Hope Springs Eternal

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast..." Alexander Pope sure knew what he was talking about when he wrote those lines back in 1732.  Hope is one of those things that I've always felt made us human...   It's what keeps us going, gets us out of bed in the morning, and during tough times gives us that little bit of "oomph" we need to get through. Who among us hasn't said to ourselves, "things have GOT to get better", or had someone tell us that "things will look better in the morning".  Religious folks will suggest that hope is intertwined with faith (and indeed, that is part of Pope's message from 400 years ago) but even those who don't ascribe to any particular religion would probably agree that hope is needed to achieve a kind of peace with oneself and environment.
Wow, that was a bit deep.  Sorry!
Initially I chose the quote for my column as a snarky dig questioning whether spring would ever come to my neck of the woods.  We have seen some pretty wacky weather so far this year, and not just in my backyard; although as I write this, it's the second week of May and Western Canada had a huge dump of snow yesterday.  I am in absolutely no danger of getting an early start to my suntan this year!  
I read so much that the storylines of the books I'm reading will give you a bit of insight into how I'm feeling during a given week.  Lately, with hardly an end in sight to the blustery early spring weather, I've been searching out a favourite trope - the one I call the "Phoenix".  (Conveniently for me, the trope and the quote seemed to go together, and so here we are!)
The Phoenix trope is the storyline that usually begins with a tragedy.  Depending on the author, the tragedy can be first-world and somewhat trivial (credit-card debt, losing a job or boyfriend) to heart-wrenchingly tragic, like the death of spouse or a child.  If you remember Danielle Steel's works from the late 70s and early 80s, she gave us a formulaic double-whammy:  the book always began with the heroine stunningly happy with a perfect life, then Steel would yank the carpet out from under her about four chapters in.  The rest of the book is then spent watching the heroine rebuild herself and work toward the HEA you know is coming.  
I chewed these kinds of books like bubble gum in my younger years.  Beach reads, they were, usually about 400 pages, with heroines who took whatever life threw at them, bending but never breaking.  They seemed to romanticize tragedy and shitty ex-husbands (not to mention poverty) so much that I recall almost wishing I could have something like that happen to me!  Not that I really wanted to be paralyzed, diagnosed with a life-threatening disease or rendered penniless by a man I formerly swapped spit with - it was just that the heroines seemed to deal with adversity so WELL.  They always triumphed at the end of the book, and managed to do it in a way that made me want to be just like them.  While I can't say that I ever forded a crisis in my real life by asking myself, "What would Gabrielle Didier do?" (the heroine of one of my all-time favorite books like this, Doris Mortman's "Rightfully Mine"),  I also can't say that the answer isn't locked in my brain vault somewhere, guiding me subconsciously.
Aaaaanyway, where was I?  Oh yes, hope.
Given my own circumstances this year, I could tell you firsthand how important hope is.  Being able to gauge how discouraged or optimistic I feel on any given day is sometimes a pretty accurate measurement of where I am in my recovery from depression.  
In terms of reading fiction, the amount of hope (or optimism, or brightness, or whatever you want to call it) in a work is often directly related to my enjoyment of what I'm reading.  There's a reason dystopian and apocalyptic reads don't appeal to me much - they have a bleak outlook that strips the pleasure from my reading experience.  This has always been the case; even as far back as high school and our required reading of "Lord of the Flies".  We watched the film in addition to reading the book, and the two-punch of despair and foreboding is all I can really recall from my grade eleven English class.
Back to the Phoenix.
I've been reading quite a few of this type of storyline lately.  Even though they aren't as grand in scale as the door-stoppers I cut my teeth on, they are still a feel-good funfest.  Alas, they are usually classed as "Women's Fiction" or, God forbid, "Chick Lit", but they are sure a welcome change from all the clumsy twenty-somethings and spank-happy billionaires glutting the market.  
The heroines are usually more relatable, it seems to me.  We've all had crappy things happen to us from time to time - another difference is that while the standard contemporary these days has the heroine just needing a rowdy screw and/or a spanking to set her straight, the Phoenix trope requires something more.  Like the heroine finding herself.  Overcoming obstacles on her own.  Finding a love that compliments her life, not one that completes it.  (I don't care WHAT Jerry Maguire said, no one needs another person to complete them.)  
In addition to being more relatable, the heroines of these types of novels are usually older than the usual.  My theory on this is that it takes a while to build a life with enough substance to actually BE destroyed.  The Phoenix needs some ash to rise from, you know.
Depending on the skill of the author, heroines of the Phoenix novel can be hilariously flighty, austere and down-to-earth, bawdy and earthy, or shy and unassuming.  Each attribute can determine the path the heroine takes to their own happy ending.  Usually I can find something in the main character to identify with or use as a role model, so to speak.  That's what makes these stories so satisfying to read, and the reason that I remember so much about Gaby from "Rightfully Mine", which was published in 1988.
And lest you think this particular storyline is populated strictly by women, fear not.  I've read a few Phoenixes where the main character was a hero, rather than a heroine.  These breeds are much rarer, and harder to pull off.  When it fails...well, I've read a couple of skeevy examples where it didn't work so well.  
So there you have it - my own little description of one of my favorite tropes.  Of course, if I had an unlimited word count we could also talk about optimism generally in fiction - for example, how the tone (and the various shades between bleak and bright in terms of writing style and outlook) can mean the difference between spine-tingling and gut-wrenching in a horror novel - but that’s for another month - or, scroll below to the comments section and we can talk about it! 

Happy reading!