Line #12 Literature/ARomanceOfTwoWorlds


1	[[quoteright:270:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aromanceoftwoworlds.jpg]]
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3	Creator/MarieCorelli's first novel, published in 1886.
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5	''A Romance of Two Worlds'' is an UrbanFantasy that doubles as a religious treatise on Corelli's form of spirituality -- more or less a blend of Christianity and mysticism or spiritualism (she dismissed the SpookySeance type as nonsense, though). Some NewAge believers promote it as a partly- or mostly-factual account and it was certainly taken seriously by the Rosicrucians and some Theosophists.
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7	Corelli's unnamed AuthorAvatar is afflicted with debilitating depression and anxiety. She takes a sabbatical in Cannes to try to lift her spirits. Here, she encounters an Italian artist named Raffaello Cellini, who seems to possess some bizarre power that is gradually improving her health. Cellini refers to her to a mysterious man named Heliobas for further treatment, which begins her journey into finding the truth about the nature of life, {{God}}, and the heavens.
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9	Hint: It involves lots of [[LightningCanDoAnything electricity]].
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11	First of an eventual "Heliobas trilogy" with Ardath and TheSoulOfLilith.
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13	[[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4394 The entire text is online]] in several formats at Project Gutenberg along with all of Marie's other works.
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15	----
16	!!This Work Contains Examples Of:
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18	* AuthorAvatar: Say, Marie Corelli was a short blonde half-Italian improvisational pianist, too. Another reason some people take much of the book as an autobiography -- plus the Introduction is written by the ''narrator'', and people may mistake it as being by the ''author''. May or may not have been deliberate on her part.
19	%%* BeautyEqualsGoodness
20	* DoggedNiceGuy: Prince Ivan, who's in love with Zara and determined to marry her. Unfortunately, she's "engaged" to her twin soul, who is in the spirit world and just waiting for her to get there.
21	* FlatEarthAtheist: Even after [[spoiler:being killed by Zara when he tries to give her a ForcefulKiss and being brought back to life by Heliobas]] using spiritual electricity, Prince Ivan ''still'' doesn't believe in it?
22	%%* GorgeousPeriodDress: to the point of CostumePorn.
23	* HeManWomanHater: Heliobas, to some extent. He thinks women and sex are a distraction from work, spiritual and otherwise. He also believes that [[VanityIsFeminine most women care only for pretty clothes]] and [[IJustWantToBeBeautiful just want to be healthy so they can look nice]] and be admired. He [[TheGadfly gadflies the narrator]] with this attitude when they first meet, earning him one hell of a DidYouThinkICantFeel rant. His own twin flame up in heaven gets frustrated with his arrogance and sends him a message through the narrator.
24	%%* HeterosexualLifePartners: The narrator and Zara, [[spoiler:at least they would have been.]]
25	* InformedAttribute: Heliobas' kindness. He usually comes off as a bit of a JerkAss along with being a DeadpanSnarker.
26	* LightningCanDoAnything: Electricity is the key to the future, and to the nature of God and creation.
27	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Corelli cites a poem from a book called ''Letters from a Violinist''. This is a real book and was written by her brother Eric, the same fellow who leached off her earnings, begrudged her success, and went around claiming he was the real author of her books. Apparently she'd been trying to give his own work some good publicity. Cellini lends the narrator a book called ''Letters from a Dead Musician'', a collection of aescetic prose poems portraying music and the other arts as too pure to be sought by our coarse earthly flesh and best sought indirectly, as inspiration through dreams and visions. The author was a friend of Heliobas and Zara, and [[FatalMethodActing died in the middle of a performance in a Rome cathedral]], but otherwise has yet to be identified.
28	* NoHuggingNoKissing: ''None'' of the main characters' twin flames exist on Earth in the story, so they all remain single in a corporeal sense. When Prince Ivan tries to kiss Zara, he gets zapped by her electric jewel and she tells Heliobas that he tried to rape her. There's still plenty of hugging and kissing, but only between [[LesYay the narrator and Zara]].
29	%%* NoNameGiven: The narrator. Could be another reason people think this is autobiographical.
30	* OlderThanTheyLook: Zara, who looks 17 but is really ''38.''
31	%%* PurpleProse
32	* RedStringOfFate: According to Corelli's doctrine, every soul is destined to be with one other and him or her ''only.'' Any other relationship is doomed to fail. If your twin soul happens to be dead, you'll only reunite with them in the afterlife, so you're pretty much stuck being asexual here on Earth.
33	** This was believed by some Rosicrucians, adapted into Theosophy and evolved into New Age beliefs in [[https://www.google.com/search?q=twin+flame&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 Twin Flames]] or [[http://www.mojan.com/content/soul-mates-twin-souls/ Twin Rays]], but it goes all the way back to Plato's ''Symposium'' and Sufi sacred texts, and there are hints of it in Judaism [[note]]certain creation legends in the Midrash, also the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizpah_(emotional_bond) mizpah]]'' which can also apply to PseudoRomanticFriendship[[/note]] and Transcendentalism. Your twin flame, twin ray or mirror soul is the other half of ''you'' -- you'll merge together and AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence (like [[Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture Decker and Ilia)]] when your incarnations are complete; your soul''mate'' is important throughout many lifetimes and will always remain close to you, but is a separate person. Zara and the narrator are probably soulmates.
34	%%* SceneryPorn: Especially the interior of Heliobas' place.
35	* ScienceMarchesOn: Suffers badly from this. The novel tries to assert that the moon doesn't exist but is really an elaborate hologram and that Jupiter and Saturn are inhabited by advanced humanoid races. And electricity really cannot do everything. In a later novel, Corelli tried to visualize ''atomic energy'' this way.
36	%%* SelfInsertFic such that many readers still believe some or all of it really happened.
37	%%* TakeThatCritics: Happens a ''lot.''
38	%%* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: [[spoiler:Zara]].
39	%%* TragicKeepsake: [[spoiler:Zara's gem.]]
40	* WomenAreDelicate:
41	** The narrator, in her rant to Heliobas, asserts that this is true, but just because women are unable to accomplish what men do doesn't mean they don't aspire to greatness.
42	** Heliobas then inverts this {{Stereotype}}, claiming that most women are actually ''not'' delicate, citing the AlphaBitch, ObsessedWithFood, GossipyHens, {{Malicious Slander}}ers (who all have "thin lips and pointed noses"), TheScrooge, TheDitz, and otherwise refined, educated women who recite stuff with DoubleEntendre.[[note]]He specifically singles out Tennyson's "Rizpah", where a woman loses her mind when her [[UsedToBeASweetKid beloved son]] [[PeerPressureMakesYouEvil runs with the wrong crowd]], and is tried, convicted and hung for a relatively minor crime. She secretly buries his bones in consecrated ground, believing she'll see him again in heaven. It's BasedOnATrueStory [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lion_Inn,_Shoreham-by-Sea that happened in 1792]] and refers to a very similar story in the Bible ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizpah 2 Samuel 21]]). Why it is considered a coarse tale with "questionable allusions" that "no man would dare to undertake", Corelli only knows. Obviously she was never a mother.[[/note]] While Heliobas is meant to be a wise sage Corelli obviously doesn't want us to see him as perfect. She was also a Creator/WilliamShakespeare scholar and couldn't avoid knowing [[CountryMatters all]] [[GetTheeToANunnery that that implies]].

Context Literature / ARomanceOfTwoWorlds