Couples in Midsummer's Night Dream: Not That Romantic

Midsummer's Night Dream can be absolutely hilarious. 

But not because the lovers are terribly likable. I don't think this lack of likability is a mistake on Shakespeare's part. He was fully capable of creating likable lovers. Despite the far greater social stigma, Katherine and Petruchio are delightful. 

But the lovers in Midsummer's Night Dream are kind of jerks. And they bring up the uncomfortable possibility that romantic feelings are entirely arbitrary and significant others entirely replaceable. Although everyone ends up at the end with the significant other that everyone started out with, that pay-off is little more than a contrivance. 

I suggest again that Shakespeare was entirely aware of what he was doing. One appealing aspect of Shakespeare's plays is how many genres they fall into. Philosophy? Sure. Historical reenactment? Sure. Family drama? Sure. Horror? Sure. Romance? Sure. Raunch? High-jinks? Sure. Sure. 

Screwball comedy?  

Okay! 

Midsummer's Night Dream feels like Shakespeare took Romeo & Juliet, which he wrote about the same time, and  turned such emotional excess on its head. You want angst? Heh heh heh. The fairies will give you ANGST. 

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

The best version I've ever seen EVER was a televised version of a live "Shakespeare in the Park" starring (I'm not making this up) William Hurt as Oberon. You can find it below (the quality isn't so great). I've never laughed so hard in my life. 

Touchingly enough, the one couple who aren't totally mocked is Bottom and Tatiana. At the very end of the play within the play, he has a moment of greatness as an actor--and all due to spending a night in the otherworld, with the queen of the fairies.

1982 Midsummer Night's Dream, Part 1  

1982 Midsummer Night's Dream, Part II 

 

Disabilities in Romance

I recently wrote about Izzy from Voigt's Izzy-Willy-Nilly. A young woman who loses her leg, she worries that she will never have a boyfriend and marry. The fear is not the author's imposition. It is the natural fear of a young woman from a particular social background. 

The book got me thinking about physical disabilities in fiction. Generally speaking, I don't always find them terribly realistic. Far too often, they seem to involve the protagonist feeling as Izzy does followed by the secondary protagonist, the lover, reassuring the first protagonist, "No, no, it was never a concern!" 

Really? Never a concern? Seriously? Yeah, that makes absolutely no sense. It's rather like books where one protagonist purports to love the soul of another. The love is so abstract, it seems kind of valueless. After all, the difficulty and wonder of love is the reality of the physical, everyday experience.  

The manga Love in the Palm of His Hand is far more realistic (so far--Volume 3 comes out in April). Keito, who is deaf, worries that his disability will make life difficult for his boyfriend. Fujinaga worries that he can't learn sign and that his presence will keep Keito from being comfortable in a group of signing friends. They have various mishaps with communication. Keito's brother is less than supportive of their relationship. Both young men worry about Keito being able to enjoy Fujinaga's stage acting. 

What is impressive is that signing (referenced by the title) is not a solve-it-once-because-the-relationship-is-so-perfect event. It is part of the entire relationship. Fujinaga's over-the-top stage acting style has lost him film roles. Yet that same physical expression fits with what he wants to do in the long run. And it enables him to quickly comprehend and enjoy communicating with his boyfriend. 

Disability is used NOT as "see, the lovers overcame something--hurrah" but, rather, as a way to explore how a relationship functions between two distinct people.   

Frenemies as Lovers

Black Sun's protagonists start as as enemies. In fact, Leonard is the prisoner of Jamal, a trope that many publishers and readers shy from. I find it at least more honest than some frenemy arrangements, in which the "hostage"-taking is purely emotional (one member of the couple feels indebted to the other). 

However, this type of frenemy relationship works best in historical romances. The current trend of plots where modern-day protagonists form relationships with sociopaths, I admittedly find a tad nihilistic. 

I prefer my frenemies to be rooted not in emotional enthrallment but in personality differences. Leonard and Jamal are different but complementary. In a more modern setting, so are Minato and Shizuma from Therapy Game Restart. 

Minato in the "tacky" shirt

Shizuma bought.

Minato is smart, sharp-tongued, wary, self-aware, uncertain, quick-tempered, and dogged in his commitment. Shizuma is mellow, easy-going (despite being a hard-working and dedicated veterinarian), understanding, and easily romantic. 

Although their relationship is far more fraught with ups and downs than the brothers' relationship (Minato's brother is dating Shizuma's brother), it has grit--and believability. 

Frenemies in romance is best not as a state of continual uncertainty--but as a state of continual negotiations.

Uki Ogasawara's Black Sun

I am reviewing romance "paperbacks"--that is, romance books that do not fall into the "acceptably literary" tradition. 

I love Austen and Heyer and Bronte. 

But I also love romances that don't necessarily fall into the category of so-called Great Literature.

I've reached "U" authors, and I admit to being somewhat stymied. Not many "U" authors at all, let alone in romance! 

I gave myself permission to go with first names as well as last names and to go to manga (which generally speaking, I have been reviewing separately). 

Black Sun by Uki Ogasawara is one of my favorite yaoi manga. One reason is that the characters have distinct personalities and retain those personalities through the 2 volumes. (One problem I note with romance is when characters become instantly "cute"--and follow a script--the moment they fall in love.) 

Below is character analysis from one of my earliest posts on this blog:

Jamal and Leonard's seemingly unlikely compatibility in Black Sun is highlighted by their easy physical "banter."

Character development plays a role here. Despite his spiritual and idealistic nature, Leonard is more than capable of keeping up with Jamal physically. Leonard may have a sweet and ethereal disposition; his desire for touch, for affection, has been a fundamental aspect of his personality from childhood. 

Jamal's larger-than-life persona at first evokes hero-worship from Leonard. But Jamal doesn't want to be set on a pedestal (it's so boring). He provides Leonard with a down-to-earth reality that Leonard never anticipated and finds incredibly restful.

At the end of Black Sun, Leonard still retains his quiet, Gilly-like nature. But he has learned to gently and cleverly tease Jamal back.  

Love After the Passage of Years: Is it Possible?

I mention on Votaries that the Holmes's tale "The Adventure of the Crooked Man" is deeply romantic. Arthur Conan Doyle was a man with a deeply romantic nature--one possible reason his Holmes comes across as somewhat more layered and complex than the man pretends to be. 

The story is a good one, and the Granada production is excellent. 

Interestingly enough, both tale and episode do not try to explain what will happen to Henry Wood next. Will he stay away from Nancy? Will she try to seek him out? Their positions in Edwardian society would make a marriage unlikely. But the question here is more universal. 

With the passage of time, are romantic feelings from the past enough to restart a relationship? 

Stargate SG-1 has a great episode, "The Torment of Tantalus," where Catherine goes through the gate to track down her fiance Dr. Ernest Littlefield who went through the gate 52 years earlier. 

A later passing reference suggests that Catherine and Ernest got back together. 

And I kind of don't buy it. 

In the nurture/nature debate, I tend to come down (partly) on the side of nature, as in genetics. But in the nature/agency debate, I come down on the side of choice. 

A person's character can stay much the same. But that person isn't un-impacted by experience. People make decisions that lead to other decisions that lead to other decisions. C.S. Lewis comments in one of his books that the choices look haphazard at the time but entirely organic and "meant" or fated in retrospect.

As Joe in Joe versus the Volcano remarks, "It's a long crooked road that brought me here to you." 

Is Catherine the same person she was in 1945? In essence, sure. But in lifestyle? Living arrangements? Wants? Needs? 

For instance, the woman is a powerhouse and was when she was younger (excellently played in the episode by Nancy McClure). In 1945, marriage was more of a given. She's managed without marriage for years. And now she's going to change her mind? 

Maybe she just hauls Ernest around with her like an extra retainer. 

As for Nancy and Henry Wood, she might leave her life and go with him. But the time period and their backgrounds could likely preclude them overlooking the social stigmas. 

Maybe the memory of romance in that case is enough. 

Good Break-Up: Death in Paradise

I usually dislike break-up stories, just as I usually dislike constantly fighting exes.

However, the break-up at the end of Death in Paradise, Season 3, is excellently written. It also demonstrates an internal transformation (on Votaries, I am currently examining characters who undergo such transformations). 

I'm conservative enough to not have the highest opinion of couples who divorce because they are bored or irritated. The statement, "My needs aren't being met" may be legitimate but sometimes, the needs are so entirely unrealistic that nobody would ever be able to meet them.

My annoyance at easy break-ups being stated, the split between Humphrey and his ex on Death in Paradise is a good example of how incompatibility actually can lead to a marriage falling apart.

Humphrey Goodman moves to St. Marie, believing that his wife will follow. She doesn't. She requests a divorce instead. However, she shows up a few months later, having discovered--as anyone with sense could have told her--that simply declaring a marriage over doesn't automatically make life exciting and satisfying and fresh. Her world didn't become instantly magical, just because she shed the supposedly boring husband.

There's a fantastic scene at Catherine's bar where Humphrey orders a rum drink, then encourages his ex to also order one. She takes one sip, grimaces and sets it aside, requesting her usual gin & slim.

Humphrey then points out that with his move, he was trying to save their marriage--that's why he took the post to St. Marie in the first place. And it might have worked. It worked for Humphrey. He is fundamentally open to new experiences and the move expanded his horizons while shoring up his abilities as a leader. He absorbed it all, from classic mystery denouements ("That thing where you gather everyone together--I rather enjoyed that last time") to garish shirts to lizards to rum...

The point here is not that people have to like rum. In his unending search for decent tea, Poole never did.

The point is, the ex-wife wants both: she wants her unadventurous, yuppie, staid life back in England alongside FUN and ADVENTURE and CHANGE! This unlikely combination of needs is something Humphrey attempted to give her.

Except he no longer can. He has moved on--too far--while she didn't. He can't backtrack. He puts the gap between them down to individual growth (and to him being in love with Camille Bordey, though that is arguably a convenient emotional idea for him to hold onto). And the truth is, I rather think the ex-wife would have ended up bored in St. Marie. She carried her dissatisfaction with her. Nothing can cure that.

Shakespeare Couples: Falstaff Shouldn't Have His Own Sitcom

It's wild to realize how much human nature remains the same. Individual people are different but people's desires remain remarkably consistent. 

Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor was apparently the equivalent of Joey or Frasier. It was a spin-off, written for the sake of a subordinate character, Falstaff. People loved Falstaff so much that Shakespeare had to keep bringing him back. He supposedly wrote Merry Wives at Queen Elizabeth's command (which reminds me of Jamie saying bluntly, "Really!?" when Obama wanted him and Adam to try out the mirrors-as-weapons experiment again on Mythbusters). 

Despite being requested by Queen Elizabeth, Merry Wives of Windsor wasn't particularly liked even at the time, though it was one of the first Shakespearean plays shown at the start of the Restoration (after the equivalent of lockdowns were lifted). I imagine it was chosen as a way for the theater-going crowd to thumb their noses (or bite their thumbs) at the Puritans. 

I didn't especially want to read the play since I don't care about Falstaff at all. Instead, I watched Orson Welles in The Chimes at Midnight. It helped that the older Orson Welles is how I see Falstaff!

This movie is basically Henry IV, Parts I and II with text from other plays. It is exceptionally well-edited. It is told mostly from Falstaff's point of view but the plot isn't about him (directly).  

And it proves that Falstaff is best presented within a larger story. Like with so many spinoffs, he is more interesting as a subordinate rather than a main character (Frasier was truly an exception, not a rule.)

From a romance perspective, Falstaff has less luck than the man who played him. I'm not a fan of the poor buffoon plot used by Merry Wives. And I agree with those critics that the complication of Falstaff is that despite his jokes and joie de vivre, he is in fact a villain. Hal is right to repudiate him.

The true relationship is Falstaff and Hal.