Parker 51 by Lesley Glaister

Parker 51 by Lesley Glaister

What is love? What is love, defined by this text? Is love unpredictable? In this text, we hear about a girl called Rose who has this mysterious passion for words, and judges people by their names. She is a woman that finds her true love in a very suspicious and very weird way. She leaves a guy because his name was to slight and swattable and ends up marrying her post office colleague. Is she doing the right thing? Or is she totally out of her mind?

The story “Parker 51 by Lesley Glaister” is about a woman called Rose. She is a girl that has this weird addiction and interest in different certain words. She has this unique relationship with words. She likes to play, listen, taste and feel words. For an instance, she liked the flutteryness of when a fledging was flapping on her tongue. For example, she loved her own name Rose, because it had the rolling sensation in the tongue. The story also included Roses lover GI Nat Racket. Rose was in love with his American voice and his hard-skinny body. She also liked the idea of being an American, having a backyard, kids and walking on the sidewalks to shops to buy popsicles. But the problem was his name. GI Nat Racket was to slight and swattable and then her name would be Rose Racket and her children would be little Rackets. Nat was desperate to marry Rose, but Rose couldn’t see herself being named Rose Racket. Therefor she said she wanted to wait a bit. Nat then gave Rose an exclusive Parker 51 pen so she could write to him with the pen.

Later in the text, Rose was invited out on a dinner by one of her post office colleagues, Roland.  

She tried to say Roland and her tongue curled like her own name. Roland was also a word lover, just like Rose. They started to date more often and even though Rose still wrote every day to Nat, she never mentioned anything about her dates or about Roland. One night Roland finally had the courage to tell Rose that he loved her. Like Nat, Roland also wanted Rose to be his wife. Rose then thought about Roland’s surname. Rose Bloom she said to herself. She also realized that both names Roland and Rose had the same curling effect on the tongue

She then wrote her final letter to Nat and where she also considered returning the pen back but she couldn’t make herself letting it go. Then Roland admired the Parker 51 pen, the one Rose was given by Nat.

Then Roland borrowed her pen several times to write postcards, and one day when he borrowed her pen, he had lost her pen. Rose was near to breaking down in tears but somehow, she said, it just was a pen. 40 years later Roland died, Rose’s daughter Lily was going through one of Roland’s old things, and while she was going through them she stumbled into the pen that went lost. Rose told her daughter to keep it but she had no use for an old-fashioned pen.

In the text, we hear about 3 characters, Rose, Roland and Nat. Starting off with Rose. First, Rose is a woman that has the unique relationship with words, she like certain words that gives her tongue a curling sensation. Starting off in the text she is together with GI Nat Racket but somehow, she refuses to marry him because his name is slight and swattable. Later she begins to date her post office colleague, and later they get married. She then later gives birth to her daughter, who then is called Lily.  
Then we hear about Rose’s first lover Nat, he is someone who cares a lot for Rose and desperately wants to marry Rose but Rose doesn’t feel right about Nat because his name is slight and swattable and she couldn’t see herself with the name as Rose Racket. Otherwise Nat seems like a good guy that cares a lot about Rose since he gives her a very fine and exclusive pen so she can write him letters. Then we have Roland, who is Rose’s post office colleague but ends up more than just a colleague. They end up as lovers and gets a daughter named Lily. Roland is like rose, he is also a world lover. He was also a teacher, a reader and an occasional poetry writer.