Crime of Passion

A friend recently posted Auden’s poem, The More Loving One, on facebook, and it set me thinking – and as usual these days, I was thinking about writing.

I’ve been reading a few romance novels, thinking about the possibility of entering a competition run by Mills and Boon. Now that isn’t as mad as it may sound, because Mills and Boon do publish a line of novels that are a kind of cross between thriller and romance – although they are a little more heavily weighted on the romance side. And the prize of working with an editor to produce a novel over a year was tempting.

In the end though, I had to admit it was just procrastination and I really ought to be getting on with my crime novel. But I did throw a few bad romances across the room in despair. Some of the best ones do have an emotional intensity that I would kill for though

“Equal affection” – to borrow Auden’s words – must be the ideal, but realistically how often does that happen?  So much of our unhappiness in relationships seems to come from this problem, where one person loves more than the other, or where one person is afraid the other doesn’t love them enough.

The characters in my novel in progress are all affected by this to a greater or lesser extent, and some of the plot is built around the kind of emotional damage that can be caused – or that causes – unequal affection.

It’s not just about unrequited love, painful though that is. But there are disparities in all relationships – betweenparents and children, and husband and wife, and between lovers and friends.  To paraphrase Tolstoy – all equal relationships are alike, unequal relationships are much more interesting.

Even when I was young and pretty, I was never the kind of girl who would be comfortable on a pedestal. I did briefly have a stalker, who wrote me romantic poems with beautiful drawings – poems that indicated far too much knowledge of what I was up to on a day by day basis. I never quite knew who they were from (although I had my suspicions) but he’d have had far more of a chance with me if he’d made me laugh.

When I first met Ryan, I was involved with a boy who really didn’t care for me at all, and I was comfortable with that – it was what I was used to.  Ryan was clear from the beginning that he was still in love with his first serious girlfriend, so I didn’t feel too threatened.   So I was always more comfortable being the more loving one – but is that really a healthy place to be? Now I think we are lucky enough to have a balanced love for each other – or as my brother puts it, we deserve each other.

I do sometimes wonder what it would have been like to be adored, to have been the object of someone’s grand romantic passion. But I suppose it would have ended in the giggles, with me toppling right off the pedestal.

And besides, I’ve seen what it’s like.  Men who idolise their women aren’t very nice when they discover that after all their goddess is only human. Somehow those little quirks that seemed so mysterious and goddess like become the everyday trivial annoyances that make life impossible.  They’re also prone to that daft Madonna and Whore dichotomy…and they marry the virgin and spend their lives wondering why they aren’t having any fun, and lusting after the whores they despise.

But one thing is certain – it would be more fun to be in even the worst category romance than to be any of the characters in my novel.

Ann

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About Ann Godridge
Ann Godridge has just completed her first crime novel, The Mermaid's Shroud, and has started work on the sequel. Her story the Tree of Knowledge was shortlisted for the Asham Award. She writes about writing and sometimes about textile arts at her blogStraw into Gold. You can find out more about her here - About Ann G.
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