Fi Phillips

In case you hadn't noticed (which I think is rather unlikely), it is St Valentine's Day today. The shops are (and have been for about a fortnight) filled to overflowing with reminders of love and romance. It's not surprising, therefore, that the second episode of Faulks on Fiction which aired this weekend was about 'The Lover'. At the beginning of the programme, Faulks says that, "Romantic fiction gives us happy endings but the reality is rarely like that." He goes on to say how 'psychological' novels have approached love as a more complex animal which is probably nearer the truth. His lovers were: Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Heathcliffe and Cathy from Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights , Tess from Tess of the D'Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy, Connie Chatterley and Mellors from D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover , Maurice Bendrix and Sarah from The End of the Affair by Graham Gr...

I recently watched the first in a series of television programmes called Faulks on Fiction which discusses the world of the British novel. The first episode was titled 'Hero' and discussed the development of the hero role through several classic novels. His heroes were: Robinson Crusoe from the novel of that name Tom Jones from The History of Tom Jones a Foundling Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair Sherlock Holmes from the many novels about him Stephen Wraysford from Faulks' own novel Birdsong Winston Smith from 1984 Jim Dixon in Lucky Jim John Self in Money Faulks believes that the hero can now only be found in films, children's fiction and crime novels. He finishes with these words, "For literary novels, it's over. The hero is dead. End of story". Do you agree? Thinking of my own list of heroes from British novels, I find: Walter Hartwright in Wilkie Collins' The Woman In White Calhoun Mooney in Clive Barker's Weaveworld Jonny Hooker ...