12.15.01 – this is an essay question.

a question to ponder: what’s the Greatest Love Story of All Time? a friend and i were discussing this recently; he was making a case for romeo and Juliet. i recall reading R&J for the first time in 9th grade and feeling completely cheated when we got to the end – there no way that that was all the Greatest Love Story of All Time had to offer (remember, i was 14). Okay, years later i will concede that it is a perfectly crafted play, but i still don’t think it’s the GLSOAT. my friend asked me what i thought the GLSOAT was. i realized that i didn’t have an answer. over the next few weeks i began to think that the Greatest Love Story of All Time was a cheesy cliché and that thinking that meant that i am destined to become a bitter lonely Cat Lady. then, while i was eating mediocre sushi alone in the fluorescently-lit Osaka and reading the buffalo rag ArtVoice, it came to me: O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi is the greatest love story of all time. it’s beautifully crafted, simple, sweetly old-fashioned, pretentious and yet at the same time apologetic for its pretension in the face of such a pure emotion. we had a beautifully illustrated edition of it when i was a kid and i used to weep over the ending every time i read it.