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The Duke of La Rochefoucauld said there are happy marriages but no delightful ones. I can think of just one exception in books and films: Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man. The director of the film series, W. S. Van Dyke II, was happily married and wanted to portray a happy marriage. Perhaps this is what fiction means.
Because the novel came out at exactly the moment prohibition ended it is also a celebration of what looks to us very like alcoholism but also looks like fun.
Paul Theroux somewhere remarked on the amount of drinking in the book. And Nick (who is not thin in the book--he is a strongly built man) and Nora do seem to have a delightful marriage in the book.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that the French nobility of La Rochefoucauld's time was the best setting for research on good marriages.
The Thin Man is not Nick Charles but another character. The film sequels kept The Thin Man their titles because it drew audiences, although that character does not reappear in them.
DeleteThe film sequels kept The Thin Man IN their titles..
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