Six Degrees of Separation is an excuse to romp though six favourite books linked to an initial offering by our host KateW and eventually link them back to the beginning…
I must admit, my heart sank when I saw the title of this month’s 6 Degrees because romantic comedy is not a genre I have much acquaintance with but I soon realised that of course, I have read romantic comedies – even if they were written long before Chicklit was a twinkle in some publicist’s eye – so I turned to the nearest bookshelf to my desk…
Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy does what it says on the tin according to our host/challenger KateW who read the book simultaneously with a bestie with whom she was on holiday and who had brought the very same holiday reading – the stars had aligned and much laughter ensued. I don’t think I will be buying this book (as I did with last month’s starting book which I am enjoying immensely) and KateW’s review tells me quite enough to give the flavour and wit of this book!
Looking at my bookshelf, my eye alighted on the plays shelf where Oscar Wilde -Five Major Plays stood proudly alongside The Complete Plays of George Bernard Shaw so for my first and second links I chose The Importance of Being Earnest and Pygmalion respectively – what! It doesn’t say they can’t be plays – they’re in books!
Here in the final lines of Wilde’s evergreen romantic comedy are not one, but three love stories resolved…
GWENDOLEN. I can. For I feel sure that you are sure to change!
JACK. My own one!
CHASUBLE (to Miss Prism). Leetitial (Embraces her.)
MISS PRISM (enthusiastically). Frederick! At last!
ALGERNON. Cecily! (Embraces her.) At last!
JACK. Gwendolen! (Embraces her.) At last!
LADY BRACKNELL. My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality.
JACK. On the contrary,’ Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.
Enough embracing to qualify I think! On to Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw’s modern (for its time) update on the Greek story of the sculptor who fell in love with his creation which in turn, became the musical My Fair Lady. My volume was a gift to my father from his father in 1939 and maybe a first edition since there is no list of reprints. Believe it or not, I did read some of these plays as a teenager and even attempted some of the prefaces in the accompanying volume – and they are reputed to contain more words than the plays themselves. GBS was a socialist and the character of the professor and his life-changing relationship to Eliza is supportive of a change in attitudes towards women…
Sticking with plays – especially ones that have been turned into musicals, we next turn to The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare which went from highbrow(ish) to lowbrow when it was transmogrified into Kiss Me Kate! Katherina is an admirably feisty woman who is contrasted with Bianca, her younger sister “the ideal woman”. One might regard both this and Pygmalion as misogynistic – they certainly portray misogynists, but I side with those who feel that they are poking fun at the misogynists. This play gave rise to several musicals and films and is arguably the origin of some of the most major memes in romantic comedy…
Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship That Sang books, are not exactly romantic comedies and though they might make great plays, they are sci-fi novels but whether hard or soft is hard to say. Suspend your technological disbelief – definitely, but at the heart of these books are the sometimes romantic but wholly intriguing relationship between a girl who is literally enrolled, in fact, installed as the “brain” of a spaceship, and the “brawns” with whom she is paired. Spoiler alert – no sex is possible…
No one would seek to classify The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith as a romantic comedy either, but neither are they your standard detective procedural either and over the course of the books, we do get to see the developing relationship between Mama Ramotswe and her eventual partner – Mr J. L. B. Matekoni and this is definitely part of the oddball charm of this series.
So having stretched the rules with plays as well as novels, my last link is a poem, originally published in a magazine though books are available too… The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock – or Prufrock as it is known – by T.S. Elliot, is the poem credited with starting the Modernist movement in poetry. I link it back to our starting book of Romantic Comedy, because, like that novel, Prufrock is all about the anguish of alienation, self-doubt and creating what-if scenarios in the head – and whilst Prufrock does not give us a “they lived happily ever after” ending, it is gently humourous as it travels hopefully…
