Monday, September 28, 2009

Islands in the stream

Every now and then you come across pairings that just work, like Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, Marieke Hardy and Bob Ellis, and Nick Cave and me. There's something so right about these couplings that it's hard to imagine a world without them (especially after you've worked so hard to conjure them up).

So it is with some of the Western world's greatest love stories: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Iseult, and Queen Elizabeth and her corgis.

But if we split the pairs and consider each individual separately, what do we have? A metrosexual man-boy, a whiny tween, a lad who doesn't know when to let go, a chick whose propensity to drink leads her to all sorts of trouble, and Queen Elizabeth and her corgis (I can't make it any worse than it already is).

So considered together the partners work, but if we separate the blissful pairings it's like waking up the morning after.

But what of the stories where you fall in love with one half of the pair (say, hypothetically, the dashing, serious-browed poet-scholar Randolph Henry Ash in A.S. Byatt's Possession) yet find the large-toothed, sharp-nosed heroine (say the poetess Christabel Lamotte in the very same Possession) hard to take?

What if you think, hypothetically, that you'd be a better match for Randolph Henry Ash than Christabel Lamotte?

Is it wrong to object to a fictional pairing? Is it insensitive to prefer one spunky fictional love-nut over the other not so spunky nutter?

And logistically speaking, how would one actually intervene in a pairing between an obviously ill-suited fictional nineteenth century couple who exist in an archive romance that was published in 1990?

Important questions, I know. So tell me, which fictional character would you bump to get closer to their squeeze?

18 comments:

Mad Cat Lady said...

And logistically speaking, how would one actually intervene in a pairing between an obviously ill-suited fictional nineteenth century couple who exist in an archive romance that was published in 1990?
sick a zombie on her

squib said...

Oh! I went to a charity gig the other night and there was a real live Bad Seed there, Kettle. I was well impressed

I was recently very taken with the Scarlet Pimpernel. He's sooooo romantic and he says 'odd's fish' all the time. Lady Blakeney is so mean to him and doesn't deserve him at all

Kettle said...

Ah Maddie you had me laughing out loud at work.

And Squib a Bad Seed! How did MrSquib take the news you were leaving him for a Rock God?

And down with Lady Blakeney! Let's egg her carriage.

squib said...

MrSquib was delighted! Here, let me pack your things, he said

Yeah, let's rock her roof

Kettle said...

Squib everything's working out beautifully! Now you just have to decide between the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Bad Seed.

Not a bad decision to have to make.

squib said...

Most definitely the Scarlet Pimpernel, Kettle

Kettle said...

Squib is that because the Scarlet Pimpernel says "odd's fish" or because the Bad Seed is really a Bad Egg?

Mad Cat Lady said...

or has the bad seed gone to seed?

squib said...

Running away with the seed was all your idea, Kettle. It never crossed my mind. If I was seriously going to run away with someone then it would have been the bassist in the other band who looked like Mr Thornton

Did I tell you there were 40 pages missing from my copy of the Pimpernel?

Kettle said...

Ah Maddie, 'going to seed' always makes me think of lettuces left too long in the vegie garden; sadly very un-rock and roll, eh.

That's brilliant about the missing 40 pages, Squib! I suspect you may have been written into a Calvino novel; I am very jealous.

As to Mr Thornton, do you mean the Billy Bob version or Mrs Gaskell's?

squib said...

I complained to the US publishers and they are now sending me a new fully paged Pimpernel. Hurrah!

Gaskell of course and, more specifically, the BBC's version thereof

Kettle said...

Squib I have explained to Mr Kettle that when Richard Armitage knocks on our door (and he will) I will be leaving with him (unless he's come to install Foxtel, in which case he can come in first).

squib said...

That will never happen because Richard and I are eloping. I am going to help him improve the working conditions at his cotton mill and admire his sideburns and so forth

Kettle said...

Oh bum, I wanted to help with the cotton mill. Any chance you two will require a step-sister/spinster aunt/governess-type to run away with you?

squib said...

'North and South' with a Mormon subtext?

I think not!

Kettle said...

Ha ha!

Ok then, I'll run away with David Tennant instead.

Mad Cat Lady said...

aha - David is mine!

*scrag fight*

Kettle said...

Jebus, must we fight for all the boys?

And anyway, I called David Tennant first! Muhahahahaha.