Random Acts, continued

Oh, goodness. It turns out that my early enthusiasm for this book was at least partially unwarranted. Random Acts of Heroic Love is a novel made up of two stories, which is the only reason why I'm still reading it. One story is told by Moritz, an Austrian World War I POW who is valiantly trekking across Russia (uphill, both ways) back to his love, Lotte. The other is told by Leo, a whiny jackass. Said jackass has lost his beloved Eleni while traveling in South America. His grief is compounded by guilt; he believes (and he has a point) that something he innocently requested was directly responsible for Eleni's death. The early scenes, in which he appoints himself guardian over Eleni's body as it is prepared for burial and flown back to her native Greece, are really heart-wrenching (hence the near-tears on p. 14). The problem starts after he returns home to England and starts acting like, well, a total dick. He rudely rebuffs his father's attempts to relate his own story of grieving (I'm convinced that Leo's father is Moritz's son; I'm also convinced that this is supposed to be some sort of big reveal later in the book--nice try), and in the oddest display of jerkitude, he attacks a truck driver, since apparently all truck drivers are now responsible for Eleni's death. Fortunately, the truck driver delivers a beat-down; that was pretty satisfying.

The worst of all is how Leo treats his patient, self-sacrificing friend, Hannah. He pours his heart out to her, which reminds her of her mother's death of cancer when Hannah was only ten. She kindly chooses to quash her own feelings of grief rather than hijack the moment from Leo, and he decides that her awkwardness means that she is falling in love with him. This might be amusing or sweet if Leo weren't such a douche. When she reveals the real reason behind her behavior, this is Prince Charming's response:

"But I've poured my heart out to you and the very least you could do is reciprocate...you've been patronizing me. It should be equal. I've given so much time, so much of myself to you, and you're giving me nothing in return" (Scheinmann 187).

Really? Wow. All of the sympathy I had for Leo in the early pages of the book has evaporated. However, the story of Moritz's journey is still pretty good, so I'll keep reading to see where that ends up (though I'm pretty sure I already know).