I was reading Derik’s Bane by MaryJanice Davidson on the bus this morning, and, despite not being caffeinated, my brain started a major rumination. One of the characters has the gift of premonition, and as an illustration of the range of that gift, MJD writes that she predicted a tax audit, and September 11th, 2001.
I imagine people have a range of feelings regarding locating contemporary storylines, be they fantasy or not, in the present-day reality using real news events to establish time and location. Personally, I find that there’s a certain limit to how much reality I’m able to swallow in my fiction, but where specifically that limit is, I have a hard time defining.
Not to pick on MJD, because many authors use current events to ground their fiction in contemporary reality, but here’s an example of reality I can deal with. A few pages prior to the 9/11 reference, another character was able to analyze where Bin Laden is/was, and contacted a werewolf cabinet member to go get his behind. Heh – funny. Werewolves can figure out where Bin Laden is, but the US government intelligence cannot, even after five years.
But the reference to how a character was able to warn the pack to “stay the hell out of New York on September 11, 2001?” That gave me chills and yanked me right out of the book. This is probably because I was on a bus heading into New York City at that moment, and because even after five years, 9/11 is not something I quite know how to deal with, in fiction or in reality.
But then, Nora Roberts wrote in Blue Dahlia that the heroine’s husband was killed in a plane crash in September of 2001. There were no specific references to 9/11, but later the reader learns it was a small plane crash, and not one of the jetliners that was hijacked. But yet I was somewhat perturbed that there was a plot detail SO CLOSE to 9/11 and yet no mention of the actual day, because surely any American who was reading the novel noticed the juxtaposition of “September” and “2001” and mentally filled in the “11.”
How close can you get to something so horrible and so real, and still retain the reader’s attention? Does anyone else have the problem of locating news events in contemporary fiction? Does it yank you out of the story?
I have to wonder if it’s references to domestic terrorism that affect me specifically because I was totally fascinated by Stephanie Feagan’s parallel Enron-esque company in her first Pink book, Show Her the Money. The company Pink blew the whistle on wasnt Enron, but it was close enough that you knew the circumstances were a fictionalization of the reality. But events like 9/11? There’s no fictionalizing that, really. I couldn’t even watch the promos for the recent movie “Flight 93” that retold what happened to the people on the plane that were able to call loved ones after it was hijacked but before it crashed. The promos made me nauseous.
To be honest, now that I think about it some more, this might be a quirk of Sarah, since I’m usually trying to ignore the threat of terrorism by reading romance on the subway. I’ve mentioned before my theory that romance fantasy and paranormals are popular right now because it’s soothing to be able to clearly identify the bad guy, because h/she has fangs or fur or a really big freaking gun. In the current reality, you don’t know if the bad guy is the dude with the backpack on the R train, or the lady with the big ass purse on the bus next to you.
So perhaps the mentions of 9/11 in fiction give me chills because I’m in and out of an inadequately-prepared terrorist target every workday, and thus it may be unfair of me to try to draw a line in the sand, so to speak, as to where references of reality cross the line into “too much reality.” However, I’m curious as to what the Bitchery has to say about this one. Am I being asshattedly sensitive or does anyone else feel that way at times as well?
You’re not alone Sarah. 9/11 references will yank me out of a story too. It’s hard to articulate, but the world created in most romances is a very insulated one—it’s a non-reality that you accept as reality for that book, and throwing in a reference to 9/11 (from which we’re still feeling the aftershocks) is a lot different than referencing the Red Sox winning the World Series (as an example). It pulls you out of the story’s reality and puts you back in yours.
That said, if the whole story is grounded in a reality very similar to real life, it’s easier to get away with the reference.
Or maybe I’m being asshattedly sensitive too, since I’m also a New Yorker riding the subway every day and reading my romance novel!
9/11 references do that to me as well & not only in romances.
I’ve stopped reading military themed romances because I am regularly in Walter Reed Army Hospital & Bethesda National Naval Hospital & the wounded military guys are everywhere there.
I can’t read about the macho military men without seeing the wounded in the hospital cafeterias & in the wards. I can’t separate my reality from the fiction I read. The young faces, some barely older than my son, haunt me.
Perhaps romance readers as a group are too sensitive?!
While I don’t like to be reminded of real and horrific tragedies, they are a part of life. We can’t just sweep them under the rug so we’ll feel better.
Frankly, I’d rather read casual references like MJD’s and Robert’s than read memoirs of family members of 9/11 tragedies or watch a TV re-enactment.
Art and life are so intricately entwined that it’s not possible to do away with all references to 9/11. It was a major event that affected a lot of people. In real life you’d be hard pressed to not find someone who was affected in some way or other, why can’t that same degree of separation appear in fiction as well?
Good point, Sara. But while I’m not advocating that we sweep them under the rug so we all feel better, it is curious that a reference to such a visceral event can get in the way of some people’s enjoyment of fiction, because it speaks volumes about how much readers rely on the fantasy and on the happily ever after.
And I’m with you on the re-enactments and memoirs – can’t do it. No way.
Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you wanted to sweep it under the rug. I meant generally. As a writer I can tell you it’s much easier to pretend like it didn’t happen, than to confront something so horrific so inimately as writing demands.
News events don’t usually yank me out of story, not if they’re there for a reason. But that’s just good writing, IMO. I’m more likely to be pulled out by illogical character choices, stock phrases like “the kiss deepened”, impossible choreography, and cetera.
I’m rather sensitive to nasty things, which is why I read romance. I have problems reading romances where there are people in the military. I do wonder where they’ll be deployed next and it makes it a not-totally-convincing-HEA (and yes, of course anyone could be walking along the road and be hit by a bus, but some jobs/situations are more high-risk than others). In historicals, I get uneasy if I know there’s a big historical nasty event about to happen (e.g. the English Civil War, the First World War – which is why the Regency period is quite safe – no more plagues, all the fighting is abroad, not on British soil, and no really big conflict on the horizon until 1914). But as for 9/11, I’m in the UK, and for some reason 9/11 is something that happened in a far away country and so probably didn’t affect me so much emotionally as it did many of you. And yes, of course, I know it’s called global terrorism for a reason, but somehow it seems distant to me. And I stay well away from London too. So I could probably cope with a reference to 9/11 as long as it wasn’t going to affect the characters’ future (for example, if the book concluded with the characters in New York just prior to 9/11 then that would make me anxious about the HEA). And in the example about the werewolves knowing in advance what was going to happen on 9/11, I’d be spending my time wondering why they hadn’t done anything to protect other people/prevent it happening, so that’s what would yank me out of the story. It would become a problem with the background to the story. But I wouldn’t be yanked out because of my own emotional reaction to 9/11, which is what I think Sarah’s writing about.
Sometimes real life yanks me out of a story in strange ways. I was looking at SEP’s It Had To Be You the other day. It was published in 1994, and there’s reference to OJ Simpson doing the commentary on the football game. Of course I’m old enough to remember OJ when he was playing football, and doing commentary, and acting in “Naked Gun” movies, but to read that in 2006 was a bit odd.
But I can deal with it if the book’s good enough. It all depends on how the author works it in. At the same time, how close you are to the events in question makes a difference. Someone wrote a novel loosely based on the Gainesville Florida student murders of 1990. I have no desire to read it, because I was here when that happened and it’s something we still deal with in this town.
One of the things I remember most about 9/11 is a friend who lives on the Upper West Side telling me that when he went to buy a sympathy card for a friend whose father died in the North Tower, there were none available. None.
He said that little thing as much as anything else freaked him out.
I haven’t read any romances that mention 9/11 except Suz Brockmann’s and it makes sense in hers, of course. In fact, it would be more weird if she didn’t mention it, so it doesn’t pull me out of the story there.
And that Nora Roberts thing is weird.
I think the fear here is that something so monumental that evokes such pain will be trivialized.
I am with you completely about 9/11 references and the like. Me too.
my theory that romance fantasy and paranormals are popular right now because it’s soothing to be able to clearly identify the bad guy, because h/she has fangs or fur or a really big freaking gun
It may also be that the rise of paranormal has been facilitated by the relative demise of historicals. I think these two subgenres are much alike. Both use an alternate reality where the rules are different, and the obstacle to love often is directly related to those alternate rules. I began thinking about this because I am the coordinator for a contest for pubbed authors judged by readers. I let the judges choose which subgenres they wanted to read, and lots of them said, “Historical or paranormal.” Also, my CP won the Golden Heart for her historical, then switched to writing paranormals because the historical market is depressed. This has been a very smooth transition for her.
Thank you for that lovely introduction, Jennifer. :coolgrin: I meet sooo many other people who write both historical and paranormal. For me, it’s like I need some extra little nudge of romance to write. I truly admire people like you {pardon me while I pause to french kiss my CP} who can spin a whole romance out of the real world. I just have to have that little tingle of vampire sexiness or a bonny Scotsman on horseback. And, let’s face it, the history that I write about IS fantasy. Sassy, smart, independent women and the nineteenth-century hunks who love them and would never, ever keep a mistress. Mm. Deliciously unreal.
{pardon me while I pause to french kiss my CP}
For the last time, get off me.
I think the fear here is that something so monumental that evokes such pain will be trivialized.
my theory that romance fantasy and paranormals are popular right now because it’s soothing to be able to clearly identify the bad guy, because h/she has fangs or fur or a really big freaking gun
FWIW, I think these two things are intertwined, both in real life and in “fantasy” fiction. One of the reasons, IMO, we’re worried about 9/11 being trivialized is that—in addition to it being a bad beyond bad, on a huge scale—it also destroyed the illusion that we could always identify the “bad guys.” Think about Ted Bundy for example, or of the perfectly normal- looking people who abuse and murder their own children, spouses, parents, etc. Because the US was one of the few places relatively untouched by domestic terrorism, we thought we knew who was who, what was what, far more than it turned out that we did. And that realization, IMO, scares the crap out of us, and that fear, in turn, makes us riper for other kinds of domestic exploitation (i.e. take my civil rights, please). And it also makes us look with greater suspicion upon each other, to try to define, at least superficially, the “bad guys” in a more concrete way. And then, of course, to make them unequivocally bad so that we can find relief and even pleasure in their demise at least in our fictional escapes. Frankly, I’d way rather that desire to see evil punished, and to be able to identify that evil so clearly, be exorcised in fiction, since it IS so often more difficult to tell the “bad guy” in real life (and because I hate the fact that hate crimes have increased against certain groups because there is so much fear post 9/11).
I actually worry less about desensitization to the horror of 9/11 than I do about how America wants an identifiable enemy so badly in real life, how we seem to feel our safety depends upon that, and how that’s now bleeding into all these debates about “unpatriotic” statements and behaviors.
As far as Romance goes, part of the appeal is, obviously, escapism, and so I think each of us will have our own reality quotient (I can’t stand torture, for example, or the persecution of animals or childlren in my fiction—any fiction, actually). I don’t always need reality, but I definitely need authenticity in my Romance—an overall psychological, emotional, and structural sense and coherence, so I can get carried along and believe in what’s being presented. So I guess my personal rule is that if it makes sense, and it’s handled in a way that works naturally into the storyline, I’m less inclined to be pulled out of the story.
All I care about as a reader is that there is a foundation of reality in dealing with human behavior. I can’t stand stupid characters for the sake of moving the plot along. You can have a nice mix of fantastic elements as well as realistic moments. It is fiction after all but there’s no way that I can articulate the need for decent written characters who behave as real people would behave in certain situations. I can suspense disbelief for some things but not a heck of a whole lot. That is mainly why I don’t really care for contemporary romances.
Bottom line on human behavior for me is that it must be realistic no matter what fantastic hoops you put them through. That’s just me.
It is fiction after all but there’s no way that I can articulate the need for decent written characters who behave as real people would behave in certain situations.
I totally agree, Keishon, and I find it helpful not to judge a character’s actions by how someone outside the story (i.e. in the real world) would act, but rather how THAT character, given how they are drawn and developed, would reasonably act. I’ve seen readers justify what is, IMO, out of character behavior by saying, “that’s how a REAL person might act”—but after all, these aren’t REAL people, and if there’s not some continuity you can count on, then, it seems to me, anything goes as far as creating characters and putting them into commission in a plot.
I have a very strong stomach when it comes to fiction—I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t be able to read about, up to and including torture and references to recent tragedies. There are issues that matter to me a great deal and hit me very, very hard when I read about them, such as animal abuse, homophobia, rape, slavery, women’s rights, the systematic eradication of Native Americans, etc., but I’ve read many books that feature rather bleak takes on these issues and am not afraid to go back for more (e.g. Sacred Hunger, Marabou Stork Nightmares, Weeds, Madame Bovary, etc.). I wouldn’t flinch at mentions of 9/11 or any other tragedy along the same magnitude in my fiction as long as it was worked in skillfully and not used in an emotionally manipulative way.
That’s not to say there aren’t books that have hit me so hard that I just had to put them down. James Morrow’s somewhat satirical post-apocalyptic tales do this with distressing frequency with me, even though I adore his work and think he’s all sorts of brilliant. This is the Way the World Ends and The Eternal Footman were both so relentlessly bleak that I couldn’t stand the pain and had to set them down. Nothing to do with the books themselves, because both were well-written and thought-provoking; it’s just that my emotions felt rubbed so raw by the time I got to the middle that I had to stop reading. The City of Truth was really borderline with me; I did finish it, but it was a close thing.
In all those books, it wasn’t so much any sort of REAL reality or specific references to real-life tragedies that hit me hard and made me stop reading. It was more…hmm. The emotional space the books evoked made it too difficult for me to keep on reading. Does that even makes sense to anybody? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Robin, you said some VERY interesting things:
And it also makes us look with greater suspicion upon each other, to try to define, at least superficially, the “bad guys†in a more concrete way. And then, of course, to make them unequivocally bad so that we can find relief and even pleasure in their demise at least in our fictional escapes. Frankly, I’d way rather that desire to see evil punished, and to be able to identify that evil so clearly, be exorcised in fiction, since it IS so often more difficult to tell the “bad guy†in real life (and because I hate the fact that hate crimes have increased against certain groups because there is so much fear post 9/11).
Excellent points, all. One of my chief complaints with fiction, especially in romance, is the way the villains are so over-the-top EVILLLLLE. You know: not only are they scheming to kidnap and rape the heroine, they boink men (OMG TEH HOMOGHEY—my peeve with the whole homogaiety = instant evil has been ranted on before, so I won’t go it here), molest children, whip their dogs, kick little old ladies into oncoming traffic, make sudden lane changes without signalling, etc. etc. etc. And real life isn’t like that.
My great fear is that people tend to believe that villainy, both fictional and real, IS that simple and absolute. It isn’t. People who do evil things have their reasons, reasons that are often coherent, real and compelling, even if only in their worldview. And it’d behoove us to learn what that worldview is and to understand, even empathize, with what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, even as we strive to prevent more Bad Shit from happening.
It sounds odd to advocate for empathy with your enemies, but I’d argue that it’s not until you understand the antagonist’s deepest motivations that true and lasting peace can be achieved.
Sorry, that was an odd tangent to go on, wasn’t it? But what the hell. We’ve spent much time debating the merits of Thundercats vs. He-Man and man-titties vs. man-boobs, so why not this?
Just a few days ago I was talking to a friend from England, and 9/11 came up. She mentioned that she could no longer remember where she was when the planes hit the towers and I was dumbstruck—I remember where I was, what I was wearing, the weather, the first phone call I got from my New York friends. But really, I think those of us on the East Coast (particularly those of us with loved ones in NYC) will always be more sensitive to those events than the rest of the world. I couldn’t watch the promos for that Flt. 93 movie either, and I have trouble sitting near the gate at Logan Airport where the flight from Boston originated. (There’s a flag, etc., I wish to God they would just take it down and stop reminding people.)
Anyway, to answer the question, the MJD reference you mentioned would drag me right out of the book, too, mostly because it sounds like it’s such a nonchalant, passing reference. There is nothing casual or matter-of-fact about 9/11 to me—not yet. That said, there is a 9/11 reference in my current MS (a chick lit/adventure hybrid) because the heroine is a native New Yorker who works for the CIA. I felt like it couldn’t be avoided in that situation—every time she deals with terrorism, 9/11 is going to be in her mind.
I guess, to me, it would really depend on the context of the reference. In the case of my MS, I feel like ignoring 9/11 would be more jarring than addressing it. However, I would definitely have trouble with a throw-away mention in any type of book.
One of my chief complaints with fiction, especially in romance, is the way the villains are so over-the-top EVILLLLLE. You know: not only are they scheming to kidnap and rape the heroine, they boink men (OMG TEH HOMOGHEY—my peeve with the whole homogaiety = instant evil has been ranted on before, so I won’t go it here), molest children, whip their dogs, kick little old ladies into oncoming traffic, make sudden lane changes without signalling, etc. etc. etc. And real life isn’t like that.
Yes, I agree with this; I really appreciate moral ambiguity when it comes to depicting badness in Romance, more of an understanding that while some things may be unforgivable, and some actions just plain bad, that not every bad action is without some understandable or complex motive or series of conditions (anyone seen “Munich”? EXCELLENT film, and a great example of this, IMO). I think this is especially the case when we’re dealing with cultural and religious conflict—that we’re essentially dealing with competing world views, and with world views not necessarily shared by everyone of a particular faith or culture.
So I’m ambivalent about the escapist fantasy of having evil so easily identified and vanquished. At some level, I think there’s a cultural need to indulge in some nostalgia about the loss of that dream, and that perhaps fantasy-related fiction is a good place for that to happen, if only because I don’t want to draw that one-to-one book-to-reader chain of influence and say that Romance is making us think evil is really like that in the real world. BUT, the question then becomes for me, at what point are we through grieving that loss, and are instead projecting an illusion onto the real world, such that we find more justification in the kind of intolerance so many Americans seemed so dead set against right after 9/11. I don’t think we’ve stepped up to that line yet, but I definitely worry about the level of intolerance we do seem to have in the real world, to cultural and religious difference that lend themselves to an us v. them dynamic. Because seriously, I think that’s a greater danger to democracy than actual terrorism.
I thought about this a lot when I flew into London last summer a mere three days after the first bombings there. It was so interesting how much less sensationalized they were there, how much more accustomed and prepared to respond they were. Of course there was more security, at airports and train stations, even at the places I stayed while there, and there was press coverage, of course, but there was also a sense of practiced response that I would like to think, anyway, helps people not feel so threatened by the unfamiliar or different.
This ‘identifying the bad guy’ thing happened during the Cold War too. And US foreign policy rhetoric seems to have reflected this. Reagan talked about an ‘evil empire’, now Bush is talking about an ‘axis of evil’.
And I agree with Candy, there are people who do evil things and ‘People who do evil things have their reasons, reasons that are often coherent, real and compelling, even if only in their worldview’.
But really, I think those of us on the East Coast (particularly those of us with loved ones in NYC) will always be more sensitive to those events than the rest of the world.
I’m sure you are correct in saying that East Coasters (is that a word?) and New Yorkers have a particular sensitivity to remembering 9/11, but I’m not so sure I’ll agree others forgetting more easily, at least as far as the rest of America. I’m not from the East Coast, but I, too, remember exactly where I was when I first heard the news, as well as every single minute of that horrible morning. And the thing I’ll never forget is how crystalline blue the skies were that day. How beautiful.
Anyway, thing is, 9/11 is a life defining event. For some people, it will be a Day They’ll Never Forget, like the Kennedy Assassination (which was before my time). But for others who were directly affected – lost loved ones, saw it happen in their home town, went in to rescue people – their lives will never be the same. They are formed by this event.
I have a WIP that features a hero who lost a loved one in 9/11. And this loss forms his current frame of mind and references. He has fears based on that loss, 9/11 changed him fundamentally, and the inclusion of it in the story is intentional.
I could fictionalize the trauma, say his loved one died in some other, minor explosion or something. But it’s just not the same. It’s a different story then. And I suppose the debate becomes whether or not it’s appropriate to tell his particular story because of the sensitivity many have to 9/11, but that’s another topic.
Perhaps it’s a matter of time and distance. I don’t know of anyone who has trouble with references to Pearl Harbor within a romance novel, but perhaps there are those out there who lost loved ones during that attack who can’t bear to read about it. It’s simply too close to home or too recent, even after nearly 65 years. Or the Holocaust – many a book is written with characters who had connections to this epic tragedy, but enough time and distance has passed to help us bear to read about it. I’m sure, however, there are many who can’t read about it. Ever.
I think, too, for me it’s a matter of how it’s handled. If the tragedy is exploited, I wouldn’t want to read about it in any way. For example, I read a short story once in which the hero and heroine found themselves on a plane which was hyjacked with the plan to fly it into a building. Waaayyyy to close to 9/11 for me, way to much unoriginality that exploited the horrors of that day for my comfort. Kind of like the writer couldn’t think of something bad enough, so she decided to mimic 9/11. Yuck on so many levels.
Yet I have no problems with references to the tragedy if it is context of a contemporary and it makes sense. A New Yorker heroine who can’t walk past Ground Zero without a tear welling up. A mil rom whose hero is on the trail of one of the (fictional) masterminds behind the entire plan. These are using a real event to flesh out a story and ground it in reality, which is fine by me. 9/11 happened, and anything set after September of 2001 has the option of referencing it.
What’s strange for me is seeing movies with images of the Twin Towers. I still find that difficult to handle.
In Helen Fielding’s ‘Olivia Joules’ – a book I really disliked – the heroine has a run in with Bin Laden. I’m not American, but it still grated on me, whereas I found the author’s use of Princess Diana’s death in Bridget Jones rather moving. The difference was something like Bridget’s reaction to the death read to me like a real, if entirely silly, reaction – so the character became a person of that place and time; whereas with Olivia, the use of an actual terrorist organisation in a James Bond type scenario just seemed inappropriate and underscored how impossible and cartoon the plot was.
I’d agree with Melanie, it depends on context.
I am terrifically sensitive to the whole thing. I can’t watch footage from September 11 without my stomach literally turning over. My problem stems not from fiction that features 9/11 in any tangential way; I rather think that’s healthy. Instead, my sensitivity on the subject came from the way the Bush Administration handled the press coverage of the attack and immediately started ranting about Iraq and squandering every iota of goodwill and concern other countries were naturally feeling. The continuing frenzy of people (of any country) harping on 9/11 whenever they want to justify more violence strikes me as horrific and makes me feel nauseous. Really nauseous.
(soapbox rant over.) I generally don’t like to include definable current events in my books, mostly because it dates them even more than having a specific type of car or cell phone does. But that’s individual preference, and there are plenty of authors who can carry it off; I don’t mind reading it if it’s done well.
So I’m ambivalent about the escapist fantasy of having evil so easily identified and vanquished. At some level, I think there’s a cultural need to indulge in some nostalgia about the loss of that dream, and that perhaps fantasy-related fiction is a good place for that to happen, if only because I don’t want to draw that one-to-one book-to-reader chain of influence and say that Romance is making us think evil is really like that in the real world.
Yes, it’s certainly comforting to have these tropes (good will triumph, evil will fall, and evil is always radically opposed to good) to fall back on—and more than that, to have them be easily identified and not at all messy, the way it tends to be in real life. I’ve argued that fiction is about coherence and closure, and in that respect having an easily identifiable villain makes the job of telling fiction easier.
Like you, I certainly am not (and have never been) comfortable with the facile connections people draw between the mass media we consume and our attitudes. Yes, one influences the other, but the question brings up the chicken-and-egg dilemma: which one came about first? Fiction does not spring from a vacuum, nor does it leap out, full-fledged and armed from the author’s brow (much as some authors would like to claim it does). Fiction reflects popular perceptions and the author’s attitudes to a certain degree, which is why the lack of ambiguity and convincing motivation for fictional villains has bothered me for a long time. It seems like a systemic attitude that’s being portrayed in our fiction, and I’m not sure how many people GET why I’m bothered by two-dimensional villainy, and THAT bothers me too, heh. Once I learned about Othering in college I managed to pinpoint with a slightly more precise vocabulary what exactly about these stories bothered me.
I’ve always thought it’d be interesting to read the traditional fairy tales from the villain’s perspective. What drove the witch in the forest in “Hansel and Gretel” to trap and eat children, for example? Why were Cinderella’s stepmothers and stepsisters so bitter?
And speaking of fairy tales: I think that romances share much in common with fairy tales. Besides the HEA, other fairy tale standards are present in many romances: the misunderstood, radically lonely, much-set-upon and quietly beautiful girl is rewarded with a rich, handsome hero, for example. The tendency for villains to be rather over-the-top and caricaturized perhaps stems from this storytelling tradition as well?
Or it might be something as simple as the fact that thoroughly Othering a villain makes it much easier for us to root for their annihilation. It’s usually uncomfortable to destroy somebody once you feel empathy for them or their cause. I, for one, am all for feeling pangs of discomfort in my fiction—I’m a somewhat masochistic reader, overall. But I can understand how many readers WOULDN’T want that.
I would argue that paranormal romance and urban fantasy is successful precisely because the evil can be so ambivalent. A lot of what characterizes urban fantasy (which is a lot of what we’re talking about here) is about moral and ethical choices that aren’t very easy; like the early, early Anita Blake books.
Marianne, that’s what I mean – context. Does the mention add anything, other than a chance at causing the reader to flinch at memory? But then, that’s a hard limit to define as well.
For the record, I’m not saying that 9/11 is a topic Not to Be Mentioned in Fiction because you’ll hurt my widdle feelings. But sometimes I read romance for the fairy tale aspects that Candy mentions, and sometimes I look to have my brain challenged, and want to see how a writer can pull off a difficult trick – e.g. creating a villain one can empathize with, perhaps to redeem him or her later in another book. So my rumination is also of a question of craft: how do you make the mention of a real event that might alarm or alienate your readership?
And speaking of fairy tales: I think that romances share much in common with fairy tales.
Which is interesting, of course, since culturally speaking, fairy tales are often meant to socialize and acculturate young children (i.e. Grimm’s).
It seems like a systemic attitude that’s being portrayed in our fiction, and I’m not sure how many people GET why I’m bothered by two-dimensional villainy, and THAT bothers me too, heh. Once I learned about Othering in college I managed to pinpoint with a slightly more precise vocabulary what exactly about these stories bothered me.
I think there are some elements, especially in genre fiction, that tend to pass from book to book almost as a boilerplate element, and I always find that unsatisfying and unsatisfactory on many levels. Two-dimensional villainy is, IMO, one of those elements.
As for the process of Othering, I think Edward Said’s Orientalism is perhaps more relevant today than when it was published. I really mourn the loss of the “public intellectual,” which, IMO, Said exemplified.
wow. some people write really long entries!
for me, 9/11 is part of our culture and our way of life now, and therefore why shouldnt it be in a contemporary romance? i mean, almost every single american knows that referances to it are everywhere, reminders of it, etc—in my case, i see a friend whose dad was on flight 11 every day, so thinking about it has gotten kinda normal. i dont think it would bother me at all (besides maybe getting a bit teary-eyed remembering my friend’s dad) if i read what you did.
on the other hand, i was reading a nora roberts book set in new orleans recently (it is like 3 years old or soemthing) and THAT made me really sad. the character was talking about how much she loved this part, and that part, and all i could think was that THAT DOESNT EXIST anymore. kinda ruined the story for me a bit.
Interesting discussion. I’m led to consider subjects rarely mentioned in fiction because of the current mode of political correctness. I don’t mean 9/11, although I suspect there might be plots based on terrorist activities that would never be published – for instance, one in which the ‘heroes’ are the terrorists. Perhaps in some parts of the world – but not here in western culture.
I once proposed a story that centered around abortion – and not in a pro-life way. It was instantly, before I could even finish the thought, dismissed as impossible and not publishable. Same with a story about an unfaithful wife. Granted, these instant Nos were a few years ago – but I suspect the answer would be the same today. Some issues are hot buttons that most publishers won’t look at. Why? Because they assume the majority of the reading public would be turned off, and therefore not buy books – which is, after all, what they’re in business to do.
I certainly understand your feelings, Sarah, and am not surprised by them at all. Someone very close to me was a vicitim of rape – the mickey in the drink kind of rape – and I’m certain there’s no way I could read a rape scene of any kind and get through it. I’d have to toss the book. Then toss my cookies.
Dayamn! I killed the thread!
Nah, people are just thinking of ways to kill Candy in fits of jealousy without getting blood splatter on her ARC.
Nah, people are just thinking of ways to kill Candy in fits of jealousy without getting blood splatter on her ARC.
Clingfilm. It’s the only way. No blood, and a handy protective coating in case it rains.
On other matters, I reckon Robin’s right about Said’s relevence, but with reservations. There’s a certain ahistorical tendency in his writing which has contributed to the debate becoming rather polarised in certain quarters. I don’t think this is necessarily helpful. ‘Course, that would be my own bias showing.
The notion that people use fiction to get a handle on their fears really interests me. Just to throw in something else to the mix, I was wondering about the impact of the lack of deeply-felt threat of this kind in the west from the fall of communism until 9/11.
Dad reminded me the other day that in the for most of his life people in North America and most NATO countries had a genuine, deep-rooted conviction that nuclear attack or invasion by the then Evil Empire was imminent. For kids who grew up in a time when gas and nuclear drills happened at school this fear only really went away with the break-up of the USSR. Then for about ten years it seemed that there was no overwhelming threat to this part of the world from any quarter. Quite extraordinary when you think about it.
As an aside, oddly enough, the threat seemed to be more powerful with distance. By comparison, Mum never seemed to have the same worries despite actually coming from a country which had been invaded and occupied by that same power during her childhood.
I think that it is much easier to create a believable completely evil character than a believable completely good character. I think this is largely due to the fact that most of us consider ourselves to be “good” people, relatively speaking, but we know that we, as well as other “good” people in our lives, have done shitty things. When somebody does something unforgivable—commits a rape or murder, is abusive, deceives people to the point of heartbreak or other forms of destruction, it’s understandably the strongest memory their victims have of them. Yes, I know there are many exceptions to the rule, for better and for worse, but for most folks who have survived acts of extreme cruelty by someone else, it is very hard to see past those actions to the person beneath. So when Character X rapes the heroine, kills her dog and deletes her insurance policy from company files, the author has unleashed some wrath and might have a hard time containing it. For all intents and purposes, as the main source of evil for the story, X is literally the embodiment of evil in these characters’ world.
Departing from that rant, what Lynn M said about how blue the skies were on 9/11/01 is so, so true. I was in Ohio and my brother was in Greenwich Village, and there was no way to contact him for the next 36 hours. And the cloudless skies were the most beautiful, horrible thing I’d ever seen—every time a plane or copter flew overhead, one couldn’t help but stare at it in horror.
Segueing from that little observation, a 9/11 reference in a book that is delivered with tact is okay with me. If it comes (or sounds like it comes) from a fellow New Yorker, it’s all the better.
There’s a certain ahistorical tendency in his writing which has contributed to the debate becoming rather polarised in certain quarters.
Do you think Said is ahistorical in his approach, or that he’s talking about a subject that thrives on a sense of ahistorisity, or both?
I once proposed a story that centered around abortion – and not in a pro-life way. It was instantly, before I could even finish the thought, dismissed as impossible and not publishable. Same with a story about an unfaithful wife. Granted, these instant Nos were a few years ago – but I suspect the answer would be the same today.
I may be wrong, of course, but I’ve always gotten the impression that Romance, as a genre and a culture, was more open to depictions of violence than to certain issues around women’s sexuality and gender consciousness (except, of course, to take the feisty pseudo-feminist heroine and show her how wrong she was about not needing a man!). Thus the proliferation of virgins who must be saved from serial killers, mad scientists, rapist ex-fiances, etc.
I think that it is much easier to create a believable completely evil character than a believable completely good character.
Just one more reason I love Gaffney’s To Love and to Cherish so much. So rarely do I find a Romance author actually interested in examining what it means to be good, not just in a moral sense, but also in an ethical sense. And too often, IMO, good is equated with “nice,” and that spells boring in that well-populated suburb of Romancelandia, alpha-city. So instead, we get “goodness” often associated, IMO, with heroines, and, inevitably, with how close to virginity they are, how nurturing they are, how loyal to their man, their parents, etc.—superficial and fickle markers of value all, IMO.
This is a fascainating thread, not least because my silly book started it. When I wrote the reference in question, it was a way of grounding a paranormal reality, a fantasy place where werewolves are as common as groin pulls, of making it seem real (e.g. “how would a psychic respond to 9/11, one not strong enough to stop it but strong enough to warn friends and family?”).
What’s interesting is how NY publishing deals with 9/11 aftermath. I write for Kensington (Brava) and Penguin Putnam (Berkley), and have referred to 9/11 in manuscripts for both. But for The Royal Treatment, my Brava editor struck the sentence in question. She was very pleasant, but firm: in the Alaskan royal universe, 9/11 never happened, ergo we don’t refer to it, ergo this sentence must go. (That was the first time I realized 9/11 didn’t happen in my Alaskan universe.) Period. We’re done.
And let me tell you, my editors give me full head on my books; I am *never* reigned in (insert sarcastic observation here). So I was surprised, and I certainly wasn’t going to argue with her, and so the sentence was left out.
Thus, when I referenced 9/11 in a Berkley manuscript, I was more than a little curious to see if it would stay. Not only did it stay, it wasn’t even an issue; nobody at Berkley questioned it. So I guess it’s like any issue: individuals are setting policy based on their experience, like always.
Do you think Said is ahistorical in his approach, or that he’s talking about a subject that thrives on a sense of ahistorisity, or both?
Good question. I was thinking the way Said presents orientalist discourse as something which spans history, pretty much unchanging. I’m not overly comfortable with his view of an integral and direct relationship between ancient Greece and modern Western Europe. This links to the way his critique essentializes Europe as well.
Of course, you could argue that this essentialization is the consequence of Orientalism itself, and that this approach is necessary in order to define the discourse. But once this has been done, I think a more nuanced historical approach is more interesting. It also provides a way to engage with the problem.
So I prefer his approach in Culture and Imperialism because it does a better job of situating Orientalist discourse in a historical context where its impact can more easily assessed. But also because of this, his hypothesis resonates better in this book and seems to have greater relevence, particularly in the political sphere.
I freely admit that my opinion is in part related to my historian’s or my orientalist-with-a-small-o’s bias, but I’m very uncomfortable with the way the label “Orientalist” is sometimes used to polarise opinions on one side or another of a pretty heated debate. When this happens there often seems little possibility of resolution or a way out because neither position truly recognises the legitimacy of the other’s.
So while it’s a helpful tool to challenge and root out many deep-seated and unthinking assumptions, and I love the way the debate has revitalised many fields, I’d argue for a bit of subtlety in its application. It works better when used as a stiletto rather than as a sledgehammer.
Stef said: I once proposed a story that centered around abortion – and not in a pro-life way. It was instantly, before I could even finish the thought, dismissed as impossible and not publishable. Same with a story about an unfaithful wife. Granted, these instant Nos were a few years ago – but I suspect the answer would be the same today.
And then Robin replied: I may be wrong, of course, but I’ve always gotten the impression that Romance, as a genre and a culture, was more open to depictions of violence than to certain issues around women’s sexuality and gender consciousness (except, of course, to take the feisty pseudo-feminist heroine and show her how wrong she was about not needing a man!). Thus the proliferation of virgins who must be saved from serial killers, mad scientists, rapist ex-fiances, etc.
I would say that the abortion plotline holds true for almost all of mainstream fiction. I have yet to encounter any fictional depictions of abortion, much less fictional depictions that provide a nuanced, balanced take on the issue.
Unfaithful wives are typically punished a great deal more harshly in fiction than, say, unfaithful husbands—probably a fairly accurate reflection of reality, yes? This is especially true of classic literature. And in Romancelandia? I’m trying to think of somebody besides Eloisa James who’s given a knowingly unfaithful wife an HEA, but I’m coming up blank.
And Robin, you’ve hit upon one of my biggest issues with Romance, namely the very squirrelly gender politics. On one hand, you have a handful of books that are wonderfully progressive, with women who choose to be child-free and love their jobs unabashedly, and men who break the alpha jerk stereotype in meaningful ways; on the other hand, there are the oceans of books about boardroom mistresses, virgin widows and pretty little things stamping their feet in dainty, ineffectual ire, only to be rescued by the big, hulking hero. Sigh.
Also, fangirl love to Robin and EvilAuntiePeril for the analysis on Said.
o I prefer his approach in Culture and Imperialism because it does a better job of situating Orientalist discourse in a historical context where its impact can more easily assessed.
Because I haven’t re-read either book in the past year, I’m not going to stick like glue to the following comments, but what I remember being struck by in C&I is what I also see as the failing of some New Historicism, namely the overstatement of Western power. It seems to me that when you posit power relations and differentials so absolutely (insider/outsider, center/margin), you can reinforce the very dynamics you are criticizing and reinvent the cycle of oppression within the criticism itself. So in this way, I prefer Greenblatt’s approach from Marvellous Possessions, his cultural hybridity argument, which not only allows for a more nuanced analysis, IMO, but also for a more dynamic relationship of cultural exchange. At the level of real life things are so much messier than they are ideologically, and I tend to gravitate toward the clearer reflection of that (pardoxically, perhaps) Greenblatt IMO provides.
That said, I agree with you about the historicity issue vis a vis Said’s two books. But for its time, and considering the first book is built around a concept, I think Orientalism remains a great primer for people who are not accustomed to thinking in the terms Said identifies (even though our cultural discourse utilizes them all the time). But you’re absolutely right that C&I is a much more sophisticated and nuanced work on many levels (and I also realize the problems I find with it are also prevalent in Orientalism—it’s just that the focus is a little different there, IMO).
And Robin, you’ve hit upon one of my biggest issues with Romance, namely the very squirrelly gender politics. On one hand, you have a handful of books that are wonderfully progressive, with women who choose to be child-free and love their jobs unabashedly, and men who break the alpha jerk stereotype in meaningful ways; on the other hand, there are the oceans of books about boardroom mistresses, virgin widows and pretty little things stamping their feet in dainty, ineffectual ire, only to be rescued by the big, hulking hero. Sigh.
At the risk of publicly pissing off one more author, I have to say that as much as I love Jennifer Crusie’s essays on Romance, I’m less certain than she is that Romance is AS empowering to women as she posits in one of her older pieces (the esssay on her website about empowerment and Romance). Some of it is, for sure, and ironically, some of the stuff from the 80s even seems more so to me right now (since I’m reading a lot of older stuff in tandem with newer stuff). LaVyrle Spencer’s Spring Fancy? Wow—a heroine who cheats on her fiance, is built like an athlete, and who doesn’t give up her career—LOVED IT (not that I loved the cheating; I just loved that Spencer reversed the gender roles there and didn’t even demonize the poor, ultimately jilted fiance). RIght now I’m reading Rangoon, and my internal mental caption is “Rangoon: the only thing dirtier than the sex is the politics.” Well, and the setting, of course. Fascinating, fascinating book (mixed race hero, political machinations galore, absolutely fascinating sexual dynamics). Got some problems, but, man, am I engaged in that book.
But I find a lot of contemporary Romance (and I’ll qualify “a lot” as a proportion of what I try to read) to have much more muddled gender and sexual politics than even historicals, which are more overtly conservative in certain ways (and sometimes deeply conservative, depending on the author). Crusie is probably as close to consistently subversive and empowering in contemps as I think Gaffney is in historicals (she’s kind of my gold standard, along with Ivory and Kinsale and Chase), but I can’t really come up with a bunch of contemp authors I love love love as consistently empowering writers (okay, I love Charlaine Harris, but I don’t really even think of her as Romance).
I’n not necessarily looking for the power woman—the gal who refuses to give up her meaningful job, etc. or the fall of the alpha male; in fact, some of my favorite Romances are pretty conservative (Sharon and Tom Curtis anyone??). But I prefer thoughtfulness and consistency, and I sometimes find that in contemporary Romance, there is an internal battle being fought between so-called progressive and regressive gender/sex standards that reading becomes downright exhausting. And can anyone explain what is up with the sheik Romances? I hear they sell very well. Has anyone looked into how we, as a nation, can nurse a certain hostility toward some Eastern and Middle Eastern countries and then embrace the Sheik Romance?
Now, I would love love love to get more recommendations on great contemporary Romances. I find it much more difficult to discern what’s going to work for me from the reviews at AARn and the like, because I don’t think some Romance readers care or notice the same gender politics I do (which is a great advantage for them, I think!).
It seems to me that when you posit power relations and differentials so absolutely (insider/outsider, center/margin), you can reinforce the very dynamics you are criticizing and reinvent the cycle of oppression within the criticism itself.
Absolutely. I think we’re coming at this issue from slightly different angles, but this is part of what I was getting at with my comment about the way Said essentializes Europe. I think this is a failing in his argument, and among other consequences it also doesn’t take into account the capillary nature of power/knowledge.
But I’ve always been a big believer in taking a theory out of the box and trying it on. In this case, I also find that Said’s scholarship can be quite overwhelming on first acquaintance, and it’s easy to get swept away by his rhetoric. So a historical context helps to point out its limitations and its uses.
Although, while thinking about this idea just now, I’ve been struck by the thought that putting it into the colonial context might make it easier to consign it to the dustbin of historical ideology. This could cause some to disregard its contemporary relevance. I suppose it depends on how a person thinks about history.
Anyhow, yes, C&I and those like the Subaltern studies group who take its line do overstate European power. But the historical application actually helped me to see this problem more clearly. This somehow made it easier to engage in the debate and take its concepts on board. So my views have a lot to do with how I deal with theoretical concepts, but I don’t think they’re all that unique.
I’m not familiar with Greenblatt *shakes fist at Robin for adding to my ridiculously long reading list*, but I’ve dabbled a bit in Bhabha & co. Their ideas on cultural heterogeneity and the subversive nature of hybridity appeal to me a great deal because of the issues we’ve touched on. They’ve turned the sledgehammer into the stiletto, if you will.
So you’re probably right about Orientalism being a great primer but could I suggest that it’s helpful to follow it up in quick succession with something that takes Said’s concepts and runs with them, preferably in a familiar area?
And finally, I’d like to add a few words to make amends for hijacking the thread. May they somehow, someday, lure some poor lost undergraduate desperate for quick-fix essay on post-modernist theory into this site and down the slippery slope of well-oiled, freshly-shaved man-titty: Gramsci, Foucault, Auerbach, Spivak, post-colonialism, Derrida.
In this case, I also find that Said’s scholarship can be quite overwhelming on first acquaintance, and it’s easy to get swept away by his rhetoric. So a historical context helps to point out its limitations and its uses.
This is how I feel about Bhabba—I cannot force myself past the barrier of his extraordinarily convoluted prose to really parse through what he’s trying to say. I really do suggest trying out Greenblatt—even though the book is quite old now (early 90s), I think it’s so relevant right now, especially because he’s a great counterpunch to Said (the book is Marvellous Possessions, by the way—Greenblatt started out as a Shakespearean and one of the early New Historians, but this book goes so far beyond that, IMO). He starts out with this great anecdote about going to this village in Bali and the great use they made out of a television—right off the bat he’s looking for points of subversion and trangression, within the dominant narratives and not simply on the margins. Love, love, love that! Of course, I’m kind of sentimentally attached to the book, because I had already come to the same conclusion about Indian captivity narratives, and Greenblatt basically just gave me certification, so I’ll love that book forever!
Although, while thinking about this idea just now, I’ve been struck by the thought that putting it into the colonial context might make it easier to consign it to the dustbin of historical ideology. This could cause some to disregard its contemporary relevance. I suppose it depends on how a person thinks about history.
Or even if they DO think about history. When I see some of the debates over the surveillance program here in the US, I’m struck by how many people seem to forget that we’ve basically been struggling with these same issues from the very beginning of our national history, and how maybe we should take a looksie at it and figure out to get out of the cycle. It must be highly entertaining for you guys in the UK to watch us, but I feel more head bangningly frustrated than anything.
And finally, I’d like to add a few words to make amends for hijacking the thread. May they somehow, someday, lure some poor lost undergraduate desperate for quick-fix essay on post-modernist theory into this site and down the slippery slope of well-oiled, freshly-shaved man-titty: Gramsci, Foucault, Auerbach, Spivak, post-colonialism, Derrida.
I love how you use the word “hijack” here—cracked me up!
By the way, have you read Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain? I’m thinking I need to dig that puppy back out and re-read it. Again, there’s the universality/essentialism problem there, but some of it may actually be useful.
As for Derrida, have you seen the documentary on him? Despite all the elitism, the self-referential circularity of deconstructionism, and, of course, the French :), I have always been somewhat enamored of Derrida (and, truth be told, with Deconstruction, which, contrary to a lot of other critical theory seems to me to be a REAL philosophy). Even when I had no clue what he was talking about, I could just listen to him, his lectures were so mezmerizing. And, in his own way, he was so cute—uh, I mean compellling.