The Duel!

GUEST BLOGGER!! Jackie's common law live-in boyfriend guest blogs.

I'd like to write about one of my favorite aspects of plot in olden day novels: the duel! There is nothing as exciting as an adult allowing another adult to fire a pistol at him. It's not the quick draw stuff of western films, instead each man is given an opportunity, with ample time, to shoot his adversary. The last two books I've read, Sentimental Education and War and Peace (actually only 470 pages into it) have incredible duel scenes. And one of my favorite movies, Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, has several duel scenes. It's a very basic life and death situation, and a duel is almost always started over woman. Life, death, and sex: the basics of any great novel. Some common traits of the duel: the participants are obstinate jerk-offs, the seconds usually beg the duelers to reconsider (adding to the suspense, because the duelers, though scared, never think backing down is an option), and though they seemed to have been common, duels weren't actually legal. There isn't a modern day equivalent that I can think of. I think pistols in the late 18th and early 19th century were inaccurate; the ball could go any which way. We all know what happens if you point a modern gun at someone standing ten feet a way and pull the trigger. If anyone else knows of any books with great duel scenes, I'd love to hear about it.