No... =P
I read this comment by Darlene Marshall on the web. She is a romance writer, I knew her name from Books and Writers Community even though I have never read any of her books before.
Finally, since I’m about to sign off for Shavuot (Pentecost/Feast of Weeks), let me recommend The Book of Ruth. It’s got meeting cute ("Hey! Who’s that chick gleaning in my fields? Maybe I can invite her to eat lunch with me!"), sexual tension (the threshing floor scene), a black moment (will the kinsman closer to Ruth’s late husband free her to marry Boaz?), dramatic denouement (Boaz makes his case in front of the town elders), dialog, and a HEA.
One year I was discussing Ruth with my rabbi and I said “It’s the perfect romance novel! I couldn’t have written it better myself!”
There was a stunned silence, and then my rabbi cleared his throat and said, “Why Darlene, how very modest of you.”
What? You think the Book of Ruth is a perfectly decent book where characters are morally perfect? It's MOST CERTAINLY NOT a romance?! It's not just a romance, but if you really think Boaz and Ruth are perfect. Try listening to the interpretation on the book by Dr. Stephen Lee 李思敬博士--植根滄桑人生的信仰-從智慧文學角度看路得記. You'll view the book totally differently after listening to this set of CDs.
(btw, HEA is Happy Ever After. Yes, I do read romances, just never read her books before. =))
3 comments:
Hi, Amy--No, I would not call the characters in the Book of Ruth morally perfect. That would make them dull and uninspiring. What makes them readable is how they deal with life's problems by making interesting choices. That's also at the core of a good romance. You don't want perfect characters, you want human characters you can relate to.
But that's my opinion. Your mileage may vary.[g]
No, I don't think ANY of the Bible characters are either good OR bad, but MANY ppl obviously think so.
e.g. Abraham is perfect, Jacob is bad...
People seem to be searching for their perfect role model in the Bible, e.g. what to do when I'm alone in a barn with a man I'm attracted to, let's refer to Ruth, coz she was this perfect woman who didn't seem to tempted even when she did the exact same thing.
With novels, people tend NOT to do this, but with THE BIBLE, people always seem to make the people/characters holier than they had ever been. =P
I agree with you totally, I hate seemingly "perfect" characters. =P
I like your comments on Ruth very much. =)
>>Liked your comments on Ruth<<
Thanks! Bible heroines who take action and don't wait around for things to happen appeal to me. Sarah, Rebecca, Tamar, Jael, Ruth and Naomi, and a host of others were assertive, aggressive, and even subversive in getting the job done. I like that in my heroines, whether it's in a pirate story or Holy Writ.[g]
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