Blog: HAPPILY EVER AFTER—WHO WOULD WANT IT? By Mary Balogh
Happily-ever-after is a fine fantasy. Cinderella and Prince Charming live happily ever after—which is just as well since if the story were put to the reality test one would have to entertain serious doubts about whether they would live happily at all for very long. In fairy tales, however, we neither need nor want to probe into any future beyond the happily-ever-after.
The fantasy is perpetuated in much of romantic fiction. And that is fine too. Every reader is entitled to search for the type of story—and the type of ending—that most satisfies her/him. Many people read for the pure escapism that fiction of many genres can bring.
Happily-ever-after will not be found in my books. I write love stories. I believe in love. I believe in committed relationships. And I believe in happiness. But I also believe that these things exist in the real world, as happily-ever-after does not. I am not even sure it is a desirable state. Let’s assume for the moment that a hero and heroine are both twenty-five years old when after they have fallen in love, overcome any and all obstacles to their future together, and settled down to their happily-ever-after. Assume that they live for another sixty years or so. Sixty years of daily, hourly bliss, sexual and otherwise. The perfect family. The perfect life.
Nothing but perfection.
It sounds wonderful doesn’t it?
And a little cloying?
Just a tad boring?
Almost on a level with spending eternity playing a harp and singing songs of praise while swinging on a fluffy pink cloud?
My books end happily. That is a given, something on which I would never compromise. My heroes and heroines love each other totally at the end of their love stories—or at least on the last page of their book. They have fought their way through to that happiness and are committed to sharing their lives for as long as those lives last. But because I make an effort to develop characters who could be real people, I also have to convey the idea that they will continue as real people beyond the last page of the book—that they will continue to grow and learn as individuals and sometimes to disagree with each other, even perhaps to quarrel. No, make that probably to quarrel.
More important, though, I try to convey the idea at the end of my books that the hero and heroine have now each reached a point in their development at which they are able freely to love and freely to accept love and that they have chosen to love each other. They have a chance to be happy. There can be more happiness than unhappiness in the rest of their lives if they keep working on their own development and their shared relationship every day for the rest of their lives.
Happiness is not something any of us can take for granted. Life is a very uncertain business, and we never know when we will find misery, even disaster, lurking around the next corner. If we listen to too many news programs, we can easily conclude that life is a gloomy business, that love is too flimsy and too unrealistic to be trusted. We can easily treat romance and romantic literature with contempt, something to be viewed only through rose-colored glasses. Or we can choose to see the news as a distortion of reality or at least as a fragment of reality. We can choose to believe in both love and happiness.
But not in happily ever after.
Happiness comes from loving ourselves well enough that we can believe ourselves lovable and that we can believe our love worth giving. Choosing to be happy is choosing to accept the great challenge of life instead of being defeated by it. And choosing to love is the best and surest way of achieving happiness.
Happiness is the goal of all my love stories. But the reader will never find the words and they lived happily ever after on the final page.
Mary Balogh grew up in Wales and, after graduating from college, moved to Saskatchewan, Canada, to teach high school English. Her first Regency love story, A Masked Deception, was published in 1985. She has written more than 70 novels and almost 30 novellas, including the New York Times bestselling Slightly sextet and Simply quartet. Her numerous awards include Bestselling Historical of the Year from the Borders Group, and her novel, Simply Magic, was a finalist in the Quill Awards. She lives in Regina, Canada.
Her long novella, A Matter of Class, is being released by Vanguard Press in gift hardcover format December 29, 2009. Additional information about Mary, her life and her books can be found at www.MaryBalogh.com
MarthaE said:
What a great post! This reminds me of a list of sayings I found while babysitting when I was 16. It was called “Just for Today” and I still have a copy of it! One of the items was: “Just for today I will be happy. This assumes that what Abraham Lincoln said is true, that ‘most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.’ Happiness is from within; it is not a matter of externals.”
That has helped me throughout life to CHOOSE to focus on good things and be happy! That is the only way to get close to a happy ever after! (And you are right too – it could be boring if easy!)