Paul BAILEY- Kitty&Virgil
The story of Kitty & Virgil is so full of love, life and tragedy. In the book, there are two main characters. As the title indicates, the book is about the lives of Kitty & Virgil also their families especially the fathers. Kitty is a British woman who is waiting for life. Virgil is a Romanian man and he is a dissident poet.
They see each other in a hospital in England. And they fall in love first sight. As I said at the beginning, Virgil is a Romanian man. Those times in Romania, the country was under the control of despot Ceausescu. Virgil wanted to escape from Romania to live in London. But how? He swam throughout the Danube River, which is approximately 3000 km, on his body.
“Here, we see the influence of Naturalism movement. As the naturalist writers do, Bailey does the same thing with them and he shows the struggle of human against the nature. Virgil not only deals with Ceausescu, but also struggles against the nature. Moreover, we can say that this is a fragment that shadows the next troubles out.
Here, again, we can say that Bailey really makes a kind of bridge between past and present. While he is using the elements of naturalism, he uses romanticism. But what can we say for the type of this novel? Is this novel only romantic, naturalist, realist or modernist? So, we can say that this is a collage novel. Actually Bailey uses the most elements of romanticism. And he bases these elements on these two characters that are wildly different backgrounds. ”
Because of this or thanks to this, they are in the same hospital. Actually, nothing happens in the hospital. Months later, they come across in London’s Green Park. There, Kitty gives her phone number to Virgil. Virgil thinks that she gave a wrong number but it was true. They see each other again in Kitty’s home and they come close to each other. They are now lovers.
But they were different and they had different cultures. Here, in this book, Bailey shows us the...