Tolstoy Tried to Kill My Girlfriend

If you were to write about love, would it be a tragedy or a romance?

 

This is the question central to 'Tolstoy Tried to Kill My Girlfriend.' The writer Deacon James has decided to change the ending of the novel by killing off the protagonist's girlfriend. This plan is interrupted by the protagonist herself bursting in and doing what she can to stop him.

 

When I first learned the myths about Mount Parnassus, a mountain in Greece where the muses were fabled to live, I got a picture in my head of all the great writers ascending to this particular kind of heaven where they could talk to one another, and meet the figures they'd created.

 

No sooner had I imagined this than I thought how some of those characters might be less than impressed to meet their authors. Would Romeo and Juliet really have anything to thank Shakespeare for? Would Emily Bronte enjoy a conversation with Heathcliff?

 

As to the answer to the question of whether we need tragedies or romances, Heath might be all for romance, and Deacon for tragedy, personally I think we need a bit of both.

 

As to the ending of Deacon’s story… well that remains to be seen…