Passive Heroines: Pamela

Pamela by Samuel Richardson contains a great passive heroine/narrator.

Even at the time of publication, critics argued that Richardson's heroine was too passive. Why didn't she simply remove herself from Mr. B's house? (The critics weren't upset about her staying for feminist reasons; they were upset because Pamela didn't behave like a "good" servant.)

However, what even critics like Fielding failed to appreciate was how limited Pamela's options truly were. In the eighteenth century, female servants were supposed to be servile and impoverished or sluts (and impoverished).

Pamela doesn't want to be servile, impoverished, or a slut. Her constant calculation of expenses and belongings isn't manipulative; it is about survival. After all, this is the age of no credit cards, and no welfare where debts could land a person in jail.

But the thing that makes Pamela great is not the heroine's lack of options. Her lack of options is a given. What makes Pamela great is the heroine's wit and willingness to defend what she perceives as her core personality.

One of the difficulties with the book Pamela is how much of the wit is lost in the lecturing. But Richardson was a truly masterful writer. However much he loves to preach, he can't keep Pamela's character from creeping through--and what creeps through is consistent. Behind all the verbiage is a powerful voice that will not be shut up, NOT because Pamela is particularly aggressive (although she is far more assertive than she paints herself) but because her voice comes across as genuine and presents an intelligent, interesting, and passionately held point-of-view.

The genuineness of the voice, to me, is what makes the difference between good passive heroine fiction and bad passive heroine fiction. It isn't about a heroine who tells people off (which too many romance writers, unfortunately, assume). It's about letting the reader into the heroine's head, letting the heroine speak, letting us see her internal conflicts. And if she is witty about it--all the better. 

I am discussing Pamela in part because modern so-called well-rounded and edgy heroines often strike me as rather dull. They evince no more control over the world than Pamela BUT they say all the right things. They react in the ways we expect. Take away the onslaught of this-happened-then-this-then-this, and there's no personality there. 

Below is a list of well-written novels where the heroine is unable to control her circumstances due to conditions and/or personality (i.e. for part of the book, she is a victim), yet she manages to endear herself to the reader and make a life for herself because she has substance:

• Celine by Brock Cole
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• Persuasion by Jane Austen
• Wyrms by Orson Scott Card
• Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Beauty by Robin McKinley
• Deerskin by Robin McKinley
• Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
• My Happy Marriage by Akumi Agitogi 

One-Sided Enemies: Gilbert & Anne

On Votaries, I discuss Anne from Anne of Green Gables. 

This repost is about Gilbert & Anne, the couple.

***

Gilbert & Anne fall under the "Frenemies to Friends or Lovers" category, but in fact, most of the eneminess is on Anne's side.

The one-sided nature of "frenemies" is actually quite common. Darcy falls for Elizabeth once he gets to know her as something more than an abstract member of a dance he was forced to attend. Most of the enemy behavior in Avatar: The Last Airbender comes from Zuko rather than Aang. Rochester in Jane Eyre acts like a frenemy because he doesn't know what else to do. 

The distinction matters because frankly, I've always found it difficult to believe that strident enemies can find common ground. Truly negative behavior isn't something a lover, at least, should intelligently ignore. One doesn't walk back into a situation where one can be damaged or frightened.

Zuko can be believably folded into the group because Aang never bore him animosity, leaving openings for Zuko to actually return to his baseline personality rather than the angry guy he is trying to be. 

Likewise, Gilbert is enamored with Anne from the beginning. In the series, at least, he literally tries to "pull her pigtails." He is less sophisticated than Rochester but pretty much operating out of the same ballpark. 

Jonathan Crombie, who sadly died in 2015, gives Gilbert a perfect combination of light teasing and romantic yearning. He always wants to be close to Anne.

Jane & Tarzan: Instinctive Couple

Tarzan: The Ape Man (1932) starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan is a good reminder that the Hays Code didn't come into being until 1934. Pre-Code Hollywood was quite provocative and steamy and fairly unfettered, putting paid to the (irritating) assumption that the mores of a culture only work in one direction. (This assumption is why modern-day Progressives can go on believing that they aren't thorough Victorians.)  

Tarzan and His Mate (1934) slipped by (barely and some stuff was cut). By the time Hollywood reached Tarzan Escapes (1936) and Tarzan Finds a Son (1939), weird anti-body attitudes were in greater play. The last movie gives Tarzan and Jane a non-biological child (and O'Sullivan was pregnant at the time!). Because, you know, biological bodies having biological needs and actually accomplishing biological ends based on things like chromosomes and biological sex is soooo shocking!

Back to Tarzan (1932): Johnny Weissmuller, Olympic gold medalist (swimming), is frankly hot stuff, even now-a-days (what constitutes "good-looking" doesn't change all that much but what gets promoted does). Despite Maureen O'Sullivan's penchant for screaming, Weissmuller's Tarzan wisely takes her body language more seriously than her demeanor. She is very tactile, handling his bare legs and arms and chest without any maidenly qualms. She's more pissed (and at one point legitimately scared) than offended. O'Sullivan's unapologetic physical affection continues unabated through the initial films.

Johnny Weissmuller succeeds in large part because he has the innocence of George of the Jungle (Brendan Fraser) though he forgoes the smirk at the camera. As Taliaferro points out in his biography of Edgar Rice Burroughs, "Americans...viewed Johnny Weissmuller as the least inhibited man alive...Weissmuller...was clean-limbed in every sense. He gave the impression that he could have sold Bibles door to door wearing nothing but a G-string. Like Adam himself, he was naturally ideal and ideally natural. There was no hint of either embarrassment or braggadocio in his comportment." 

In fact, most amusingly, Weissmuller's Tarzan initially treats O'Sullivan's Jane with the good-natured curiosity of a teenage boy towards the new kid. At one point, he takes her handkerchief and tears it to pieces in sheer "hey, look, it rips!" adolescent mindlessness. Stick him in Toy Story and he is innocently blowing up GI Joes and burning ants (and showing off to the kid next door). 

This is Rousseauian innocence, not nature's innocence. Tarzan is surrounded by apes. Apes have sex. Not exactly a mystery. 

In terms of the primal relationship, Jane's screeching in the first movie gets irritating, but her pluck--which Maureen O'Sullivan captures exceedingly well--is refreshing. When she's allowed, she lets her voice dip and go husky.

Interestingly enough, from a feminist Rousseauian point of view, one gets the impression (especially in the second film) that her sudden adoption of helplessness and swooning fear is a cultural instinct, not an inherent one (and there might be some truth in that). As soon as the protective men disappear, she demonstrates that she is fully capable of outsmarting the lions on her own. 

And Tarzan never seems to assume that she can't--he rescues her because he loves her, not because she is lacking in self-reliance.

She also increasingly loses her clothes throughout the first movie. It's the hippie version of Bruce Wayne in Die Hard: her hat, then her shoes, then half her dress...

Clean porn. 

Well, that, and a National Geographic-like (and somewhat exhausting) medley of nature images (if the studio is going to pay for the stuff...). And chimpanzees. People just love their chimpanzees. 

The elephants are fairly impressive as well. 

Defending the Indefensible Relationship: Austen's Mrs. Clay & Mr. Elliot; Richardson's Mr. B & Pamela

On Votaries, I discuss unliked characters who end up with their own books. 

Unliked relationships are a little less likely to be defended. P.D. James did defend Withers in her Death at Pemberley but not because his relationship with Lydia had substantially altered. 

I defend two classic relationships, one negative in the original text; one negative according to later critics.

In Persuadable, Mrs. Clay pursues and married Mr. Elliot. I basically make them low-key grifters who recognize each other's nature. They are attracted to each other, mostly because the people around them are so comparatively boring. 

Interestingly enough, although Jane Austen quite often ruthlessly goes after opportunists, she lets Mrs. Clay do whatever Mrs. Clay does. There's an entirely unspoken acknowledgement that women who marry for money or position or protection are, in fact, saving their skins. She treats Charlotte from Pride & Prejudice coldly but with understanding. 

The second relationship is Mr. B and Pamela in Mr. B Speaks! When Samuel Richardson's book was published, this couple was...think Brad & Jennifer, Taylor & Burton, the Twilight stuff. HUGE. Real churches rang real bells in celebration of the marriage. Sure, Henry Fielding mocked Pamela with Shamela, but most people were totally on-board. Mr. B and Pamelay WERE the eighteenth century's favorite couple.

Now-a-days, we look askance. Mr. B appears to stalk Pamela; he kidnaps her, harasses her, nearly (but doesn't) rape her, plans to fool her with a fake clergyman, and then, finally, marries her. 

However, I think that Richardson is a great example of a guy who thought he was writing one book but got too interested in something else. He gets too interested in the debate/repartee between Mr. B and Pamela. 

Those conversations, when shorn of their eighteenth century verbiage, strike me as something one hears on The Thin Man. 

So I set out to explain and justify that relationship. 

(Persuadable & Mr. B Speaks! will be republished by Aurora & Bob Press in 2025.)

What is Tauriel Heading Towards? Beorn, Possibly--or Bard

I mention on Votaries that Jackson really needed to pay off Tauriel in The Hobbit trilogy. The issue isn't about romance. It's about storytelling. 

Set something up--pay something off.

I suggested a few pay-offs (I took keeping Kili alive off the table, though that was certainly a possible pay-off!):

• She goes to Moria with Balin to honor Kili's memory. 
• She takes Kili's stone back to his mum. 
• She carries Kili's stone with her to the Undying Lands.
• She marries Beorn. 
• She marries Bard since they have both lost someone and she gets along with his kids. She becomes the de facto queen of Dale.

I go back and forth between Tauriel marrying Bard (hey, she's a great role model for his kids!) and Tauriel marrying Beorn, the latter in part because the novels never explain where all his Beornings came from. 

The Beornings are mentioned quite often in The Lord of the Rings novels. They are either a group that gathered around Beorn or they are his descendants. They are largely responsible for keeping passes open between East Middle Earth and West Middle Earth. Bilbo's ability (in the books) to visit the Lonely Mountain before he settles in Rivendell is due to the Beornings. 

And yet, in The Hobbit, the book, Beorn's wife is unmentioned. In Jackson's movies, she is dead.

Why not Tauriel as the co-founder of a dynasty? She's fierce!

And she's looking for something. As John Howe states about Kili and Tauriel:

 

The relationship between Tauriel and Kili is like one of those love stories where people think they are falling in love when, in fact, they are actually falling out of love with everything else around them, and the only sympathetic face is someone who they would never choose in any other circumstances...

 

Thranduil's sudden about-face at the end of the trilogy--his statement to Tauriel, "[It hurts so much] because it was real"--is not only not enough of a pay-off, it utterly misses the point. 

Tauriel and Kili's relationship was never about whether they REALLY loved each other or, for that matter, about family support. It was about the answers they found in each other that were lacking in their own cultures. "Love" was about what the other person had to offer (in a positive sense, not in a "you have to make up for my deficiencies" sense). 

Tauriel is looking for a purpose. "I'm going to save him" is an epiphany moment for her, a realization that she can expand beyond her slated role. 

I think Beorn is about as outside what she is used to as a person can get. He is powerful in his own right. An protector of the human dwellers in his area. A wilderness supporter (give the guy a state park!). A wise man. Fair in his dealings. A shapeshifter. A man with a yearning for family. 

I think Tauriel would find a home and a purpose with him. 

She could also help keep Sauron's forces at bay alongside Bard's grandson in The Lord of the Rings. 

Lots of possibilities!

 

A-Z Romance! Drake

I picked up Olivia Drake's The Duke I Once Knew. Although I found the main character engaging, and I appreciated her desire to head out on her own, I found the premise somewhat unappealing:

She goes to work as a governess for the sister of a man with whom she lost contact years earlier. They blame each other for the ceased contact, and she never wants to see him again!

Yet she goes to work for his sister...

Right.

I think Elizabeth Bennet visiting Pemberley is allowable because (1) it is one day; (2) she is honestly curious about Darcy. She is shocked to encounter Darcy but accepts his appearance as an acceptable possibility. They use the encounter to reach a friendly peace, before Darcy determines to court her again.

But going to stay on an estate owned by a man whom one supposedly loathes because he broke one's heart--with the excuse that he won't ever visit--makes me roll my eyes. Even though the main character has limited options and is afraid her family will change her mind if she doesn't move rapidly (one of her more believable motivations), she does have other options.

Take Jane Eyre:

Jane spends eight years at Lowood as a student where she "had the means of an excellent education" and two as a teacher. However, once Miss Temple leaves, she finds she is tired of the "uniform" life.

I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus: that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space: “Then,” I cried, half desperate, “grant me at least a new servitude!”

So she places an advertisement in the paper.

"A young lady accustomed to tuition is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private family where the children are under fourteen. She is qualified to teach the usual branches of a good English education, together with French, Drawing, and Music.”

She only receives one reply--from Mrs. Fairfax--but here is a young lady at the age of eighteen showing more careful thought and activity about her future than a character who is near thirty. She later uses her education to help at St. Rivers' school. 

I don't much care for female characters who treat every encounter as an opportunity to argue; however, I do rather like them to use their heads. I don't care for heroines who are maneuvered into situations they would never have brought upon themselves: oh, my, how did that happen? 

Elizabeth and Jane comes across as more modern than some contemporarily written historical characters.  

The issue of lovers who previously fell out beginning over--see Austen's Persuasion--will crop up again.

Great Epiphany: The Fall at Lyme

Charlotte Bronte was notoriously at odds with Austen. I personally don't feel I must choose between the two. I also consider that they have more in common with each other than many other authors, coming out of similar traditions and promoting similar types of heroines. 

However, it is true that Bronte was far more likely than Austen to use bold and dramatic moments to highlight a character's personal epiphany: a tree being struck by lightening; near death while running away from a confusing situation; a possibly supernatural whisper from a lover; a jump from a roof. 

Austen relied on somewhat quieter moments: letters, a face-to-face encounter at a ball; a sister's illness; a fall at Lyme...

In Persuasion, Louisa's fall at Lyme changes the entire momentum of the story. The 1995 film does a good job portraying this event. In some of the movies, it is far too quick and Wentworth's culpability is passed over. But the 1995 film demonstrates how Louisa's waywardness--that Wentworth has encouraged--leads to profoundly negative repercussions.

I think that too many script writers feel, secretly, that Louisa is in right--that Louisa's impetuous nature is the way to go about things, that Anne must learn to be like Louisa, not the other way around.

But as the 1995 film illustrates, impulse (what Dorothy Sayers in Gaudy Night calls, "The Doctrine of Snatch") is not a terribly good approach to major life events. Louisa's impulsive leap in Lyme is not an anomaly; rather, it is symptomatic of her philosophy: a ME-GET-THIS-NOW id-approach to the world around her.

In my tribute Persuadable, Mrs. Clay criticizes Anne for not being direct enough with Captain Wentworth, but she also recognizes in Anne, as in herself, the need to tread carefully and consider all angles. A woman's lot is not easy, and poverty ain't fun, and being a poor dead naval officer's wife is even less fun. 

Both Anne and Mrs. Clay would be more than capable of supporting themselves in the modern world--I see Mrs. Clay as a real estate broker and Anne as the person who cleans out people's houses and appraises their antiques--maybe even a forensic accountant!

However, as members of the early nineteenth century, the two women have limited options. They have to maintain positions which will enable them to snag a man while remaining unsullied and respectable. And this position has its own risks (property becomes the husband's; respectability doesn't automatically entail wealth or security).

From this perspective, Anne's wariness at marrying Captain Wentworth seven years earlier and Mrs. Clay's careful assessment of Mr. Elliot's potential become mirrors to each other. 

Captain Wentworth's epiphany at Lyme is (1) he still loves Anne; (2) that however much her restraint in the past upset him, he admires it more than Lydia's impulsiveness.

The following excerpt from Persuadable takes place when Mr. Elliot comes to Camden Place to dine. The incident at Lyme is discussed. 

“I never put down the Elliot name!” Mr. Elliot exclaimed in answer to a querulous remark from Sir Walter. “I have ever boasted of being an Elliot.” (What he had said was, “Thank God I’m an Elliot with sense.” And he’d only mocked Sir Walter to his wife’s friends when his Kellynch cousins were mentioned—which was hardly at all.)

Mrs. Clay’s mouth twitched. Will put down his utensils and gazed at her, bringing the others’ attention to her side of the table.

She said, the twitch utterly wiped out, “Of course you did, Mr. Elliot, for who would not be proud of such a connection?!”

He nearly glared at her except Sir Walter had refocused on him, uttering harrumphs of approval.

Returning to the drawing room, Will said pointedly to Elizabeth, “Your sisters will keep you company this winter?”

“Anne is coming soon with Lady Russell. I don’t know if Mary will visit.” Mary was the youngest sister. “There’s been an accident with one of our in-laws.”

“Mary’s husband’s sister, Louisa, had a bad fall,” Mrs. Clay said softly. “She struck her head, and they are still unsure if she will regain her wits.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “Anne wrote something about it. She was there when it happened.”

Will barely managed to restrain his surprise. His wife Sally had been aggravating in the extreme but when her best friend was killed by a racing carriage, Will had held her while she cried. He hadn’t been so awful a husband that he couldn’t sympathize with unexpected terror and pain.

Elizabeth behaved as though Anne had witnessed a minor brawl at a local fair.

For a moment, Will’s eyes met Mrs. Clay’s. A faint wryness touched the corners of her mouth, then she leaned forward solicitously to ask Sir Walter if he was comfortable.

Will broke in: “Where did this accident occur?”

“In Lyme.”

Will had passed through Lyme on his way from Sidmouth. A collection of pretty women and soldierly-looking men had stayed at Will’s inn. No doubt, the unmarried Elliot daughter had been among them.

I should have introduced myself. I might have met the other unmarried daughter—

Will shrugged mentally. Reintroducing himself to anyone in the family but Sir Walter would have gravely offended the man. He must tread carefully, for Mrs. Clay—patting a pillow for Sir Walter, assuring him that a man of his well-maintained posture deserved a bolster—was a more subtle threat than Will had initially anticipated.

Why Jane and Rochester are a Great Couple

Jane Eyre and Rochester are a great couple!

The reasons may seem obvious: domineering man, seemingly demure young woman with strong opinions; Gothic architecture; horrible relatives; angst-filled backgrounds; fire; passion and so on...

 

However, I suggest that like with fantasy tropes, romance tropes can't simply be thrown into a bag and tossed together. Something else has to be going on to invite reader investment.

 

With Jane and Rochester, the reason is...Jane and Rochester are both kind of weird.

 

How lovable!

 

Jane is skinny and taciturn. She isn't very womanly though she adopts various feminine traits when necessary. She is passionate, which she learned when she was younger to damp down. Like young Victoria, she has an inherent sense of her own worth though she is cautious when faced with excessively confident people. She adores Rochester. She manages him very well.

 

Rochester, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is a beta trapped in an alpha body. He is sensitive, uncertain, self-conscious, intelligent with an off-kilter sense of humor. He has no clue how to woo...anybody. He thinks he despises some people but he probably doesn't really (he wants badly to be liked). He tries to maneuver Jane into confessing, which is frankly a weird thing for a man in his thirties to expect from a young woman of 18ish.

 

They are oddballs. They don't particularly care about the "popular" entertainments of Rochester's class, and Jane is only passingly proficient in those types of things. 

 

At two points--with St. John Rivers and with her inheritance--Jane has the chance to be "socially proper." She gives up both extremes (extreme humility, extreme social standing) for a weird guy with bad eyesight and a bombastic personality. Rochester and Jane have their friends and family and each other. Nothing else matters.

 

In high school, they would be the gal and guy who float between cliques, the ones who don't totally fit anywhere. 

 

But they fit each other! 

Where are the Oddballs? Heyer's Rather Tiresome Heroine Type

In Josephine Tey's To Love and Be Wise, Inspector Grant interviews Liz, the secretary of Lavinia Finch who writes romance novels. Liz confesses that she spends her evenings doing her own writing.

"What do you write--or should I ask?" Grant asks.

"I write innocuous heroines out of my system, that's all."

"Tilda the tweeny with the hare-lip and the homicidal tendencies, as an antidote to Maureen [one of Lavinia's heroines]."

I thought of this quote recently as I finished up Georgette Heyer's romance novels. I had previously read about 1/3rd to a 1/2 of them, and I should state that I am, overall, a fan. However, a certain type of heroine takes over the novels towards the end, and I was heartily sick of that type by the time I finished, enough to wish for a homicidal maniac.

The type might be best described as "nice sorority house leader."

This type of Heyer heroine is commonsensical, entirely devoted to practical matters, level-headed, perhaps a little managing but for everyone's good, a kind of Emma but without Emma's deep flaws (Heyer's heroines never go THAT far) or Emma's acerbic sense of humor. This type of Heyer heroine has a "lively sense of humor" but it is never quite as trenchant or wry as, say, that of Austen's Elizabeth. 

She also seems to have little to no interest in religion, archaeology, writing, history, gardening, or anything else. Rather, she is a social operator. She goes to parties and goes horse-back riding and takes care of various charges dumped on her doorstep and manages a household. 

In truth, she is an entirely decent character type! 

A great deal of my annoyance with the type comes from the pretense that the woman is supposedly fighting society's conventions because she lives independently and hasn't married past the age of twenty-two. 

But the independence is entirely based on an independent income or allowance. And the character never really fights the social milieu, even by the standards of Regency England (seriously). She doesn't decamp to Egypt or start prison reform or marry a footman (Regency women did), and one can't shake the feeling that her creator would consider those things rather tacky. 

Heyer's heroine flouts "convention" by doing the equivalent of posting something "out there" on Twitter but never enough that she leaves the Anglican fold or invests in scientific discoveries or actually has affairs or enters politics (yes, women did enter politics, in their own way, in the Regency Era).

Don't get me wrong: Heyer did create heroines who made lives for themselves. Phoebe's satirical book in Sylvester creates an actual scandal (and she is planning a sequel at the end!) while Venetia deliberately seeks out a fallen woman to achieve her goals. 

But a great many of the latter books seem entirely dependent on "good" women behaving in "good" ways while a bunch of characters pretend those women aren't entirely conventional, based, I suppose, on the way such women occasionally stand up for themselves. (They attend rallies on their college campuses in between hosting society shindigs.)

Malahide's comedic timing softens the

"I'm so popular" stuff

The type reminds me of Ngaoi Marsh's Inspector Alleyn. Marsh was one of a number of writers who were quite condescending and above-it-all about "that poor Dorothy Sayers falling in love with her detective, Wimsey." Marsh prided herself on creating a thoroughly unpretentious detective without any of those, tsk tsk, affectations. 

Except Alleyn is, in essence, a good fraternity boy. Sure, he is humble and self-effacing, but Marsh never lets us forget how much people admire him whilst they are defending his humble, self-effacing self. And he never really crosses any lines. Everyone in Marsh's novels treats him as "oh, my, isn't he something else," but in fact, he would never do anything that would embarrass his creator.

In comparison, Sayers was perfectly willing to have plenty of her characters loathe Wimsey, who is quite flawed and human and does embarrassing things all the time. Sayers knew what it felt like to invite ridicule. 

I like Marsh's mysteries, and I like many of Heyer's romances. But being constantly reminded of the thoroughly tasteful and seemly (yet nonetheless strong-minded) personality of a heroine gets rather irritating after awhile. 

Give me Jane Eyre's utter disdain at high society folks (based on nothing more than her sense of self) or Catherine Morland's penchant for Gothic horrors or Jo's aggressive unhappiness at Amy's behavior. 

Don't ask me to applaud a heroine for checking all the right boxes: knows society's ways, speaks out on the right topics, dresses correctly, attracts envy and liking, lives "alone" (with aunts or siblings), shows compassion, makes fun of the people who deserve it, protects children, does just enough (but not too many) risky things to raise eyebrows, participates in all the same stuff as everyone else. 

Again--perfectly acceptable and usable character type. 

But I prefer the type (and the writing) to be honest. 

Violent Lovers Simon & Jackie: Oh, Who Cares

On Votaries, I discuss Death on the Nile, specifically ways to prevent Jackie and Simon from embarking on their murderous plan. 

Death on the Nile was one of my favorite books as a teen but never, not once, not for an instant, because I thought Jackie and Simon were ill-fated lovers: Oh, if only they could be together... 

In fact, one of my favorite scenes from the book is when Poirot goes to speak to Jackie and she refers to herself fatalistically: That star falls down. 

It wasn't until I saw the 1978 movie (sometime in the '80s) that I realized that I was supposed to feel sorry for them or revel in their all-consuming love or something--at least, according to those readers/producers. 

Really? Wow. I never thought that at all! 

Suchet's version goes pretty far down this road. The movie begins and ends with Simon and Jackie in their "starving artists" attic room. I guess the purpose is to highlight how happy they were before Simon decided he needed money...

I roll my eyes. Grasping, conniving, dissatisfied sociopaths. Simon was always greedy, and Jackie was always too infatuated not to have a higher opinion of herself and walk away.

I've never felt any particular interest in Bonnie and Clyde either. 

Interestingly enough, Branagh's version seems to come closer to Christie's fundamental realism than either of the others. In the confrontation with Simon and Jackie, his outraged and heart-broken Poirot doesn't paint them as star-crossed lovers but as cruel murderers...which they are! And his outrage isn't simply due to his friend's death but to their treatment of Linnet. 

I was disappointed to learn that Branagh's last Christie movie is only loosely based on one of the books--but kudos to him for at least getting Death on the Nile right! 

(I have since seen A Haunting in Venice. It is surprisingly okay. It barely resembles the book.)

Will They Last? Would They Even Get Together? Alverstoke and Frederica

Frederica by Georgette Heyer is an odd book.

In some ways, it is one of her funniest books. She captures young male exuberance like nobody else on record. 

So much so, I ponder if THAT is the book she wanted to write, not a romance (whatever the assigned genre).

The reason? 

Lord Alverstoke ends up with a young woman who is remarkably similar to his sisters whom Alverstoke supposedly doesn't like too much. 

The story opens with Lord Alverstoke turning down his sisters' demands that he present their daughters. However, when Frederica--a very distant relation--shows up to ask the same thing for her sister, he agrees, in part to annoy his sisters, who are forced to acquiesce to the scheme to get what they want. 

Granted, the sisters have plenty of money and are well-able to usher their daughters into society on their own. And Frederica doesn't. Granted, too, it is quite normal for a man to marry a woman who resembles his sisters or his mother. Moreover, Frederica is honest, good-tempered, and rational as well as a good manager. She is quite likable as a character!

Frederica wants a manor house for her sister,

not city suburbia.

But, like Alverstoke's sisters, she pursues goals based on a story/long-term solution she has created in her head and she has a tendency to misread and override her siblings. 

She wants her sister, Charis, settled "comfortably" yet ignores her brother Jessamy's point that Charis is perfectly willing to marry the middle class guy next door. Charis is somewhat lacking intellectually but is quite a good house manager herself and enjoys the attendant jobs. She doesn't want a society match (and ends up falling for a member of high society for reasons entirely disconnected from his status--a man, unfortunately, who will encourage Charis's silly side).

Pastors were seen as cute--but clueless.

Frederica also treats Jessamy's desire to become a pastor with borderline contempt.

At this point, the text betrays the author's perspective. Like Austen, Heyer rarely discusses religion. Unlike Austen, she doesn't seem to have understood it, including why anybody would be interested in it. 

This blind-spot aids in the earlier books since the upper-class blithe indifference to bourgeois, plebeian, religious concerns was part of the aristocratic personality. But as Heyer's books near the Victorian era, the blind-spot becomes somewhat disconcerting. 

In fairness, Heyer does a fine job with Jessamy's sixteen-year-old seesawing from moralistic yearnings/worries to "fit to burst" activities (all that energy cooped up in a study!). 

Still, Frederica's dismissal seems a trifle shallow. 

In the end, Alverstoke falling for Frederica comes off as a bit forced--and I can't escape the impression that Heyer felt the same. She resorts to far more "telling" (from Alverstoke's point of view) than in her other books. Readers are told that Alverstoke is surprised by how taken he is with Frederica, how he wishes to keep her from any kind of suffering. Readers are told that Alverstoke is in love. 

Eh...

I think that Heyer was truly telling a story about a man who becomes a guardian to two ADHD young men--and the romance got thrown in to make the book a romance. 

My fan fiction solution to follow. 

Will the Couple Last? Jane Eyre and Rochester

Not my favorite version but

Welles is classic!

Not all romances necessarily promise a HEA (Happily Ever After)--but a great many of them do. And such an ending can be satisfying in its own right. But it can fall a bit flat if the readers or viewers doubt the relationship has the ballast to keep going. 

Worse, if the couple's compatibility has been told, not shown, the readers/viewers may wonder, "Uh, now that all the danger and emotional reunions are past, will the couple be able to pay rent, do laundry, take care of the dog, and still get along?"

A related question is, "Do they actually even like each other?"

These posts will attempt to answer the "will they last" question for a variety of couples, from book couples to television couples, from classic couples to more recent couples. 

A classic couple starts the series. Jane Eyre and Rochester exemplify many of the qualities that assure readers, "Yes, the couple will get over the intense emotional stuff and continue to like each other and function well together: Yeah, they actually fit...the weirdos." 

1. They enjoy each other's company. 

I tend to define good relationships by dialog, the ability to exchange views. However, members of a good couple don't have to be great conversationalists. They simply need to find it easy to be around each other. As they discuss philosophy and history--or vacations and childcare--they speak a similar language.

Jane and Rochester, of course, immediately spark during conversations. Jane is happy enough with her new position. When Rochester shows up, however, she comes to life intellectually and emotionally. Ah, someone on my wavelength! Initially, the two may come across as combative. It would be more precise to say that they are discovering each other conversational gambits. Once that initial trial period ends, conversations come easier. 

2. They miss each other. 

Jane Eyre delivers one of the most romantic passages in all literature--yet it would fall flat if the ending of the novel didn't bear out the claims. Jane and Rochester will indeed always find their way back to other. 

3. They resolve arguments without emotional blackmail or disdain.  

Rochester is too eager for affection and Jane too rational for such negative approaches to work. It is St. John Rivers who tries to manipulate Jane into feeling an obligation to him, not Rochester. And Jane runs from him to Rochester. 

4. The reader/viewer can picture them together in the future. 

Some of the couples for "Will the Couple Last?" will fail precisely because they appear to spend their lives circling their courtship. They are enamored with the romance of "together/not together/together/not together" and "the wedding/the excitement/other people's applause." They seem entirely unprepared to do anything that isn't paid for or manufactured for them by other people. 

Jane and Rochester, however, I can see creating functional lives together well into the future.

Better in Fiction Than In Real Life: The Mean and Ruthless Lover Who Isn't Much

The variation on the mean lover is the lover who thinks, "I'm mean and ruthless" but isn't much. 

Rochester from Jane Eyre is an excellent example. Disillusioned as a young man--and with a mad wife tucked away in the attic--he adopts a kind of "look how far I've fallen" attitude. 

In truth, he is a beta in an alpha body struggling to get out--that is, he actually wants a tough lady who will take him in hand, understand him, and calm his anxieties.

Jane is that lady, but she meets Rochester when she is young and still finding her feet. She naturally needs a bit of time to figure out that while Rochester appears to be an alpha who wants to be in charge, he is actually a self-conscious older dude who desires her continual reassurance. Hence, the scene where he chases after her when she leaves the drawing room. Why didn't she stay and talk to me? Why didn't she stay and make me feel better about all the weird people in my house? (People that he invited, by the way--but nobody said self-conscious old dudes make sense.)

Once the reader (and Jane) grasp the man's basic personality, all Rochester's behavior falls into place. Not a masterful lord of the manor but a rather large golden retriever.

Likewise, Kiyoi Sou in My Beautiful Man is somewhat unnerving since he appears  quite cruel to the worshiping Hira Kazunari. However, the similarity to Rochester is striking. Kiyoi Sou is far less in charge than he appears and has a far different view of himself than outsiders do. He is continually puzzled that Hira doesn't act on his supposed loving feelings and believes--with some truth--that Hira's worship is actually more unfair and even more domineering than Kiyoi's behavior: Hira has imposed on Kiyoi a smothering "story" that Kiyoi rejects in favor of the "real me." The series delivers fascinating insights into the idea that the "submissive" may actually be calling the shots.

The problem with this archetype, of course, is that a whole lot of drama and emotional exhaustion must be expended before the "oh, so not really mean" layer is revealed. In real life, people really should just be polite.

A more relaxing example, in reverse, is Castle. The affable Castle thinks he is affable (and "ruggedly handsome") and he is mostly right. But he has the capacity for fierce protectiveness and even meanness. Like Colombo losing his temper, the meanness comes out so rarely, its appearance makes an impression.

Sentiment in the Nineteenth Century (and Now): Bram Stoker and Others

My literature class this spring read Dracula. Consequently, I read Something in the Blood by David J. Skal (the beginning of the book is better than the end). 

As with Cary Grant, there is endless speculation about Bram Stoker's sexuality. He married and had a kid. He also spent his entire adult life in the (passionate) service of Henry Irving. 

Bram Stoker was a romantic, workaholic civil servant who found his outlet mostly as Irving's theater manager. There is no indication that he was taken advantage of, that he didn't use Irving as much as Irving used him; Stoker would likely have worked himself to death for any boss/cause that he admired (Irving did die first). 

Skal acknowledges Stoker's loyal-to-the-end personality. He also acknowledges that sexuality in Victorian/Edwardian England was more stigmatized in some ways (especially, legally) than it is now but far more fluid in other ways. Modern, progressive humans have simply moved the stigmas around.

My position is that it is impossible to understand late nineteenth century men and woman unless one understands the power of sentiment. 

In the nineteenth century, the bawdy physicality of Austen's generation and the pre-Freudian dark and dirty angst of Bronte's generation had given way--as increasingly modernized cultures tend to do--to an abstracted physical sexuality. 

Austen would have rolled her eyes. Bronte would have written, well, Jane Eyre. 

Even Walt Whitman, of the same time period as Stoker and Wilde and the rest, would have balked somewhat. 

But upperclass Irish and English women and men pushed these emotions into deconstructed expressions, in the same way that current academic theories abstract biology, divorcing it from reality. The two are cousins under the skin: the same approach (possibly for the same reasons) with equally specialized vocabulary.

Oscar Wilde's libel suit (possibly the most self-destructive legal act ever committed by a human being) while he was having sex with young male prostitutes is a great example of a smart-dumb person abstracting the physical nature of his acts into something that bore almost no resemblance to the reality.

The sentimental language of the time is an expression of that abstraction: "Soul of my soul at the center of my world, I embrace you as kin to my self and the harbinger of my will. You collect and mirror my thoughts and my affection in your every breath" could be aimed at men or women by men or women. And it wasn't sexual! Oh, no, it wasn't! (Except, of course, it was.) 

Hence, Claudia Nelson's point, based on extensive research, in Family Ties in Victorian England, that a widowed man marrying his wife's sister alarmed Victorians because it moved the supposedly platonic language/connection between two people designated as brother and sister into the sexual realm (and potentially uncovered a great many things Victorians would rather sublimate the dickens out of instead). 

Physical love/experiences regulated by quasi-spiritual/remote language will sound familiar. To the Victorians and Edwardians, it was so familiar, its use would have been automatic and unthinking.