There’s something about love stories that put me off. This isn’t the result of age; even when I was in high school I never picked up the usual romances which most of my friends devoured hungrily. There has to be more than mushy love to entice me in a book and in life.
So I know just the books I want to give a shout out to this year for Valentine’s Day. They aren’t conventional love stories, but there’s lots of love – to warm your heart, to make you laugh and, maybe, cry too.
Forgive me if you don’t and can’t find some of these books anymore in popular bookstores. They will probably not be available for your Kindle either. The old and second-hand bookshops might store a few:
The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
This is from the time booklovers lazily browsed through paperbacks in bookshops and at book fairs, allowing a book to find them. This one is part of my father’s library, and I read it when I was in high school. I loved it and hungrily gobbled up the sequels – Mammoth Hunters and Valley of Horses.
I didn’t know much about anthropology then and don’t do now either but what I loved about the book was the vivid description of Paleolithic, pre-historic life and society. It fascinated me and continues to remain in my memory as a brilliant book.
It’s a love story about the ancient human race, our beginnings. The ways of survival, development, natural medicine, culture and anthropology. The flavour of this book is tribal.
Ayla is five when an earthquake forces her to flee her destroyed home and her dead parents. Iza, the medicine woman of the Clan of the Cave Bear, stumbles upon her and takes her under her wing, but Broud, the proud son of the clan leader, Brun, takes an immediate dislike to the young non-clan girl. Ayla grows up among the clan and struggles to find her place.
Auel gets points simply for tackling this period, as I have not found any other romance set in this era. Read this one if you like being transported to an unfamiliar and long-forgotten world. It’s fascinating to discover it through relationships, love and betrayal.
The Old Neighbourhood, Avery Corman
The Old Neighbourhood is a lesser-known book written by the author of the celebrated Kramer Vs Kramer, which, admittedly, became famous thanks to the film starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. Published in 1980, this novel was probably ahead of its time.
Written today, it might have fitted into a hipster heartbreak sub-genre. The protagonist here has everything he always dreamt of – successful advertising career, great house, two beautiful kids, gorgeous wife. But there’s something gnawing away at him. So he gives it all up – career, power, money, house and even marriage – to return to his old neighbourhood and find out what he left behind. Happiness.
The book is an interesting look at New York city of the 1950s and 60s. It’s about spouses who outgrow their marriage, if not completely the love they share, about having the courage to re-invent oneself. The honesty makes identification immediate. This isn’t really a love story in the traditional sense, but it is about finding yourself, which is probably better than finding the love of your life.
Man called Ove, Fredrik Backman
Ove is a neighbour from hell. You wouldn’t want him next door. Grumpy, sour and forever cranky, here’s a man who looks at people he hates as though they were burglars. He likes nobody, and nobody likes him either.
A boisterous young family moves in next door, and their two chatty young daughters decide not leave Ove alone. They push beyond the perpetually dour expression and cranky exterior. A comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and sad stories behind Ove’s gruffness emerges.
A love story doesn’t need to fall into a mould. This one is an endearing narrative about a man who has given up on life and himself, only to rediscover the sunshine through two kids who thrust themselves into his existence.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
Have you ever done something out of character? Recently retired and emotionally numb Harold Fry does just that and discovers what he never imagined. Having lived a quiet and sheltered sixty-five years, Harold shaves each morning and puts on a tie only to sit in the same chair with nowhere to go as his wife Maureen silently cleans the house.
He is jolted out of his passivity by a letter from Queenie Hennessy, an old friend, whom he hasn’t heard from in twenty years. She has written to say she is in hospital and wanted to say goodbye. He writes a polite reply to Queenie and walks to the corner mailbox to post his reply, but one thing leads to another and Harold finds himself walking 600 miles across the English countryside to deliver his message in person to Queenie.
So, without hiking boots, rain-gear, map or cell phone, Harold walks. Along the way, he meets people who stir up memories – flashbacks, often painful, from the time his marriage was filled with promise, of his inadequacy as a father, of his shortcomings as a husband.
Ironically, his wife Maureen, initially bitter and acerbic in her dealings with Harold, begins to long for his presence when he leaves suddenly. As Harold continues his journey, he travels inward too. He steps out of his comfort zone and soon discovers the truth that he is not alone, that many others are struggling with similar issues. This isn’t a sad read, though. Rather, it suggests that it’s never too late for a new beginning.
Farewell Song (Shesher Kobita), Rabindranath Tagore
Lovers don’t essentially need to walk into the sunset. They don’t even need to walk or be together, and sometimes they walk away from each other. That doesn’t not make it a love story.
This is a love story between Amit and Lavanya, who meet in Shillong, who discover an intense chemistry between them. The pair then becomes the vehicle for Tagore to express a philosophy of love – its bindings, and, ultimately, what it takes to find true liberation.
The exchanges between Amit and Lavanya, often poetic, is magical. It is an unusual love story even on the surface, but the deeper one goes in, the more one realises that Tagore is challenging the middle-class convention of love. Is love important in marriage? Does marriage leave space – physical and mental – for both partners? How do romantic love and everyday responsibilities play out within a marriage?
Kanchana Banerjee is the author of A Forgotten Affair.