Cora Buhlert

Today, I was at the bank to pay a cheque into my account and had an “Okay, now how does this work again” moment, because I haven’t actually handled a cheque in ages. For something that used to be nigh ubiquitous, cheques died out pretty rapidly, killed off for good by the switch to the Euro in 2002. I don’t even have a chequebook anymore. I don’t think my mother has one, either, and she used to write cheques a lot more than I ever did.

Aside from this observation, I don’t really have a whole lot to say. Though I was in town today and bought a couple of books (and a new sweater). I bought Hotter Than Hell, an urban fantasy anthology edited by Kim Harrison, My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares and Goddess of the Rose by P.C. Cast. Since the success of the House of Night series, P.C. Cast’s older mythologically based novels have been reissued. However, because Cast is now famous as a YA author, her older books seem to be marketed as YA as well, even though they were considered adult fantasy when first published.

What is more, I also picked up The Black Dagger Brotherhood – An Insider’s Guide by J.R. Ward. This is the sort of book I wouldn’t normally be bothering with, if not for the PhD. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. But the series is popular and I hope the supplementary material in this one will be useful for the thesis.

On the downside, I still haven’t been able to track down the new “Romanheft” series I’m looking for. The train station newsstand didn’t have it and they had no idea when to expect it, either. Since “Romanhefte” are viewed as disposable and interchangeable reading, it’s very difficult to get accurate information on publication schedules. The staff at newsstands and supermarkets and other places where they’re sold usually have no idea when new “Romanhefte” will be delivered and why anybody would care about a specific series or issue anyway.

Finally, since it’s Valentine’s Day, here is Theodora Goss on different kinds of romantic love and whether they make for good fiction.

I agree with her that the hyper dramatic Tristan and Isolde type love is the most common version on romantic fiction, though it’s not exactly perfectly suited to the modern genre romance with its happily ever after requirement, because Tristan and Isolde does not end happily ever after. When the latest film adaption came out a few years ago, I recall people lamenting that the story did not end happily, which utterly baffled me, because hey, it’s Tristan and Isolde. Surely everybody knows what happens. And anyway, what’s next? Complaining that Romeo and Juliet doesn’t end happily?

But I’m not sure if the third type of love the Theodora Goss describes is really that unsuited to interesting stories. At any rate, that’s the kind of love I am trying to describe in “the novel”. Of course, there’s always the possibility that no one cares but me. But I certainly don’t hope so.