It is arguable that at the centre of the novel is a relationship. There are two key relationships within the novel, and although the relationship between Joe and Jed appears the most significant, it is the relationship between Joe and Clarissa that is affected by every event within the novel and so I consider it to be the central relationship. Romance genre typically focuses on a couple and much of the narrative is about what the characters are thinking or feeling. Joe is constantly making references to what Clarissa is doing even when they are not conversing or doing something together. This shows his awareness, and therefore attachment, to Clarissa. As the plot develops Joe begins to refer to Jed more so than he does Clarissa. This shows that he is overwhelmed by his scientific approach to things, and that he is so aware of his ‘Parry problem’ that he replaces his desire for his relationship with Clarissa, with his lack of desire for a relationship with Jed. The excessive worry that Joe expresses links closer to a detective story and to science fiction than it does to romance, though it is not exclusively either. This shows furthermore that Enduring Love is ‘gracefully bridging genres’.
At first read it is difficult to notice the transition from one genre to the next, or to notice the collaboration of genres at any one time within the novel. However, when you begin to analyse other aspects of the novel, such as characterisation, the genres come to surface and it is simple to identify and differentiate between each of them. Particularly when, in chapter nine, there is a change from 1st person to 3rd, and the genre seems to change with it from a psychological thriller, (evident in Parry’s growing obsessive tendencies toward Joe), to a romance novel.
Chapter four gives the initial sense of a psychological thriller genre. It follows the first phone call from Jed to Joe, which also marks the beginning of a ‘second’ plot. At the beginning of the novel it seems that the primary plot is to be situated about John Logan’s death, and for Joe to find out who let go of the balloon first - and thus find out who could be held responsible for John Logan’s death. However, chapter four does not continue the novel in the same fashion as the previous chapters. The pace is slower, and Joe becomes distant from his emotions and more involved in solving and calculating. It is the beginning of the rift that forms between the genres of science and romance. As Joe becomes increasingly interested in science, logic and practicality, he becomes decreasingly aware of his diminishing relationship with Clarissa. And so, as the narrative voice, Joe and the novel become increasingly fitting to science fiction genre rather than to relationships and love story genre. The transition between the two is not sudden and Joe drifts gracefully, therefore, so too do the genres, supporting the view that Enduring Love ‘gracefully’ bridges them.
The question of how ‘gracefully’ the genres present in the novel are bridged is largely debateable. Though for most of the novel the shifts in genre or introductions of new genre are smoothly implemented there are some events that I considered unforeseen and out of character/out of context. An example of an event I consider to be an out of character occurrence is when Joe buys a gun. Joe is introduced as a highly analytical and logical person, who doesn’t appear the type to want to invest in guns but rather in calculating a means to avoid the use of a gun. At this point in the novel I struggled to see the how this event, and those to follow it, could fit in easily with the rest of the novel. Though the event of Joe obtaining a gun jumpstarted the plot and infused the action genre once more (alike the opening chapter), it had failed, in my opinion, to do so gracefully. The chapters before it suited the detective story genre, as the truths behind events were clouded through the unreliable narrative voice of Joe, especially unreliable during his interviews with the police. The chapter where he got the gun, and those to follow it, were fast paced and straight forward, typically features of the action genre, but did not seem realistic to the characters involved. And it is for that reason that I don’t believe that the genres present at this stage in the novel were ‘bridged’ gracefully.
Overall, the novel shows that it has the capacity to carry several genres, often working simultaneously within the plot. There is a small number of times throughout the novel where there is a sense that the genre is unsuited to the character, specifically when Joe goes to get the gun, and again when Clarissa says to Joe that she thought they were “over”, rather than showing the determination to ‘make it work’ like readers expected her to. However, I agree with the view that, for the most part, the novel demonstrates the ability to gracefully bridge genres; and that at the heart of its genre is the element of a psychological thriller and science fiction. I also agree that Enduring Love is a ‘novel of ideas’, as it shows human relationships in their most arbitrary form possible within a novel, and with all the events that Joe describes to have been involved in. The novel is successful in providing distinct and merged genres, in that it shows combinations of action, psychological thriller, investigative/detective story, science fiction and human relationships. More often than not, Enduring Love maintains impressive effects where the reader is both captivated by the suspense and the action of the central events, and enthralled by the characters and the most intimate details of their lives, all through the complex variations and combinations of genre.
