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Monday, February 10, 2014

Monday Discussion: Love is in the Air

Valentine’s Day is on Friday, so it is time to think about couples in literature. [Like you didn’t know this was coming today.]

Couples appear everywhere, and not just in romance stories.  In fact, I as I was thinking of my favorite couples, a few non-romantic ones came to mind.  So don’t go using that you are anti-love as an excuse not to participate here.

I’ll go first.

One of the sweetest couples I have ever read in a novel is Oskar and his Grandfather in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Both are so defeated and heartbroken, but they come together on an absurd and impossible quest that allows them both to heal [a bit] but more importantly, mend their broken hearts by loving each other.

Two of my favorite books also have couples who, despite great odds, find true love, James, the Giant and Peggy, the librarian in The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken and Henry and Claire in The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Finally, I would like to mention the touching love story between Jake and Sadie in 11/22/63 by Stephen King and the beautiful love between Aomame and Tengo that drives the crazy plot in 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.

Now its your turn. Share the love today and let me know about some of your favorite couples in literature.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

2 comments:

John BPL RA said...

This is obvious and classic but my favorite is still Romeo and Juliet.

bplTeensTara said...

Alexia Tarabotti and Lord Conall Maccon from Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series are one of my all-time favorite couples. He's a werewolf, while she is soulless and has the ability to negate supernatural power.

I also recently read _Libriomancer_ by Jim C. Hines and fell in love with the character, Lena Greenwood. Lena, unfortunately, was at the apex of a love triangle. However, she came to what I believe is a wholly reasonable solution and decided to explore and act upon her love for both Nidhi Shah and Isaac Vainio (after discussing it with both of them, of course). Polyamory is not terribly common in fiction, and it was super refreshing and kind of exciting to see it there.