[LMB] An article referencing Herself at sequentialtart

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sylvus Tarn" <sylvus at rejiquar.com>


> On Sun, 2006-08-20 at 01:48 -0400, Paula Lieberman wrote:
>> World's End,
>
> Oh, sorry.  Wrong title.  While I agree that World's End was in a very
> different style, it is my favorite of the three, and I think very
> romantic.
>
> I believe the Zelazny with Mars in it was "A Rose for Ecclesiastes", but
> obviously given the gaffe I made above, wouldn't swear to it.  I think
> to work as a romance/love story, the characters have to love each other,
> at least at some point in the story.
>
> It's kind of a letdown to discover that one is primarily a glorified
> sperm bank (and only secondarily a romantic partner), so, good as that
> story was, it doesn't go in the romance category for me.

Eeep, I think you missed some of the point of the story--the woman -failed- 
in her duties, she was not only supposed to seduce him, she was supposed to 
fall in love with him.  She achieved the first, but not the second... it's a 
failed love story, intentionally.   It's a tragic romance, the tragedy being 
that the love interest was not there on both sides.   The overall tone is 
bittersweet--surival achieved, but there was -supposed- to be a permanent 
partnership/love relationship, and the woman chosen for the most important 
role, one she had trained for her entire life, one her entire race depended 
on... could not love the hero, and so the -romance- was doomed.

Tragic love is definitely an area of romance, albeit not much present today. 
If you read e.g. Marie de France's lays,  most of which she wrote and 
performed  for Eleanor of Acquaintaines Court of Love/Courtly Love, they're 
mostly about doomed love affairs, people falling madly and passionately in 
love with other people's spouses, the spouse retires himself or herself off 
to  religious community, the two people In Love consummate their passion, 
and then they go off and retire to religious communities--sort of the thing 
with Lancelot and Guinevere after Arthur.  Doomed love affairs are very much 
Western Tradition stuff--the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot situation,  the 
Guinevere/Lancelot/Elaine situation,  Merlin and Vivian/Nimue (she locks in 
in a cave permanently), Tristan and Isolde and Mark, Romeo and Juliet, 
Hamlet and Ophelia, Othello and Desdemona, Oedipus and his mother, Orpheus 
and his beloved, Troilus and Cressida, Hector and Andromache, Jason and 
Medea, Theseus and Ariadne, etc.