The Lover

In case you hadn't noticed (which I think is rather unlikely), it is St Valentine's Day today. The shops are (and have been for about a fortnight) filled to overflowing with reminders of love and romance. It's not surprising, therefore, that the second episode of Faulks on Fiction which aired this weekend was about 'The Lover'.

At the beginning of the programme, Faulks says that, "Romantic fiction gives us happy endings but the reality is rarely like that." He goes on to say how 'psychological' novels have approached love as a more complex animal which is probably nearer the truth.

His lovers were:

• Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen,
• Heathcliffe and Cathy from Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights,
• Tess from Tess of the D'Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy,
• Connie Chatterley and Mellors from D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover,
• Maurice Bendrix and Sarah from The End of the Affair by Graham Greene,
• Anna Wulf in Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook,
• and Nick Guest in The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst.

I think the majority of people would pick out several of the above if asked to name literary lovers but I had a look on my bookcase for others and came across:

• Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak in Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd, although her other two 'love interests' - William Boldwood and Sergeant Frank Troy - could also be included in this listing,
• Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre,
• Celie and Shug in Alice Walker's The Colour Purple,
• and Sir Percy Blakeney and Marguerite in the Scarlet Pimpernel books by Baroness Emmuska Orczy.

For anyone who is interested in being a novelist or just loves good novels, I would highly recommend this series.