More thoughts on romance (inspired by The Sharing Knife/Bujold)

[cahn]

I realized something while reading TSK, which is that I don't like the way Bujold does romance when she's consciously thinking about romance.

What really draws me in, with romance, is-- part of falling in love, really getting love right, is seeing oneself differently. Realizing one might have to be a different person for the beloved. Learning to live with the faults of the beloved, and changing yourself to be the person that can live with your beloved.

The romances I love are all like that. Pride and Prejudice. Perilous Gard. Gaudy Night/Busman's Honeymoon. A Civil Campaign, except for the part where Miles' romance gets short-circuited at the end (which kind of irks me, but whatever). Possession (well, many styles of love are explored... one major one of which is an exploration of what happens when change/compromise does not occur).

The romance in TSK, in contrast, is relatively a bunch of infatuated sighs of "oh, isn't X wonderful?" Which is fine, and certainly a necessary part of romance, but if I want to see that I can just, you know, walk down the hallway and find someone who is engaged. Or read my journal entries about D :) Or, in fact, my journal entries about all my ex-boyfriends, all of whom have many fine and worthy qualities, though not enough-- and not well enough matched to mine, or at least we were unwilling to match them-- to keep us for a lifetime, or even for more than a couple of years. And that's the kicker: just reading about infatuation is rather unconvincing to me. If the author has not sufficiently shown us how the characters are doing the work-- and it can be work, albeit fun work-- of matching themselves together, well, I don't see any reason that I should expect the romance to last any longer than, you know, those of the growing number of people I know who are starting to get divorces.

Now, I'm not saying I don't enjoy the part of romance where the lovers are finding out all sorts of new and lovely things about each other. I really do like that, and I had great fun reading TSK-- and, because Bujold really is a consummate craftsman, it's not quite as cut-and-dried as I've implied here. But... I don't keep going back to it, the way I do to the deeper treatment of the books mentioned above.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/aseop_/]

But I like gooey romance! And remember, the romance does not end with their marriage. I expect that future books, and we have several more coming, will present further challenges to their relationship. Since their relationship is such an important part of the story, I doubt that it is over yet. It makes sense that the first book is about the infatuation and falling in love, there's plenty of time for troubles later.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point, and one I should have thought about more-- that I am probably being at least somewhat unnecessarily harsh because of the whole I've-only-read-half-the-book (or a quarter, I guess-- isn't it two duologies?) thing, and that more relationship development may be coming later. Indeed, it's possible I may have played right into Bujold's hands and that the entire next book will be an examination on what comes after infatuation.

On the other hand, my view is also somewhat affected by Diplomatic Immunity, which is kind of this "okay, now we're married and now we will have no internal issues, only external ones" sort of thing. On the third hand (foot?), Barrayar is the sort of insightful look of marriage (Aral/Cordelia, Kou/Drou) that comes as a natural sort of sequel to Shards of Honor.

[http://users.livejournal.com/aseop_/]

I know many fans have issues with Diplomatic Immunity. I agree that just because you're married doesn't mean everything is just ducky. Barrayar does show some of the tensions that can happen in a marriage, certainly the Chalion books have emphasized courtship, and tend to end with the assumption that at least in terms of relationships, everything is happy ever after. Other than Aral and Cordelia I can't think of any long marriages that we've seen in Bujolds work. So here's hoping that we get some more realistic portrayals of marrital difficulties.

And yes, it's looking like it will be a 4 book series, so they'll be plenty more adventures.