Goodreads asked Stephen Policoff:

Who is your favorite fictional couple, and why?

Stephen Policoff I would have to say that Pip and Estella, in GREAT EXPECTATIONS, is my favorite fictional couple. First, that book remains one of my favorite novels decades after I first encountered it. And their fraught, impossible yet unbearably poignant relationship seems to resonate even in as utterly different an era as our own--that they are inextricably bound to one another yet unable to really help one another is both sad and real. And that Dickens felt impelled to provide both an implausibly happy ending for them and a bleaker one just underlines the whole idea of their improbable yet mesmerizing love. That one can love someone--go on loving someone-- yet know that it is useless or at least self-thwarting to do so, is real, tragic, and beautiful to me.

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