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Dialogue after publication...

The two girls were sitting face to face. They always had had a lot to say to each other. This time their roles had changed. One was trying to keep calm before exploding into angry accusations. The other one was trying to build argumentative defences to legitimate questions.

- I know how you are feeling Elena, but this is no longer your story. There are hundreds of romances in this world. You did not want me to write a romance book. You asked me to write an eye opening story so that people could see the reality of impossible love because of different religions and cultures. I thought you wanted to make people aware of the effect that religion has in their freedoms, whether living in religious or laic countries. Are you saying that I did not do that?

- I am no longer sure you achieved that purpose because of the way you transformed my character. People are even calling my character a stalker. They are saying Elena did not have the right to infringe the privacy of Tarek and his family.

- Elena, we did manage to pass the messages we intended to. They just went unperceived. People discovered the bottom of the iceberg without even realising it.

- What do you mean?

- Yes it is true that people in the West got angry with Elena and accused her of "stalking" Tarek. They said that had she been in Europe or America she would have gone to prison. But did it not their debate also lead them to realise that even in Europe she could have done just the same because of the veil that was covering and hiding her parallel life? Europe is boiling with the debate whether France infringed religious and personal freedoms by banning full veil in public. Your story just added a little example to the debate by showing that in either case there would be "someone's freedom" at play.

- What about the readers that are saying that Elena never loved him, otherwise she would have just stayed and married him, or let him free. They are saying that this ending makes it sound like a holiday fling. They could not feel the whole ground shaking under the feet of the characters, as it happens in forbidden love stories.

- There are people that know that to marry was simply impossible. Let them take your character's defence. As for the emotional suspense of forbidden love stories, You and Tarek set eachother free the moment you saw the ground trembling in each other's feet. I guess the reader felt just the way it was meant to be. Whether setting free is an expression of true love or holiday fling, is up to everyone to decide according to their personal definitions of real love.

- Should you have put more descriptions of places and events, the story would have been less idealistic and more real.

- You wanted a short story so that everyone could find the time to read. You asked me to use a simple language that would have as an audience not only the professional writers and book lovers, but also the people who never have the opportunity and time to read a book.

- Readers think the character of Tarek is not well developed and we learn nothing about him apart the scene where he is cooking eggs for her.

- Tarek does not represent only one person in the story. How can you attach personal characteristics to one character who represents all the men who are not able to love and live in Freedom? There are hundreds of books written on the women who had to fight for their love. Everyone knows how difficult life can be for women who do not comply to their family's and society's norms. Tarek, teaches us that the religious impact on people's lives is bigger, because he is a man and not a woman. He is what people would perceive to be the one strong and in control of his life choices. Only to discover that he is not.

- I just do no longer know what to think... Sometimes I feel like we failed the purpose. Probably Tarek would have written a much better story than we did. Just like he wrote Bittersweet memories...

- I know you might feel hurt and disappointed, but perhaps your expectations were too high. There are hundreds of books written trying to promote cross cultural tolerance and understanding. How could you have possibly thought to achieve that purpose with a short story only?

FD and BM, both are banned. I don't have kindle, and kindle price is free so I suppose you don't mind posting pdf link. I like to compare it to real life story.

Christian girl and muslim guy? Depends on family. In general european christian families don't like muslim guys. Esp if the guy is Arab. If the girl is more independent they may have a marriage, success depends on lot other factors. If the girl is from a more traditional Christian family, it is much more difficult. There will be a lot of pressure from the family.

Now coming to boy's muslim family (Arab). Well, they don't like Christian girls either, but has more to do with western culture rather than religion. I've not seen same issues with marriages to Lebanse or Syrian Christian girl. They have certain fears if the girl is from west. Again depends on the family, if the family is more traditional then there will be lot of pressure.

As for the boy and girl themselves, well, there are two types of boys one push and nicer ones just leave. They don't want the girl to break apart from her family.

Second, there are lot of issues and people in love can be naive. I don't recommend interfaith marriages. If there are lot of cultural differences between couples, when things go wrong things can really go wrong. Family might see the time to break em apart and try to prove they were right based on biases. Couples themselves can break apart, in difficult times differences could become the straw that broke the camel's back. In my opinion, it is better to part ways when things are not deeper and less to lose. Smarter and wiser.

But in real life I've seen work and don't work. The ones that worked.

1) Couples were mature and smart enough to handle the differences, and also negative people in their life.
2) Shared the faith (sharing faith doesn't mean all the views were similar, but couples like that seems to last). Probably most people find it difficult to handle things maturally if things go wrong and if both share faith, there is one major issue that can explode is not there. But it is usually marriages between converts I see, people who convert for marriage it may not be something strong.
3) Easy going (my english terminology is not that good). I guess forgiving nature.

Even in the same faith, things can go wrong based on the views. I've come across cases (internet is a good place to know a lot of people) where couple have broken apart over liberal and conservative views. Some converts, esp women are more zealous, if muslim guy is not religious (I mean at all) this can have serious issues. Women may want to wear a niqab, but husband may protest for example. I've seen one case like this where wife started to wear niqab (among other issues), later she filed for divorce because her views became too much different than her husband's.

It is a complicated world, life is much more complex.

Have I missed something?

Got me wondering aswell ?

kanelli wrote:Have I missed something?

Not sure what you mean. I guess Kohar wanted to discuss these issues, I just posted what I've seen in real life.

Yeah but whats up with the title of the thread ?

I don't like to assume here, so I'll say nothing lol.

Bethanysmum wrote:Get your mind out of the gutter Nuc!

huh? you have lost me.