Sunday is here and so is Edith. Coming here after the great Gellis is a challenge, so I will not try to meet it. Let's get trivial.
I just finished revisions (I hope) for a new book. I brushed up my hero and heroine, explained a few things I had left up in the air, changed a few POV's and then, done, and suffused with relief (even if the editor is right, revisions are never fun) I got to thinking about heros and heroines in general.
Now I know you've been asked who your favorite hero in fiction is. And been asked to confess which heroine you'd like to be in order to "be" with him.
But I'm asking who you would like to spend a week with: in Reality. In our Reality. hah, That makes it different, doesn't it?
Because after I thought about it, I realized that the most fascinating fictional gents, the most daring and darling of them that I adore, are guys I wouldn't want to spend an hour with in real life.
Since I basically read Historicals, there would be the omnipresent conflict between a man's idea of a female's place then and who I am now. Yes, I know the movies did it with Hugh Jackman as a Victorian
hero come to life and to America in the present day. (KATE AND LEOPOLD)
It worked fine for our modern heroine and for him. But she had to go back to his time. I like it here.
Well, if I don't like it so much, at least all my family and friends are here, and so is modern medicine. Capped teeth and implants. Contact lenses. Central heating. Sushi outside of Japan. M &M's.
And when I thought of my favorite fictional men coming alive to live here and now, I saw that though they might come to enjoy it, it would never work for me.
I Love Mr. Rochester, and he's great for Jane.
But can you say: "Autocrat?"
He sulks and frets and broods too, and even if he did had a mad wife in an attic, it would be no fun to live with a grouch.
The man is simply not sunny.
Mr. Darcy? Lord, but the man is mannered! There'd be trouble ahead, because I am not.
Not naming names here, because now I'm talking about modern day historical novels.
Most of the men I adore in Historical Romances have no jobs, and no creative hobbies either. They work at being irresistible and perpetually ready for sex. Nice. But after that? They pot around all day inspecting their estates and riding to hounds. When they're in a city they like to gamble and drink and ride around in spanking new curricles. Great. But for our day?
"What did you do today, Dear?"
"I was drinking with my pals, then we went to the track and I dropped a bundle, and how do you like this new sports car I just bought? Want to go to bed?"
And if he was more straight laced than that? What would he be prepared for? It would be like having a retired man around the house all the time. I'd forever be nudging him, trying to get him to do something more interesting than getting his hair cut.
As for all those dashing lads who consider near rape fun, especially while their heroines faintly cry "ah no" as they submit? Maybe that was OK in their day, and their novels. Not in reality. When I say
"no" I mean it.
And those heroes who are fixated on sex? Flattering, but let's get real.
Let's not even discuss the lusty pirates and Vikings.
Now, your turn. Prove me wrong. Please.
What character out of a Romance Novel would you like to meet in our here and now, because you think it might last - here and now? And tell me why. This could be interesting. Trivial. But interesting.