...the real reason why anyone ever imagines that WH is anything like a love story is the magnificent movie by the same title which you seem to have missed. Made in 1939 - during that astounding four-year period, 1938-42, in which Hollywood produced more outright masterpieces than it probably did in the rest of its whole history - it is a stunning movie, directed by William Wyler and featuring Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon, and has about as much to do with the real novel as Hollywood's versions of Captains Courageous and The Jungle Book have with poor Rudyard Kipling. And likely enough more people have seen the film than read the book.