Marlon Bain’s letters

Bain reads Orin's estrangement not as escape but as a deeper form of bondage. Orin "studied for almost eighteen years at the feet of the most consummate mind-fucker" and now "thinks the way to escape that person's influence is through renunciation and hatred" — but "defining yourself in opposition to something is still being anaclitic on that thing," still leaning your whole weight on it. The hatred is attachment wearing a mask: "men who believe they hate what they really fear they need." This is the diagnosis n110 dramatizes from the inside — Orin's compulsive disowning of Avril is the truest measure of how tightly he's still bound to her. You cannot renounce your way out of a system that has become the shape of your reactions.