Mr Tumperkin and I went for dinner last night, utilising gift vouchers we were given at Christmas by my in-laws. Thai food which we love.
We had an interesting chat, comparing romance and other genres. My current obsession, to which I have alluded before, is that in a romance, almost everything is setting against which the particular love story of the particular characters is played out, like variations on a theme. I have a vague recollection of a post/comments thread over at RRR in which I made a terribly erudite comment about this but I can't be arsed to find the link. Happily, the remembered quote is far more erudite in my memory than it probably was in actuality.
I do not intend to set out the fascinating particulars of our dinner conversation. Suffice to say that my husband came out with something that I found wildly fascinating. In our discussion of the thriller genre - with particular reference to the Bond and Bourne franchises - Mr T posited that my assertions regarding everything in a romance being setting (e.g. vampires, Amish-ness etc.) for the characters to play against, were almost reversed for certain thrillers. In certain thrillers, he argued, the character is setting against which the tech and the political are played out against.
We finessed this assertion at length over banana fritters and rolled home feeling very content with ourselves.
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4 comments:
Nice. I read a book on plotting once that posited that mystery books were almost pure plot-- that the whole reason to read a mystery is to see how the plot unfolds.
Sounds like you had a wonderful evening - good food, conversation, and company!
wow. I'm going to go away and think about that.
How wonderful though! Just the dinner, and to have fun ideas to chew on.
Nic - makes sense. Plot is actually quite unimportant to me. I'm a terrible, inveterate skimmer too so they're wasted on me really.
Patti - yes indeedy. We don't get out as a couple much so it was very nice.
Carolyn - fun ideas AND those really hot thai salads with the papaya and peanuts (yum!)
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