Bruno

Discussion (3) ¬

1. 
   ronald

   December 24, 2014 at 2:56 pm | #

   I keep not forgetting about what a *particular* prick Jay was about Bruno’s actual lost true love…Whatever-Her-Name-Was. After that breakup, Bruno was curled up, weeping in a closet, and Jay was IIRC making comments about “perverted interludes” OSLT. While, of course, denying the hypocrisy of he, an alleged Catholic, being non-martially sexually active with a girlfriend. Sheesh.

   Bruno may have forgiven Jay for that cruel moment, but I kind of wonder if Lenny, who’d been trying to comfort her, ever did.
2. 
   Pete Rogan

   December 24, 2014 at 3:43 pm | #

   Lenny never did, nor could, and we should celebrate that. Morality without dignity is empty.

   Romance novels seek to make the romance central to all things. “Bruno” is central to Bruno, and she is alternately romantic, lonely, self-obsessed, despairing, vulnerable and wryly adventurous. Bruno as occasionally, even perversely romantic is one thing; “Bruno” as romance couldn’t work. Too complex a character, too complete a soul. Romance novels are about halves looking to complete each other, and the mechanics of how that happens. “Bruno” is about one young woman’s voyage through all that and more. I wouldn’t think to simplify her into a genre. It would dehumanize her hugely.
3. 
   ronald

   December 25, 2014 at 6:06 am | #

   >>>Romance novels are about halves looking to complete each other, and the mechanics of how that happens.

   Well, unless they’re not. I know very little about romance novels, but I’d presume their conventions can be subverted as easily as those of any other genre. ;-)

   Although I’m fairly certain I’ve never read a romance novel, there are probably some that I’d enjoy, but it’d just as probably be hard to weed them out of the vast crop, and I own literally hundreds of books that I need to get around to reading as it is.

   I’ve received the impression that the romance novel is a very cookie-cutter genre (although, again, never having read any, I can’t confirm that; no offense intended to any romance readers) that tightly conforms to a formula. You know what other genre I’ve noticed (thanks to years of horror film review perusal) conforms tightly to a formula? Slasher films. Seriously, with the majority of them, it’s as if someone literally went down a checklist (Joss Whedon’s “Cabin in the Woods” is an homage/satire that demonstrates).

   Clearly, the slasher romance novel is a phenomenon waiting to happen. ;-)