WHO ARE YOUR FAVORITE FICTIONAL COUPLES?

Recently Goodreads sent me an email asking me “Who is your favorite fictional couple, and why?” They do this for their Goodreads Authors, of which I am one. I don’t answer all the questions they put forth, but this one I found interesting and took on the task to answer them. Usually my answers are short, but as this one wasn’t. I thought it would be useful to post it on The Huffington Post, which I did on February 9th. And n0w, here it is, on my own blog, a little revised.

That’s an interesting question as there have been so many fictional couples, especially if you don’t limit your thinking to male/female romantic couples.

It’s also a question that deserves more than a knee-jerk answer. It needs time and thoughtful consideration.

I suppose I could start with that early-on-the-scene fictional couple, Adam and Eve.

But I think we can eliminate them immediately as theirs was, after all, an arranged marriage. They were hardly soul mates. Rib mates, yes, but not soul mates. They were the first friends with benefits, who, had there been other choices around, may not have even been friends no matter what the benefits. So, not really a couple, except by default.

A great couple from early literature—the earliest great work, in fact—is Gilgamesh and Enkidu from The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2150-1400 BCE).

Gilgamesh is the king of Uruk and may have been based on stories about an actual king of that name. Enkidu is a wild man sent by the gods to humble Gilgamesh, who had a rather elevated opinion of himself. They fight each other to a draw and become fast and true friends and then share adventures. After Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh is thrown into a deep grief and a long quest to find the meaning of life if there is any, and, hopefully, the secret to eternal life. Eternal life, of course, would be rather fruitless if there was no meaning to it, so Gilgamesh’s quest is not only epic but relatable to all of us. He doesn’t find eternal life, but his deeds in the quest are magnificent. It can easily be said that his friendship with Enkidu brought out the best in Gilgamesh.

Also from ancient literature, one must consider Achilles and Patroclus from The Iliad (c. 1260–1180 BCE).

Damn good friends, Patroclus stands by Achilles even when the great hero is in a funk and feels secure enough in their friendship to speak truth to him. And Achilles sacrifices all seeking revenge over the death of Patroclus. Of course, they were at war with Troy, death was always a possibility. But logic doesn’t matter with true friendship—thus war after war after war.

In Homer’s other great work, The Odyssey (End of 8th Century BCE), we have one of the most solid married couples in literature: Odysseus and Penelope. Twenty years separated by war and wanderings, Penelope remains steadfast and true to Odysseus, fending off scores of suitors who would like her hand, and Odysseus’ land, in marriage. She does it by guile and wit, proving to be an equal match with her husband. And Odysseus wandered for ten years and suffered many setbacks and detours, all to get home to his beloved wife, Penelope. That’s marital devotion. But then, Odysseus had made their marriage bed from an olive tree still rooted to the ground.

No Sleep Number bed for them. You can’t be much more committed than that.

I can’t think of any other couples from ancient literature to consider. Jason and Medea and Agamemnon and Clytemnestra certainly don’t qualify. Troubled marriages both.

Jumping over the Middle Ages—so dark, so dreary—we have to look at couples in Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet (around 1595),

of course, but let’s not forget Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing (around 1599).

They may well be the template for great sparring partners in loathing and love. Macbeth (1606) and his Lady

might have come in for consideration if they had just gone to bed earlier that night.

Across the channel in Spain, Shakespeare’s contemporary, Miguel de Cervantes, created a great couple that must be considered: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in The history of the valorous and wittie Knight-Errant Don-Quixote of the Mancha (1605 & 1615).

Starting out as master and servant—or knight and squire—both men are rather foolish individuals riddled with human frailties. But they are brave, persevering, essentially good and kind, and, finally, loyal to each other as only true friends can be.

In any consideration of great couples, one must put onto the list in boldface, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813).

Standing in for, obviously, prejudice and pride, they also represent love struggling to survive society. In this story, love survives and the eventual Mr & Mrs. Darcy are the warriors we honor for the victory.

Coming ahead in time, one starts to think of couples in genre literature. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, of course,

although it may be that they are a stronger couple in all the media adaptations and extensions of their partnership. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels and stories (1887 to 1927) Dr. Watson is, as Holmes calls him, the “Boswell” in the relationship, the recorder of the main life and subject of the stories. I don’t know how great a couple can be when one is in awe of the other. Possibly a superior couple would be Nick and Nora Charles in Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man (1934), probably known better for their film versions brought gloriously to life by William Powell and Myrna Loy.

They were not only married, they actually loved each other on a level playing field of wit and charm.

Jumping out of genre literature and on a more serious note, I’m adding to the list of consideration Mr. and Mrs. Bridge in Evan S. Connell’s companion novels Mrs. Bridge (1959) and Mr. Bridge (1969).

A double portrait of an upper-middle-class, bourgeois couple in Kansas City between the First and Second World Wars. The books could be taken as a condemnation of the well ordered yet vapid lives of comfortable Americans, but Connell has, I believe, great empathy for his couple, and I find them strangely attractive. Although I might not in real life. But we are talking fiction here.

I would be remiss as an author with a fondness for his own characters not to add two couples of mine to the list of consideration. From my Hollywood satiric thrillers, Blood is Pretty (2010) and Hollywood is an All-Volunteer Army (2011) there’s The Fixxer and Roee.

The Fixxer is a mysterious character who is paid a great deal of money to “fix” the stupid problems that the beggars and choosers of Hollywood find themselves with. Roee is his companion. He does all the cooking and supervises the housekeeping of the rather nice floor they occupy in a Los Angeles high-rise. But Roee is also an ex-Israeli intelligence officer proficient in many ways to quickly and silently (sometimes) do away with antagonists. He is also gay and a failed avant-garde playwright. The Fixxer is not gay. But he trusts and relies on no one as much as he relies on Roee. And may like no one more. There’s a bit of Nick and Nora in them. But who is Nick and who is Nora, I couldn’t say.

And in Traveling in Space (2012),

my science fiction first contact novel written from the POV of the aliens, I’m quite fond of Life-Seeder (later known as Leif) and She, the Pleasurepal (later known as Sheila). At first, their couplings are purely a matter of the business of pleasure. But they are brought together in a partnership of exploration and examination of Earth and Earthlings, who they call Otherlife. The “arranged marriage” changes them both for the better. And I don’t think you can say the same about Adam and Eve.

Well, that’s the list. Certainly not a complete and comprehensive one. But it will have to do. If I had to pick just one couple as my favorite? Right now, after this consideration, it would have to be Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

They are such a poignant example of oh-so-human companionship. But, tomorrow, or the next day, or next week, upon further consideration, I might well pick another couple.

I think then, the answer is in flux.