Convincing literary couples

[aloha]

Recently read The Time Traveller's Wife, and noticed on MN that someone said that they couldn't work out why the couple loved each other, and I thought that was true. I didn't feel any sense of a great love - you know, when you so desperately want them to meet and hate the thought of their parting.
Felt like this about Angel Clare and Tess (even though he's an arse, it works)and Romeo and Juliet but which literary couples do you think work?
(Ha! Bet this thread dies a death )

Heathcliffe and Cathy.

Jane Eyre and Rochester.

Definitely NOT any Jane Austen couples - all far too mercenary/semi-arranged marriages

Scarlett and Rhett (go on, run after him!)

Anthony and Cleopatra

Never, ever got the couple in Look Back in Anger - all that crap about squirrel and bear, as if that makes up for him being an arse.

Disagree with you about Time Traveller's Wife, though aloha - I wept buckets in that and really felt the absolute certainty and desparation of their love.

I'm not sure how many people will have read the books in question, but for me the "rightest" couple in literature that I know of are Solly Bridgetower and Veronica Vambrace in the wonderful Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies. They go through a great deal separately and then together and you are yearning for a happy ending for them throughout, which they get
Time Traveller's Wife is languishing unread at home. Bought a while back and have not managed to summon up enthusiasm, tbh.
Find Maggie O'Farrell's couples unconvincing every time alas

Agree totally about John Osborne Wilbur. Would sooner sit through an evening of finest Sarah Kane than Look Back in Anger.
Beatrice and Benedick are my convincing Shakespeare favourites. And I want Viola and Orsino to work out (based on playing her as a hormonal teenager and having a passionate crush on the uber-cool older man playing Orsino) but don't think it convinces in the end.
Biggest in Shakespeare is why Hermione does not kick Leontes into the middle of next week at the end of The Winter's Tale.

ks, I know you'd adore Robertson Davies. Even though he was about 80 and half-covered in a flowing white beard the only time I saw him speak I'd have had his babies like a shot.

just a note to marina, really agree with that one
very few people i know even heard of roberston davies , so glad you have. adore his books so warm well written and often lol funny.

now must think of another couple...

The couple in Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? (helps that they were played by real-life love-hate couple Liz Taylor/Richard Burton

Yes to Beatrice and Benedict and equal r.e Hermione and Leontes

Do like Captain Wentworth and thingy (god - I did this for Alevel - what was her name?)in Persuasion - and this one went against the older generation, so have to disagree with MTS.

the couples in Love in the Time of Cholera and the book of Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Shrek and Fiona !

Will and Lyra in His Dark Materials

Levin and Kitty

Definately Shrek and Fiona

The couple in 'Mourning Ruby' by Helen Dunmore.

Oh yes to Captain Wentworth! I disagree re Jane Austen. I think they are about love as opposed to money and arranged marriages, which are always absolute tragedies in her novels.

Capt Wentworth and....Anne Elliott!!!

Huzzah, the grey matter hasn't deserted me completely after all!

(Glad you agree, Aloha.)

Or, Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root for all fans of really truthful Austen film adaptations.
I think most of the Austens work out fine but still have lingering worries about Elinor and Colonel Brandon...and Fanny and Edmund were made for each other, the drips.

elizabeth bennett and darcy are convincing surely?

elinor and col brandon makes more sense than marianne and col brandon.

but bossykate how about Elizabeth's tongue in cheek line, about how she realised that Darcy was the man for her once she had seen his vast country estate?

more of a bronteite than janeite

Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak

Celia and Robbie in Atonement, in spite of the fact he emerges as a bit of a twat in Part One.

What a lovely thing to think about on a damp Satuday afternoon whilst baking! Will be back with some more in a bit...

Oscar and Lucinda. (sniff, sob)

Oh yes Hinds and Root as Wentworth and Anne - that last scene makes me get goosebumps....
Rhett and Scarlet - you feel his love/passion/pain long before she realises (silly girl...!)