions, like cliches, have a way of surviving their own usefulness. They are then defended or excused as the idioms of living." This is a book about the conventions we accept as the medium of our lives, most of us without questioning their real value to us. For some people, this makes life an absurdity devoid of meaning. People are born, grow up, go to school, get married, get jobs, raise children, and die. This book examines the absurdity of this idiom for some people. The convention of marriage, for homosexual people, is absurd. The cliche of fidelity and forsaking all others, for some, is meaningless, a promise impossible for humans to keep. The story involves a woman who lived within these conventions all her life, even while feeling emotionally detached, outside them, as if she were speaking a foreign language. She meets another woman who has spent her life deliberately, consciously, living outside these conventions, even though studying them and the effects of trying to live within their boundaries. When these two women begin a relationship, one in defiance of those idioms of Iife, one accepting that their relationship may just be a visit outside the lines for her partner, the tension comes when each must acknowledge that what she thought about Iiving inside and outside those boundaries may not be true. For Evelyn Hall, respectable college professor, stepping outside the conventions of her life forces her to examine them and question what she never before doubted, that women are supposed to marry, have children, and that she has failed because she played poorly at this game. She is forced to examine the basis for her assumptions about morality and love. Ann Childs is forced to explore whether the cliches about love, the ones she has defied and dismissed all her life, might not hold some truth. If she accepts that she does love Evelyn, does that mean then that she must accept the other cliches about love that she has denied, that some of them might indeed be real and achievable, like fidelity, like "forsaking all others?" There is an argument posed in the book about whether the human will or its nature influences us to choose or deny love. Is it our nature to marry men, bear children, and is it unnatural to seek love outside those accepted parameters? Is it our will, our intellect, that allows us to explore love outside the accepted convention of heterosexuality? Is it the will that bends us into the conventions of life, subduing our nature, which seeks out love wherever it may? Are those established conventions, old and worn, there to p

I've been reading for over 30 years and I am not exaggerating that this is a terrific novel that should not be missed. There is as much depth in one chapter as you will get in entire novels. The writing simply flows and you don't put the book down until you notice the day has gone dark and lunch and dinner time have passed you by. Wonderful characters so rich in details they you wonder about them long after the novel ends. Here is a description of the novel from the publishers web site - Evelyn Hall arrives in Reno wanting only to be left alone while she waits six weeks for a painful divorce from her husband. Once there she meets Ann Child - 15 years her junior, who is both a free spirit and a lesbian. Soon Ann refuses to let the controlled but vulnerable Evelyn ignore the powerful emotions that begin to unleash inside her... Immortalized for a whole new generation by the film Desert Hearts, Jane Rule's classic DESERT OF THE HEART is arguably her finest novel. Joyce Carol Oates called it "an intelligent and utterly believable novel". Told with all the wit and skill of this fine novelist, the book stands as a classic of lesbian literature. I enjoyed it so much I bought the dvd! I also went and bought the authors other novels.

As one reviewer said, if you expect the film to be exactly like the book, you'll be disappointed. However, it is a lyrical, complex book which demands much from the reader. It is not one of the lollypop romance books which now seem to be the norm. There is nothing wrong with lollypop but if you eat too much you get indigestion of the brain. This book, for me, resolved some observations I had made in the movie that didn't seem to make sense or seem right for the story and Rule justified my doubts about certain things. In the book, Evelyn (Vivien in the movie) is not so much uptight as unsure and conflicted and Ann (Kay in the movie) is much more complex. THere are subplots which are missing in the movie and I have no complaints with that because they would have taken away from the main story and would have made it much longer than it should be.You will find a big difference in the character of Frances that was portrayed in the movie. She too is much more complex. If you want to read a book which will engage your mind and soul, as well as your heart, then read Desert of the Heart. First rate.

This is an extremely well written book, but if you're looking for it after seeing the movie, you might find it a bit different and unpalatable. The book has a cold and desolate feel which is apropriate for the way Rule goes with the story, and the writing is amazing, but it is not such a sweet love story as the movie, and Freud would have a ball with these two! There is much talk of the two women and a mother/daughter relationship which may offended some readers. Incidentally, the movie is actually "Desert Hearts" not "Desert of the heart" as the other reviewer mentioned, and they are both very different.

A classic! Beautifully written, imaginative, and brave. If you know and love the movie "Desert of the Heart" - this is the original book, and its much, much better. Jane Rule was the pioneer for all of us. Read it, keep it, trade it, share it - its meant so much to so many lesbians, and we all need to bask in the glory. Order now!