Starshadw at aol.com wrote: > I think what drove me crazy while reading Teckla (and still does although I like the book) was Cawti's behaviour. Her "holier-than-thou" attitude made me want to strangle her. I'm all for soul-searching and for the evolution we see Vlad begin to go through. But Cawti's actions and words were simply horrendous and seemed out of line. If you supposedly love someone - then you don't treat them as if they are inferior. You help them by encouragin them, by talking things through with them, etc! I know that there are conversations between Vlad and Cawti that we readers don't get to see, but even so, I was appalled at her treatment of her husband. As for me, having lived through a couple of crashed-and-burned marriages, it sounds absolutely true. Yeah, Cawti's behavior was appalling but it's pretty accurate, too. People get focused on the insides of their own heads and forget that there's another person out there. I've been on both sides of that equation, sigh. There were a couple of points in Teckla where Vlad recognized that they were slipping into acrimony and yet couldn't help but be sucked in; these were somewhat painful for me to read, since the sensation was so familiar. I could go on and on about this (heh, don't get me started :-), but suffice to say that Steve got it right. (Steve, do you suspect that you might have picked up some vibrations from your life during this point? Feel free to not answer...) -- Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/