Sometimes, the sound and fury of an uninformed pseudo-critic should be ignored, because that lessens their impact. When someone attempts to condemn an entire genre on the basis of one book, it is too familiar, an ill-informed position we've seen too often in the last few weeks.
Sometimes, however, the sound and fury of said pseudo-critic has reached enough people, raised enough eyebrows and caused sufficient teeth-clenching fury that, though it still signifies nothing, responses may be required.
I believe this is one of those times.
Before we continue, I ask that you pour yourself a very large beverage, and remove all sharp objects from your immediate vicinity.
Ready?
We've reached a new low in Men Writing About Romance Novels: 2014 Edition.
Well, not us exactly. William Giraldi wrote some words collected beneath the title Finally, an Academic Text Devoted to 50 Shades of Grey, which were published in The New Republic.
His article purports to be about an academic analysis of 50 Shades of Grey titled Hard-Core Romance: Fifty Shades of Grey, Best-Sellers, and Society. The book is by Eva Illouz, a professor of sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, I can't tell much about the book because Giraldi's opinion is obscured behind his own incredible, thunderous disdain for not only 50 Shades of Grey, but also the author, and the readers who enjoyed that book, and any other romance besides.
The degree to which Mr. Giraldi decorates this reading community with his disdain can be met with outrage (yup) or equal disdain (yup yup). As I re-read some choice moments in William Giraldi's bloviating asshattery, I felt that, in this case, the most fierce and cunning weapon we have in our arsenal is needed.
Many have assisted me in the assembly and loading of this weapon. It is ferocious in its simplicity and says everything we need to say. We've got American English, British English, and Spanish language variations assembled like Avengers.
Ready?
Lock and load.
With their drooling enthusiasm for Fifty Shades, millions of dreamy-hearted women have chaperoned a cultural phenomenon—one that amply shows how far taste can be removed from hunger—just as millions of frail-headed men have made Tom Clancy a household name, Clancy's bestsellers being a breed of poli-sci porn for gruff guys.
Drooling, dreamy hearted women!
Dreck of this stupendous caliber has a particular advantage over literature in that one doesn't have to read all of it to surmise, accurately and eternally, that it is all uniformly awful and awfully uniform—romance novels, like racists, tend to be the same wherever you turn.
Wow. That's a canon-ball right there, isn't it? Let's look at that again:
“…romance novels, like racists, tend to be the same wherever you turn.”
Linda Holmes from NPR has brought our ancillary weapon, the ankle-holster of sarcasm:
Nothing says “I'm a thinker” like comparing racism to reading books you don't like.
— Linda Holmes (@nprmonkeysee) May 20, 2014
And again we deploy our response:
It's pointless to spend much time impugning these books as writing because they really aren't meant to be considered as actual writing, the same way a Twinkie wasn't meant to be considered as actual food. Books ejaculated this easily have the inverse effect of being extremely difficult to read.
Eva Illouz is an academic at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who’s authored a book titled Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery, so she’s accustomed to writing intelligently about the bathetic and bromidic and brain dead.
Illouz contends that Hard-Core Romance “was written with respect and suspicion for popular cultural forms,” and although her grammar means to say respect for and suspicion of, you might yourself begin to suspect that she harbors too much of the former and not nearly enough of the latter.
TL;DR:
Giraldi to Illou: You took this book, the genre and its readership far too seriously for my comfort.
Women everywhere, I hope, will be irked to learn that Fifty Shades “represents the ultimate triumph” of their point of view, and yet we’d have trouble contending that the white middle-class women who made Fifty Shades a commercial godsend were not “preoccupied with love and sexuality.”
Thank goodness Mr. Giraldi is here to speak on behalf of women everywhere!
Romance novels are a billion-dollar-a-year industry and make up 46 percent of all mass-market paperbacks sold in America; the publishing company Harlequin claims that half of its customers buys 30 of its novels every month; it also claims to sell more than four books per second. How did the pabulum of Fifty Shades manage to rise above such a mind-stinging preponderance of crap?
What the commercial coup of Fifty Shades reveals about us is this: We’re an infirm, ineffectual tribe still stuck in some sort of larval stage. Do I really expect Americans to sit down with Adam Bede or Clarissa after all the professional and domestic hurly-burly of their day? Do I expect them to appreciate the sexually terroristic satires of Sade, or the erogenous verse of Sappho and Catullus, or Nicholson Baker’s comical romp Vox? Pardon me, but yes I do.
At least people are reading. You’ve no doubt heard that before. But we don’t say of the diabetic obese, At least people are eating. Anyway, we can expect a resurgence of the Fifty Shades evangelism when the film version is released next year, when middle-class ladies everywhere tug their porcine beaus off the sofa and put them through another 90 minutes of torture.
The sad thing is, bloviating aside, it is absolutely worthwhile to consider WHY 50 Shades of Grey became such a phenomenon, why books like Bared to You followed it to worldwide bestsellerdom, what the sexist coverage revealed culturally, and how it changed the way erotic contemporary romance narratives are discussed, marketed, and published, even if you don't know all the answers (I certainly don't).
It's absolutely valid to wonder why that book captured imagination and sold all over the bloody place, and possibly how it did so – though if we knew the answer, we'd have a lot more money and probably an infomercial, too: SELL TIES AND TRILOGIES WORLDWIDE – WE TELL YOU HOW!
After Twilight was published (Mmmmm, irony!), I learned a very embarrassing lesson about how unacceptable my own douchey attitude about some books was — an attitude that I adjusted immediately.
To wit: Just because you didn't like something, doesn't mean there's something wrong with the people who do.
In other words, Mr. Giraldi, here is a ladder; please get over yourself.
As Alyssa Rosenberg says in her Most Excellent response in the Washington Post:
Here is a proposal Giraldi does not seem to have considered: Romance novels are attractive not just because they are a gratifying escape but also because they sometimes feel like a respite from from the significant hostility that a lot of literature shows women.
Not to mention the hostility in this article as well.
Giraldi's biggest problems seem to be that Eva Illouz, in her book, took 50 Shades of Grey seriously, and attempted to examine critically why and how that book grabbed the attention of so many millions of readers. Moreover, from the rage and insult inherent in every word he published, it seems 50 Shades of Grey sold far too many copies for Giraldi's liking, and was too popular besides. He's mad that people read it, he's mad that people liked it, he's mad it became such a huge bestseller that more books are being written ABOUT it, and he's mad because, like so many other pieces of popular entertainment before it, 50 Shades apparently signals the death throes of American intellect and high culture.
Oh, dear. What a pity.
This article is so many shades of wrong (sorry) I can't even find an analogy.
I know some terrific people who work for various media organizations, both mainstream and … whatever streams are adjacent to the main stream. They are smart and clever and gifted writers. They ask questions. When faced with a topic involving romance, they don't do this.
This, by which I mean discussing romance, is the difficult stuff to write about. Writing about romance as a genre or about individual books that have unparalleled appeal means you write about intimacy, sexuality, women, imagination, economics, privacy and emotions (and a bunch of other stuff). But because it's so much easier and so familiar to make dick jokes, make sex jokes, or come down like a thundering hippo of condescension and sphincter-clenching, that's what we get every time.
But every time a writer in mainstream media fails to do the difficult stuff well, every time they write a sex scene instead of business news, every time they condemn women and readers instead of attempting fair or even neutral analysis, they make bloggers more relevant.
Readers have learned that, too often and with a few important exceptions, writers within mainstream venues can't be trusted to look at anything involving the romance genre with fairness and decency. They judge, like Mr. Giraldi, based on one book. They condemn based on the content without understanding the context. They cry giant tears of sadness when readers choose to read romance, because it's not good for them.
Writers like Giraldi have demonstrated again and again that they can't do it. They can't handle any aspect of the romance genre, from the industry to the books themselves, without demonstrating ignorance and discomfort in worn metaphors, through condescension, condemnation, or lascivious comparison.
So go ahead. Keep on going. You're just making all of us who write and discuss the genre critically in many, many online venues far more relevant, and you do so at your expense. So thanks.
And also,
Many thanks to Sarah Anderson, Glynis Irwin, Rhoda Baxter, Ana Canino Fluit, Keri Ford, and Beth Yarnall for their assistance with tactical weaponry.
William Giraldi is just another critic/journalist hoping to escape the drudgery of the newsroom by writing the Great American Novel. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned and I’m guessing sales were dismal. Bless His Heart.
I used to work at a newspaper which had a room full of Mr. Giraldis who worked on their Great American Novels at night and questioned my taste in the books I read while eating my lunch. I don’t think any of them got rich on their books either. Bless Their Hearts.
Oh, dang. I just read a romance novel, so that means I’m no longer CAPABLE of reading Beowulf. Which is too bad, cause I enjoy it so much. Thanks, Giraldi!
Seriously, did anyone else picture this man screaming incoherent obscenities like the racist baseball player in 42?*
*(And was anyone else upset that dude stole Wash’s face?!? WASH WOULD NEVER SAY THOSE THINGS!! /Firefly reality filter)
This one is staying on my mind. I thought I was immune to childish academics throwing out churlish opinions but apparently not. I keep thinking about his recommendations list. He gives us a heroine who is torn between a gross but family-vetted marriage partner and a hot bastard who is not parent approved, and she would literally rather die than to marry either of them. I would think he was uncomfortable with the sexytimes aspect of romance, but he claims to like de Sade so that’s not it. Maybe he only likes sexytimes when the male character gets off? (Note of advice: everybody wins when the ladies get off. Just sayin’.) But he also claims to like Sappho so that can’t be it either. So perhaps his real problem has to do with sexualization and commodification of hot bastards? Because romance is all about getting to have your hot bastard and eat him, too. Hot bastards for everyone!
Wooow, this made me angry on so many levels. Mr. Giraldi obviously has never truly read a romance – not in passing, not out of curiousity, and certainly not out of research for the article in which he wrote about a genre he obviously knows nothing about. Reading his article has literally left me speechless.
(btw, love your allusion to Macbeth!)
Excellent rebuttal! Read it with interest earlier today and lobbed a few choice words Giraldi’s way and then afterward I happened to open of PW Magazine to see what ARCs are going to be given away at BEA next week, and lo an behold, unless there’s another Wiliam Giraldi, he’s got a book he’s pimping soon. So this article was his way of running up the calling-all-douchebags flag on the literary snobbery pole so that like-minded twits will rally around his upcoming book.
Yep, I had some serious rage at this guy for his pompous windbag of an article (and way of thinking). SB Sarah revved up the B*tchmobile and took it for a spin all over his statements, just as I knew she would. Thanks, Sarah, for defending the honor of the Pink Palace’s residents.
Seeing all these mentions of “Beowulf”, did you guys know that J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation (with commentary) has finally been published? Run to your nearest Books-A-Million and nab a copy – help keep me working, lol. 🙂
Bless your heart… um, no… it should have been “kiss my ass”!
Ginger: Don’t worry – that was covered. “Bless your heart” is a remarkably adaptable and expressive phrase, with many levels of meaning. 🙂
I get the feeling the source behind William Giraldi’s anger is he is an unsuccessful author who is bitchy-jealous over EEL and other writers who are crying all the way to the bank.
…and of course I got E.L. James’ initials totally wrong. Don’t know where EEL came from.
I got hung up on Giraldi’s assumption that people who read romances have never, and will never, read anything else. I guess it would come as a shock to him that romance readers don’t fit into one tidy little box, but include people with all different education levels, backgrounds, professions, other interests, etc.
And it must be nice for him to have the luxury to come home every day after work, put his feet up, and enjoy uninterrupted quiet time with his “serious” literary pursuits. Guess he doesn’t have to worry about cooking dinner, helping kids with their homework, nursing elderly parents, doing laundry, or even, heaven forbid, heading out to a second job. He just blissfully inhabits his own little world of privileged wankerdom.
Sad little man.
The upcoming book explains a lot.
Yes, on the Tolkien Beowulf – I am definitely going to pick it up—although I have my doubts that ANYTHING, even Tolkien, can be better than Seamus Heaney. The Illustrated edition w/John Niles as editor is the most awesome ever. I’m a feeble larval romance writer/reader, with absolutely no ability to comprehend the finer points of literature, so I need the pictures on every double-page spread. Amazing full-color photography of gold jewelry, swords, actual bogs in Denmark, reconstructions of Great Halls from circa 500 AD, illustrated manuscripts, clothing, armor, the works – all amazingly photographed and arranged opposite the appropriate portion of the poem.
The illustrated version doesn’t have the Old English, just the translation and the photos – I think it is the gateway book to get people hooked, and then they go out and start poking around the other versions and dorking around with Old English on the internet.
(And I say this as a person who never read Beowulf in college – I majored in Japanese/East Asian studies – didn’t read Beowulf until I was in my late 30s. Guess that’s because my mind was rotted by all that romance … no, wait, I read it as romance research … oh, so his theory is wrong?)
WHEN IS MY BOOK BOX FROM RT GOING TO GET HERE? I need to cauterize my mind with the Windflower, which I have (hangs head in shame) never read, but it’s in the box from RT. I guess I’ll have to watch Castle instead.
What surprised me the most on reading Giraldi’s piece is how little substance there is to it.
In the third paragraph he admits to having read little of the works in question. The only facts he cites have to do with the astonishing sales of James’s books. He talks about other authors he likes better. And all he seems to have to say about either James’s or Illouz’s work is that it’s Bad! Very Bad!
I don’t get it. Is that what generally passes for literary criticism these days? To me it seemed to be a fustier version of what I’d expect to hear in a clip from Faux News. Moral indignation in the absence of content.
Beyond Giraldi’s condescending generalizations about the entire romance genre (and really any genre, author or reader that doesn’t adhere to whatever his self-imposed, asinine definition is of literature that ought to be read) and the flowery, down-right insulting comparisons he uses to create a Fox News-esque representation of anyone who reads romance or consumes other forms of pop culture my question is: Maybe this article is really his argument for why he’s the original hipster?
This mode of thinking just infuriates me – to me, it’s like the argument that aliens built Stonehenge or the Great Pyramids; just because the humans who existed 5,000 years ago didn’t have the same technology we have today doesn’t mean they weren’t smart enough and capable of constructing such monuments. His supposition that the 50 Shades Phenomenon is another stop on the pop cultural train to automaton oblivion is far more disturbing to me because it demonstrates the same lack of faith in the human race.
Giraldi’s first paragraph and last sentence also slightly struck me as some sort of misguided attempt to defend unsuspecting men from being sexually tormented. How dare their significant others have fantasies or want to try new things? My first and last impressions of Giraldi’s opinions both left me with the same sour taste in my mouth after visiting /r/MensRights, a Reddit community and general Internet cesspool where the voice of reason is often drowned out by butthurt misogynists who act like every step forward for women is a step back from men.
As inflaming as this piece is it’s also laughable enough as to make it only an irritation to me because I, armed with my Kindle full of romance novels, think that anyone with a modicum of intelligence and the ability to not take him or herself too seriously sees right through this type of bullshit – the comments on the article speak for themselves.
You nailed this, Sarah!!! What a douche. I love that there are people like you in the world.
@ #52 Anna Richland: Wow, I have the bilingual version, but didn’t know there was an illustrated version. I just checked it out over at Amazon. Even the limited Look Inside features looked amazing, so on my wishlist it goes. (I’ve got that settlement credit burning a hole in my pocket.)
Wow. I have a BA & MA in English literature from a top tier US university, I teach upper-level literature courses at a top-50 (…sorry) private US high school, I read or have read (and enjoyed) any number of the classics, AND I read the sh*t out of romance and erotica. Honestly? Reading so much genre fiction (both the good and bad….and good god but I have read me some BAD stuff that I just can’t seem to put down) has actually helped me as a teacher, because if anyone understands plot structure it’s a successful genre fiction writer.
This asshat’s article has a lack of support and specific analysis that would earn my students embarrassingly bad grades on their essays.
Back to grading.
Thanks for writing such a kick ass put-down!
@Susan, didn’t that credit expire? I thought that it was only good through 3/25.
After I came home from work, I came back here just so I could watch the “Bless your heart” videos (every time I think that phrase I hear Lemon from Hart of Dixie saying it), but now I’m in such a bad mood that no binge watching season 1 of OUAT on Netflix will be able to fix it before I go to bed (plus, season 1 David pisses me off because he’s such a weak, little man, lying to Kathryn about his relationship with Mary Margaret and then lying to Mary Margaret about what he told Kathryn. I much prefer the season 2 & 3 version of him, and I think that was the point).
The thing is that this man, with his judgements and assumptions about an entire segment of the population should not matter because we do not matter to him. He is Romney and we are the 47% of the country that he couldn’t give a crap about. Well, let’s do to Giraldi what we did to Romney—make him a footnote. In ten years time, hell in 10 days time, no one will even remember his name, while E.L. James and the many romance/erotica authors will far outdistance him in notoriety.
Ugh. I tried reading the article, but the fat-shaming of the husband and the assumptions about their sex life really turned me off of it.
Also, the thing I forgot to mention- erotica is not all FSOG. FSOG is not all erotica. I’ve been reading quite a bit of stuff lately, some good, some bad, and listening to the fan-fiction version of FSOG (Master of the Universe) read by a talented and hilarious YouTuber by the name ManWithoutABody. I *hate* FSOG for its simpering, idiotic main and its douchetastic leading man, but I do appreciate that it’s brought erotica more into the mainstream. I’m enjoying my reading, and I realize FSOG has something to do with that reading become more socially acceptable and accessible.
I just wish there were fewer edited, published books that featured submissive women who fall for complete assholes. Just because FSOG did it and it was successful doesn’t mean it appeals to everyone. I’d love to read a bondage-centered story where the characters really were on equal footing, and the sexiness came not from abusive manipulation (which I feel much of it in FSOG *is*), but from willingness to give up control in the bedroom. Like, I don’t want to read about how he controls what she eats. I want to read about the experience of putting trust in someone even when it might be a little bit dangerous, because sharing that level of intimacy is really sexy.
Why do men still think they can tell women, or other men for that matter, what they can and cannot read (or write). I refuse to even apologize for reading romance. I tell people what I read all the time and what I have found out when you speak one on one with a nay sayer you find them curious. They actually want to know why a women they know is intelligent would choose a Romance. I esplane that when you step back from this planet you see a lot of self inflicted misery, selfishness, bigotry, murder, environmental trashing (and I could say that much of this destructiveness is lead by the males of the species…but I won’t) so if I want to refresh my brain and soul by reading a story involving two people who grow up and in love together with a hero who is touchingly enlightened while being a male SO WHAT??? Not reading hurts more people. And really, he’s just another leech making a dime off the backs of real and successful authors. Maybe his last girlfriend told him he just didn’t measure up. But that’s not because she was reading a romance. Look a bit closer to home if you wish to express derision.
You know what? I’ve read the Marquis de Sade. I have it sitting here on my shelf. It is more a more clearly self-gratifying exercise of mental masturbation than one of literary triumph. Does that make it not worth reading? Well, no. Because, in my universe, if you enjoyed reading it, then it was worth reading. That’s it.
Yes, reading can be educational or thought-provoking. Yes, reading can be entertaining. And yes, reading can be all of those things AT THE SAME TIME.
Personally, I didn’t enjoy FSoG. Not my thing. Didn’t dig Twilight. Don’t dig Steinbeck or Dickens, either. I do like Nora Roberts and I do like Shakespeare (more the plays than the poetry) and I do like Maya Banks and I do love me some Oscar Wilde.
I am a complex and interesting person. That means my reading is also complex and interesting. I’m sorry for Mr. Giraldi that he is not, evidently, complex and interesting.
William Giraldi wrote this because he secretly wants to be a hero in a romance novel. He knows only a romance author can write the story that will show him how someone as whiny as he is can change enough to stop throwing tantrums about how romance authors outsell him so that he can find his own happily ever after. His article was a call for help.
You are my hero, Sarah.
JQ
P.S. I posted a link to this on my FB page. The folks there seem especially enamored of the phrase “bloviating asshattery.”
Thank, you, Sarah—this was hilarious! I found Giraldi’s article, read all at once, a hoot as well… I agree with him in part (James’ prose will win no literary prizes; you are what you read)—but, enough already—I don’t care! James delivers the goods, clumsily-written sentences and glaring Britishisms notwithstanding: total fantasy and escape. I’ve read her trilogy three times and will keep reading it.
Sometimes. I. Just. Want. To. Be. Entertained!
And nobody had better be dissing on _Clarissa_ or _Adam Bede,_ damn it! ;D
@Ova:
*applause*
Also, I am going to say “soporific pabulum” over and over as many times as needed this week.
I don’t mean to offend anybody who likes Clarissa. I just feel like there were an awful lot of pages just to have her die angelically at the end. It almost seemed like Richardson realized Lovelace was too much of a rockstar to be resistible and so had to make him do something irredeemable so the readership would hate him too. I understand this was all about the mores of the times, though, I get that.
It seems like this guy’s only bar for whether erotica is legit or The Bane of Literary Culture is how old it is. I don’t care for Classic Literature myself. No disrespect to folks who like it, but I disagree with the assumption that these books are better than any others just because people are required to read them in school. Word on the classism/fat shaming. That was pretty gross. Also, people have been wailing that pop culture is destroying all that is right and good and intellectual for pretty much all of recorded history, and those people have consistently turned out to be delusionally alarmist douchenozzles.
Looks at bookshelf. I’ve got all of J.R Wards Black Dagger Brotherhood books sandwiched between my Oscar Wilde collection and my Byron collection. I’ll pick whichever suits my mood thanks Mr Patronising.
Thank you, Sarah. I love the way you politely disembowel idiots, and that chap certainly deserved it.
The slightly odd thing is that I abandoned 50 Shades after 100 pages or so, and I could certainly put together some fairly trenchant criticism of the work itself to justify the DNF, but it would never occur to me to make sweeping generalisations about a genre based on one venture into the field.
Particularly if I had published one not very successful novel, because it would make it blindingly obvious that what I’m really whining about is my failure to become A Great American Novelist…
First off, the New Republic is a terrible magazine. Always has been. Anyone taking it seriously should be examined—there, I’ve expressed my dehumanizing opinion.
Secondly, I think a lot of men are scared of romance novels. They say something about women that men don’t want to think about too much.
I haven’t read 50 Shades and will not, for personal reasons. But if anyone fails to recognize its importance, in terms of the amount of money it has made, they are mistaken.
Okay, so Tom Clancy fans are ‘frail headed’, Oprah is ‘brain dead’, Americans are ‘infirm, ineffectual”, middle-class married men in America are all ‘porcine’ and pretty much women everywhere are ‘drooling’ and tasteless creatures who are ‘like racists’ for what they read. Is there anyone Giraldi HASN’T insulted?
I’m guessing his wife just left him.
PS: I’m morally against book burnings, but if anyone’s organising a bonfire night for ‘The New Republic’ please let me know. I’ll bring the marshmallows.
I all the time used to study paragraph in news papers but now as I am a user of net thus from now
I am using net for content, thanks to web.