How can we understand the astounding story of M. Dominique Strauss-Kahn? Is there a literary algorithm that can be applied? Oui! The character of Mr. Toad from Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows can enlighten us. Wealthy, charming, manic, obsessive -- Toad can't resist driving every automobile he sees. Eventually he gets in a crash and receives a twenty year prison sentence. (He escapes.) For Toad, driving is the closest he can come to what, in another era, was experienced through religious devotion: physical stimulation, emotional ecstasy, etc. He craves it, needs it -- and starts making bad judgments. When sex (paradoxically) becomes the only route to "out of body" experience, trouble is on the way for chamber maids. As with any addiction, it's looking for love in all the wrong places. DSK even resembles Toad in some way. (I resemble Mole.)
