Valentine's Day Blog Hop: My Favorite Love Stories

Happy Hearts Day, everyone! Welcome to my stop in the Valentine's Day Blog Hop hosted by Terri G. Long --

For this stop, I'd like to feature some of my favorite love stories (a short story, a novel, a movie, a poem and a song).  These are the works that, I feel, capture what love (in all it's different forms) is all about.

1. On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning by Haruki Murakami (from The Elephant Vanishes)

I read this short story in graduate school and it stuck to my memory long after. It is short but captures that moment when you realize you have perfection within your reach -- but, because it seems impossible to have found it, we let it go.

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other.  It's a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one's dreams to come true so easily?
- On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning by Haruki Murakami

2. Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt

Isn't it great that A.S. Byatt explicitly states that this work is "a romance?"

Ah, Roland and Maud. Ash and Christabelle. I loved the literary detective work that Roland and Maud embark on -- and I love how their love story develops parallel to Ash and Christabelle, a hundred or so years before -- character and relationship grow and develop together as Roland and Maud piece together the puzzle that is the love affair of the two poets, Randolph Ash and Christabelle LaMotte.

(I also loved the movie adaptation and Aaran Eckhart is swoon-worthy as Roland. ^_^)

3. Once directed by John Carney


A small film about a great love. With a tagline like, "How often do you find the right person?" -- how can you not be pulled into this wonderfully intimate view of a regular girl and a regular guy making music and finding love?

Touching, bittersweet -- and has an amazing, amazing, soundtrack. ^_^



4. Love at First Sight by Wislawa Szymborska

This is my poem for my husband. It begins:

They’re both convinced
that a sudden passion joined them.
Such certainty is beautiful,
but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Szymborska is one of my favorite poets. She has a succinct and perceptive view of the world. This poem talks about coincidences and about how love has to happen at the right time and not before.

There were signs and signals,
even if they couldn’t read them yet.
Perhaps three years ago
or just last Tuesday

5. Your Ex-Lover is Dead by Stars
My husband introduced me to this band and I love how the song starts, with an Ian McKellan-esque voice saying: "When there's nothing left to burn, you've got to set yourself on fire." (It's one of the singer's dad reading it, btw. ^_^)

Then there's the orchestral element of the song, and just the sweet complementary voices of the male and female leads.

It's actually a song about saying goodbye, but I just love how it sounds. ^_^

And there's the last stanza of the song:
There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave
You were what I wanted
I gave what I gave
I'm not sorry I met you
I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to save



Share your favorite love story with me? ^_^

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Hop on to the other hops and see how they are celebrating Valentine's Day!