Daily Archives: February 12, 2017

Happily Ever After, or … ?

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I’m on my way to West Virginia for my son’s wedding to a wonderful young woman. This will be my entry into mother-of-the-groom and mother-in-law territory. My happiness for my son is tinged with melancholy at the realization that I am officially relinquishing the top spot in my son’s heart. While a wedding is the culmination of a courtship it is also the beginning of a marriage. A wedding affects not only the betrothed but ripples out to others (sometimes with a hidden undertow), in the moment and over time. That makes weddings the perfect catalyst in literature.

Joyful or sad, funny or frightening, even if they are cancelled, weddings offer potent plot devices in literature. How many of these novels with nuptials have you read?

Pride and Prejudice (1813) – Jane Austen
Our Mutual Friend (1864) – Charles Dickens
Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) – Thomas Hardy
The Age of Innocence (1920) – Edith Wharton
The Member of the Wedding (1946) – Carson McCullers
The Princess Bride (1973) – William Goldman
I’ve Got Your Number (2012) – Sophie Kinsella
Seating Arrangements (2012) – Maggie Shipstead

Quotable

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“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” — The Illuminated Rumi by Jalal Al-Din Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

“You and I, it’s as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven and sent down to earth together, to see if we know what we were taught.” — Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” — The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams