Author’s note: Some of you may find this article boring – well, read on my friends. Who knows, I may have football scores or cricketing averages or even a non-veg joke. Who knows. As Forrest Gump said, “Life is like a box of chocolates….”
He takes her hand in his and looks into her eyes with an intensity that could burn one’s soul. She can see the love burning in his gaze and cannot hold back the love that is in her heart. “I love you”, she says, “I love you so much. More than the air I am breathing, more than my own self”. He smiles at her and says, “I know. I love you too.” And together they hug, secure in the knowledge that they will always have their love for each other to keep them warm during cold dreary nights and a love that will grow strong with each passing season. Together at last.
Yes, romantic fiction is absolutely that corny. You may think that I copied this stuff out of a book. No – I didn’t have to. I’ve been reading romantic fiction since I was fifteen. I’ve been at it for so long that I can sneeze this stuff out in my sleep. So no, I did not have to refer to a novel to write the above lines. Most romantic fiction novels end in a similar vein. My husband often wonders how I can read romantic fiction. There is a wafer thin plot in most instances. Girl meets boy, they marry and live happily ever after. There truly is no mystery about the final outcome – nah, they always marry in the end. And so his question, how can one read these books when one already knows how the end will pan out. He has a valid point but then how does a film like ‘Titanic’ become a blockbuster. It is not the end but how we get to the end that matters. To quote from a more recent example, Johnny Gaddar, the film all my friends are raving about. I personally thought the film was ok but according to a few of my friends, my husband included this is the best film ever. But getting back to my point, right at the beginning of the film, we see how the film will end but we still watch the movie to see how the story gets there.
A very wise man once said, happiness is found not at the end of the road but along the road. Similarly, no matter how predictable the end is, its how the main protagonists get to that end that matters. The plots may be wafer thin or extremely meandering but the living breathing characters that the authors conjure up are worth the read. I’m always fascinated by the male protagonists – they have such awesome qualities. They always are TDH (Please tell me you know what that acronym stands for. If not, where have you been all this time, Macha? TDH stands for Tall, Dark and Handsome), have always managed to accumulate wealth against all odds, are brilliant at everything they do, and yet are dumb enough to make some stupendous errors in judgment – all to make the plot move forward.
The ending may be the same in every novel, but there are some other aspects that do change. The settings are slightly different. So romantic fiction can be divided into three broad categories in terms of time period, Contemporary, Victorian and Historical. In the contemporary novels, the female protagonist usually has a poultry farm or a book shop or an inn in a God forsaken village or other such “no prayer in the world of making any money” venture. The female in these novels at least has a backbone and so one can identify more with them. We still have some doormats that adorn these books but I am pleased to note that they are far and few in between. For the most part the female leads are extremely career oriented. Unfortunately for them, the male protagonist just happens to be richer and more successful. Oh well, who can complain about a rich dude who also wears his heart on his sleeve. Not me!
Historical romance is usually the pre Victorian setting – so way before the women’s suffragette movement. The women here may still have a backbone but they have to be as devious and manipulative as Machiavelli himself to get the story moving. These books are full of historical facts and historical figures. If you heard of Castle Roslyn when the Da Vinci Code came out, you are way behind then. Most of my knowledge of English and Scottish history has been gleaned from these historical romances.
Victorian novels are my favorite but that is not to say that some of the most annoying novels also come from this category. All the Barbara Cartland novels could give you a major headache. And the heroines of her novels are so badly typecast that they almost grate on your nerves. The Barbara Cartland heroines are true damsels in distress and most of them are also unfortunate enough to have an annoying proclivity towards stuttering by the end of the novel. The final few pages of all BC(Short for Barbara Cartland) novels were all full of dots. “I…………………..…..love…………………………….you”, stutters the female protagonist to the male protagonist with utmost regularity in every BC book. I…..think….I’ve…..just……….about……had…….it…..with…..this……book……..!!!! is my final stuttering thought when I’m done with a BC novel.
I recently found one of the BC novels actually made into a movie – it is titled “The Devious Duke”, I think. Reading a BC novel is painful enough without having to sit through a one hour feature based on the book. I found it at the West Windsor Library while I was perusing the Video Cassette bin during their many annual sales. The story was non existent and heroine was grating to say the least and then we come to the hero. Guess who played the devious Duke – none other than Hugh Grant. Can you imagine! The same guy who so brilliantly played the male lead in Notting Hill. The same very guy. Here he was supposed to be tall and muscular and he definitely did not fit the bill. Oh well, I guess he got very desperate to have agreed to the role.
I was very happy with Enid Blyton’s and Three Investigators till I was fourteen or fifteen. Then one day I had my first crush and that was when romantic fiction made sense. Of course in India (at least at that time), we had the nonsensical Mills and Boon novels. A more pathetic story line I have yet to read. But they were very popular then. Even within M&B’s you had the Doctor Nurse romance category, the secretary-boss romance category etc etc. I do remember one M&B that I enjoyed. I remember the name even after all these years – “The Duke wore jeans”. But for the most part they really were a ridiculous excuse of a book.
I’ve been blessed to have made a love match. And there are days when I often wonder how come my hero never does what the heroes in the books do? If I sneeze, he’d make sure to get away from all the germs instead of handing me a tissue and asking me if I were ok. If I were to get a little emotional and dissolve into tears (yes I suffer from that malady), the hero form the romance novel would hold me tight and wait till I finished crying and following that he would hunt down a tissue to wipe my tears away. My husband on the other hand avoids me like the plague when I turn into a watering tap. And then I realize, the romance novel hero is a figment of the “female” author’s imagination. He has all the qualities that a female would love for a man to have. They really don’t exist except in someone’s imagination. That’s why it is called fiction I guess.
But, by the same token, the men in our lives ain’t so bad. They pick up the slack when necessary. They watch the kids when the girls go out and play. They still take care of the garbage. And they will allow themselves to be dragged to watch a movie they don’t want to – all for us women. They cook for us, sometimes clean up for us and control that urge to burp/fart if need be. They may have their faults and all, but they still very much are our heroes.
Remington Steele (season one) once said, “What is the point of a large tree falling to the ground in an isolated forest with no one nearby to hear the noise. The loud noise is almost like it never happened.” I think that is what this marriage and love business is all about. Bearing witness to the other person’s life. Caring enough to bear witness.
A very philosophical Pillu.
