Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: Really?

A common trope I rather dislike is the trope of the disappearing significant other. 

The idea is that a couple is dating--one member of the couple is less sure. Then, the other member disappears on a business trip or into a work project or to another country or to visit parents. Sometimes, they announce that they are going beforehand but quite often, the vanishing act is unexpected. The first member, the one who was less sure, realizes, "Oh my gosh, I really go love this person!" 

The trope isn't entirely useless. It shows up in Cherry Magic between Tsuge and Minato. However, in that case, it is truly more of a plot point than a crisis. The crisis in the relationship comes later when Tsuge confesses that he can read minds (and Minato reacts far more normally than Kurosawa did to the same revelation from Adachi--though Kurosawa's reaction is hilarious). 

Likewise, Kurosawa and Adachi's separation just when they've started dating creates some tension, which is beautifully resolved (that letter!) but everyone knows about the separation going in. 

What is less believable or bearable is when the vanishing act is used to force feelings I'm not entirely sure a character feels. In Real-Time Fever, Shizuka goes home to tend to his father. Kurosaki, who is something of a playboy, is forced to confront that he wants a full-time relationship with Shizuka--.

Uh. Sure, when people don't get what they want, they can get quite possessive. It's one reason that auctions and eBay are so effective for sellers. It's one reason that car dealers say things like, "Oh, it will be gone tomorrow." Desperation, a feeling that one is going to lose out, a sudden flooding of "I want" emotion can swamped the rational part of the brain. 

 What happens when the significant other does comes home? For that matter, what happens when the relationship moves from high emotion to everyday life? 

In truth, in reality, absence can break or almost break a relationship--as Only the Ring Finger Knows demonstrates. The heart doesn't get fonder. It gets more self-protective.   

Transformation and Disguise in Palace of the Omega

Ilia, an omega, is sent to Hanu to marry the young king, Khalid. The young king is 10 years old but forms a friendship with Ilia and determines to eventually make him his consort. 

The plans are derailed when the king's brother Zayn carries out a coup. Both Khalid and Ilia are presumed dead after one is supposedly killed on a journey and the other jumps from a cliff.  

They find each other 8 years later and they have naturally undergone changes. Khalid's fundamental serious and charismatic character hasn't altered, but he is older and much taller. 

Ilia undergoes a change not in personality--he is still somewhat sarcastic and a bundle of concentrated intent--but in attitude. Though he starts out cynical and indifferent, he grows attached to Khalid for his youthful and innocent earnestness, for his devotion to Hanu, and for his total acceptance of Ilia as his consort and equal. Ilia becomes a believer in something. 

The character development is quite believable since it takes place over time and after personal interactions. 

The series also includes a disguise--namely, Khalid becomes the leader of the rebels without telling others his identity...except they aren't that surprised when he reveals himself...which amuses Ilia to no end. 

Good couple in a story with decent external and internal arcs! The transformations--quite a lot of them--make sense, and the characterizations remain consistent.  

 

Couples in Much Ado about Nothing

Much Ado about Nothing proves that Shakespeare was aware of and capable of creating a relationship of equals. 

Benedict and Beatrice are so well-matched in terms of intelligence, wit, and independence that various retellings of the tale, from Branagh's magnificent and lush masterpiece to Shakespeare Retold's lovely modernization with Sarah Parish and Damian Lewis, do not need to "fix" the relationship to make it modern. Beatrice and Benedict are entirely comprehensible to us. 

Hero and Claude are less likable--of which truth I think Shakespeare is well-aware. If Claude's behavior--shaming her at her wedding--wasn't so reprehensible, Beatrice would have no reason to demand that Benedict challenge Claude. He would have no reason to take her part. 

The problem isn't the anger and jealousy that Claude feels. Shakespeare, as always, is dealing with entirely recognizable human emotions. The problem is, Why would Hero take him back? 

Shakespeare Retold leaves the matter open. And even the play veers away from the youthful idiots to the couple that draws us in. 

One of the best couples in all literature!  

V is for Vivacious Voigt and a Vital Romantic Hero

Cynthia Voigt's paperbacks are usually teen novels. However, she wrote an adult novel Glass Mountain which is a modern (for the time, 1990s) screwball comedy in the Cary Grant and Clark Gable (It Happened One Night) tradition. 

In fact, the protagonist, Gregor, is, as Castle would say, "ruggedly handsome" rather than strictly good-looking. 

The book is delightful! It is the story of a butler/valet who is trying to land himself a rich wife. He is a romantic who falls in love but thinks he is trying to work the system. 

Voigt relies almost entirely on show-not-tell to make clear to us that whatever Gregor may believe about himself, or say about himself, he is a good guy and worth investing in:

1. Like Darcy with Elizabeth, he is attracted to Alexis from the beginning. 

He doesn't believe she is beautiful. He does acknowledge that she dresses wrongly for her "Renaissance" look. But he is aware of her and not entirely indifferent from Day 1. His attraction grows. 

2. He is bowled over by her intelligence, understated wit, and interests from Day 1. 

3. His "plan" does not involve him inviting women to outings he doesn't enjoy himself. 

He and Alexis share interests if not taste. 

4. He is old enough, 33, to not mistake titillation for actually interesting things.

His boss, Theo, is another great writing example of show-not-tell. He isn't horrible or bad (and the book ends quite nicely with him back in the arms of a woman who possibly truly cares for him); he is, however, as shallow as ditch-water. 

Gregor's exact motivations for his deliberate plan (to marry any rich woman) are never entirely defined (other than that he is more romantic than he realizes): revenge at a particular class, disillusionment, cynicism, despair? 

He does see some of himself in Theo. But he is being unfair to himself. Theo quite definitely mistakes titillation for "coolness," like a boy who, maturity-wise, has never grown beyond high school. (As one point, Gregor marvels at the women Theo is able to attract, but Theo has a kind of random generosity that makes him whatever the women want him to be: Gregor is more complicated, and Alexis will more than be able to handle him!) 

5. He honestly respects women. 

He is kind to Theo's mother, waiting for her to finish her sentences. He is careful, almost from the beginning, with Alexis because he quickly surmises that she can run rings around him and only doesn't because she is diffident and doubtful of her own powers. He doesn't use her weaknesses--such her apologies--against her. 

Whatever Gregor believes about himself, the reader finds him worth investing in--and Alexis is delightful. 

For a reformed bad boy...or maybe a reformed Darcy...or maybe a reformed Rochester...Gregor is a more than decent addition!  

Joseph of Old and His Partners

The Bible states that Joseph in Genesis married Asenath daughter of Potipher. This Potipher is not Joseph's first master but rather a priest in Egypt. Nevertheless, various writers have paired Joseph with Potipher's daughter--like Snow White and her wicked stepmother, Asenath and Potipher's wife are in competition for Joseph. 

At least one version puts Joseph with Potipher's wife--after Potipher dies, of course, and she has undergone various trials. 

From The Torah.com which tells

 the story of Joseph and Asenath.

There's a great many possibilities, in fact, since Joseph is the original guy-who-pulled-himself-up-by-his-ability-to-interpret-and-plan. A potential father-in-law could be supportive or cautious. 

However, the relationship, no matter how romantic, will always pale in the face of the more powerful and important relationships: Joseph and his brothers. The wife might inspire Joseph; she might witness the events. But it's hard to see any inherent drama in the relationship--

Which hasn't stop writers from trying!  

 

Translation by Eugene Woodbury Available

Eugene completed a number of translations, most notably translations of Twelve Kingdoms novels. He understood that a translation is itself an art--not something that can be left to a machine. A translation needs to capture the tone and pacing of an original--as well as its allusions, even jokes!

In the past few years, he completed translations of Ranpo Edogawa's Boy Detectives Club books.

The first translation he made, The Space Alien, is now available on his blog.

The year is 1953. The Korean War is winding down. The Cold War is heating up. In 1952, the United States tested the first hydrogen bomb. In 1954, Godzilla will stomp onto the world stage. UFOs are appearing all over the world. And in Ranpo Edogawa’s latest young adult novel, five flying saucers zoom across the skies of Tokyo.

A day after that alarming incident, a woodsman stumbles out of the forest to report the landing of an alien spacecraft in the mountains southwest of Tokyo. A month later, Ichiro Hirano’s neighbor goes missing. He then reappears as abruptly as he vanished, claiming he was kidnapped by a mysterious winged lizard creature—

The same lizard creature that is now stalking the pretty and talented sister of Ichiro’s best friend. What in the world is going on? What do the aliens want? These are the kind of questions that only master sleuth Kogoro Akechi and the Boy Detectives Club can hope to answer.

Bromance, Sister Style: Brenda and Captain Raydor

Brenda and Captain Raydor (Sharon) meet in The Closer. They are frenemies since Captain Raydor works in Internal Affairs and takes issue with many of Brenda's actions. The two women acknowledge, quite frankly, that they don't like each other. 

However, Captain Raydor has the objectivity to put forward Brenda for the position of police chief or commissioner. She admires Brenda even if they are not best buddies. She later protects Brenda or, rather, gets Brenda to protect herself during a lawsuit. 

In a very cute moment in Season 6, Brenda's mother refers to Sharon, Captain Raydor, as Brenda's friend. Captain Raydor treats the moment as the "treat" or present that it is. To Will Pope, she repeats, "My friend Brenda."  

It's a great example of a relationship that avoids the "all women must cry at Beaches" label on female friendships--it has all the down-to-earth loyalty and intelligence and job-focus of male chivalrous relationships.  

Quite appropriately, Brenda and Sharon are sometimes "shipped"!