Evan Peterson
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
My apologies if this is too personal a question.. I have read a majority of your books and just finished reading Penric's hardcover editions and re-reading the rest of the World of Five Gods series...and I notice a recurring theme of older/younger romances. Betriz/Cazaril Fawn/Dag even Penric and Desdemona. Drawing from personal experience or drawn to that dymamic for purely the tension it adds?
Lois McMaster Bujold
It's merely a variant. There are only two choices of age-spreads for romantic partners; dead-even ages, or some degree of uneven ages. You are just noticing the more uneven ones preferentially. (Although indeed it can add a dramatic element, depending, like any other disjoint cultural aspect that must be worked through by one's characters.) There are lots of even or nearly even pairs as well, that pass by unremarked. Miles and Ekaterin, ferex. Ingrey and Ijada are pretty close, as are Fiametta and Thur, Ista and Illvin, Simon and Alys... the list goes on, but no one makes breathless comments about the near-age-pairs; invisible, I guess.
Ta, L.
It's merely a variant. There are only two choices of age-spreads for romantic partners; dead-even ages, or some degree of uneven ages. You are just noticing the more uneven ones preferentially. (Although indeed it can add a dramatic element, depending, like any other disjoint cultural aspect that must be worked through by one's characters.) There are lots of even or nearly even pairs as well, that pass by unremarked. Miles and Ekaterin, ferex. Ingrey and Ijada are pretty close, as are Fiametta and Thur, Ista and Illvin, Simon and Alys... the list goes on, but no one makes breathless comments about the near-age-pairs; invisible, I guess.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Peter Tillman
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Ms Bujold Did you know Ursula Le Guin? I ask because (doh) I can't ask her... I just reread "Coming of Age in Karhide", one of her best shorts, set in Gethen/Winter https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2690808608 (which has a link to the story. Anyway -- The Gethenian aren't homo saps -- we are the exceptions in the world of mammals, being permanently in kemmer -- a perversion, to their eyes. [to be con'd]
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