Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Issues with the world at large


I find that marriage is remarkably interesting. For some reason the narrative creating world does not seem to agree with me. After I was married I went on a bit of a spree looking for fiction and movies that were about married (especially newlywed) women who stayed married and for whom doing something dubbed interesting enough to write a book about did not strain their marriage to near breaking point. Such a thing barely exists. Nearly every narrative I found where a woman started out married (happily or not) ended with her outside of that relationship. This just about drove me mad.

(Granted there are exceptions to this.... but in my experience they were an overwhelming minority)

I guess the world sees being married as a static thing. Getting married is some sort of a destination, but once you're there .... nothing. With that kind of an attitude it's no wonder divorce is everywhere. But why is it that nobody is creating stories about this most interesting and challenging and rewarding relationship without feeling the need to make it peripheral (like in a lot of "thrillers" to a "more interesting" plot. The only film examples I've found are "She's Having a Baby", "Barefoot in the Park"and "Two for the Road (although that one REALLY stretches the rules listed above)".)

If anyone out there has any suggestions of things I could read/watch that I could actually relate to, I'd be ecstatic. I'm really getting irked about this as more and more of my searching turns fruitless. Sigh . I guess I'll just stick to children's literature for now. I ordered a book of Polish Folk Stories that arrived yesterday plus I haven't finished "The Uses of Enchantment", so I'm not exactly lacking reading material.

It's just been a while since I had one of those epiphanies where I related to a character because his/her circumstance was so much like my own. I miss that feeling because it used to happen all the time when I was in college. Rats.

(Are you proud of me?, I didn't do any pregnancy complaining!)

1 comment:

Em said...

Thanks for the recommendations everyone!

I guess "conflict" isn't quite the right word for what keeps a marriage interesting - but it certainly never gets dull. There's so much...plot... in two people doing their darndest to take care of each other while learning more about each other everyday, and more about themselves. I never had an inkling as to what a selfish creature I was until I had been married for a few months. Marriage is just so full of epiphanies and struggles and adjustments... and going through it (fairly newly - 2 years now) - makes it hard to relate to non- or pre-marriage romance because it's just not the same!

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