On September 6, 2012, I will be celebrating five years of wedded bliss with my husband. We are celebrating by attending the Hall & Oates concert at Stage AE. How else do you celebrate 5 years?
I won’t bore you with the details of how we met 12 years ago, but it involved Dee’s Café, a Dodge Aries K car, a girlfriend getting dumped at her front door and a trip to the old Garden Theater.
I’m also not going to blather on about being soul mates, but we are clearly meant to be. For example, not too long ago I was sitting on our couch drinking a beer AND drinking a bowl of cereal (because I was too lazy to get a spoon.) He looked at me with eyebrows raised and I said, “Well, you married me.” It’s beautiful moments like that you just can’t capture in a Hallmark card.
Because I like using social media to do my job, I put out a Facebook call for favorite love stories. As a testament to how varied (and frankly, insane) my friends are, here is the list of favorite love stories.
To protect the innocent, I’m not naming names (including myself.)
According to the American Film Institute, An Affair to Remember is one of the most romantic movies of all time. Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr meet on a transatlantic liner crossing the Atlantic. Although both involved with other people, they strike up a friendship and agree to meet in six months at the Empire State building. Is it true love? Do they ever meet again?
“Love story? What’s that? Braveheart? That makes me emotional. Like I want to kill for my woman, my country kind of [stuff].”
Well there you go.
People veer between finding this book horrifying, shocking and unreadable to endearing, riveting and inspiring. Using experimental drugs a couple attempts to create genetically altered children for a traveling freak show. What’s not to love about that premise?
Henry and June were married and Nin has affairs with both of them. Yikes.
This book will always raise eyebrows due to the inappropriate nature of the relationship, but no can deny that Humbert Humbert loves Dolores Haze. He loves her toes and her elbows and her neck and everything about her.
I think I am alone in considering this a love story. But the relationship between former Microsoft code-writers Daniel and Karla resulted in this quote:
I don’t want to lose you. I can’t imagine ever feeling this strongly about anything or anybody ever again. This was unexpected, my soul’s connections to you. You stole my loneliness. No one knows that I was wishing for you, a thief, to enter my house of autonomy, that I had locked my doors but my Windows were open, hoping, but not believing, you would enter.
If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.
I’ll confess, I read the book. I cried. In my defense, it was in 1996 and I was much more sensitive then. The Notebook is the usual poor boy/rich girl star-crossed lovers tale that romance readers love, but with an interesting twist- the story is narrated by the husband after 60 years of marriage. Spoiler alert: they both die.
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
Cult classic and source of some of the best movie quotes, The Princess Bride is filled with a fabulous cast of characters. Who doesn’t love Inigo Montoya’s desire for revenge, the Farm Boy’s patience or the end of the adventure:
There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C…(before then couples hooked thumbs). And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy…. Well, this one left them all behind.
Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
My argument that it was a three day relationship that resulted in six deaths was overridden by the universal themes of love, light, destiny, fate, tragedy, etc.
A quirky love story, maybe not for everyone. But I appreciated her tenacity in getting the man she wanted.
WALL-E and EVE—robots in love. The creator of WALL-E, Andrew Stanton said:
I realized the point I was trying to push with these two programmed robots was the desire for them to try and figure out what the point of living was. It took these really irrational acts of love to sort of discover them against how they were built. I said, ‘That’s it! That’s my theme: Irrational love defeats life’s programming.‘
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
I’ll confess, I have no idea why people consider this a love story. I mean Heathcliff had a bad childhood and whatnot, but he was mean. To everyone, all the time. I’m not interested in a drama queen.
Thanks to everyone for their ideas and comments. And thanks for not picking 50 Shades of Grey.
-suzy
Eleventh Stack 