Huffington Post invited me to submit a rebuttal to the article by Alan Elsner that I mentioned in passing late last week. Mr. Elsner took a stack of romances from the library, read them, and pronounced the entire genre as absolute crap.
My response is now up over at Huffington Post’s book section: Pride and Prejudice and Pedantry. An excerpt:
In response, I refer to that book he holds in such high regard, “Pride and Prejudice”, by Jane Austen:
“You have insulted me in every possible method. You can now have nothing farther to say.”
A shabby, patched-up survey of books with no curation involved, let alone curiosity, does not an expert make. I invoke Smart Bitch Law #1: Thou shalt not diss the reading material of another person merely to elevate one’s own. By doing so, thou art passing the buck, and verily thou art being a douchebag.
I wonder if the comments will be as intricately moderated for mine as for Mr. Elsner.
Of course, the real scandal here is that a man who knows the difference between “farther” and “further” has gone through his entire educational career without having read Pride & Prejudice. It’s the damned canon, for God’s sake. I want my tax dollars back.
Stacia, only speaking for myself, I think it’s important that you (we/I/everyone) speak up about this, because personally, I couldn’t agree more. It’s something I fight to include, when it’s relevant to the story, within my YA manuscripts and you can bet your sweet bippy that I have love/sex scenes in my adult books because even though they veer more towards the women’s fiction end of the spectrum, they’re always about relationships and to me, the sexual/physical aspect is but another way for the characters to communicate.
There are certainly stories that don’t need to show the full spectrum of the physical experience, but to deny that it can play an important part in a story about relationships is just naive.
And I think you should post a link to your post here. IJS…
Brava, SB Sarah! Your rebuttal was compelling and also so much FUN to read.
Nate, the quotation was accurate. It seems there are two versions of that conversation between Lady Catherine and Lizzy—one with farther and one with further. There are a good number of etexts online you can search to verify that.
“You can now have nothing farther to say,” she resentfully answered. “You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to the house.”
I am a bit pissed because I left a comment there hours ago and it’s still not up. Total bull shit. *pissed*
Nate,
As someone who reviews regularly on Amazon, I have to say you’re not winning too many friends.
I can only assume my neck of the woods has a lot of active romance readers who know the good stuff, I can’t find any of the recommendations here for crap. I mean, I want to read the rest of the Sharing Knife books. I just can’t find them.
I’m also down with trying the rest. Can’t find them, either. Checking the library computers say they’re there, in some of the branches…but checked out and with a waiting list longer than my arm.
Scrin: You can find Lord of Scoundrels pretty easy. I was just at both Borders and Barnes and Noble and they had multiple copies. I recommend you buy LOS, even on Amazon. This is the one book I recommend to both men and women who have never read romance try and read. Once they do they want more.
Katiebabs & Sarah, I’m totally going to put LOS at the top of my to-buy list, because I have to try something that inspired that reaction!
Thanks, Barb! It’s http://www.staciakane.net/2008/07/11/be-a-sex-writing-strumpet-pt-2/
Stacia: also, Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas. That book makes you laugh, cry, swoon and everything in between.
*writes it down*
I will keep you guys posted! 🙂 Thanks again!
What about a woman who likes romance novels and reading in general but has never even picked up P&P? I’m sorry, but I can’t understand Jane Austen! I’ve tried, I honestly have. But all I could get through was Sense & Sensibility and that was only after repeated watchings of the movie version with Alan Rickman.
Shakespeare is easier to read for me then Austen.
*whimpers* Please don’t hurt me.
I know you’re a “troll” and have ran off, Nate, but women aren’t the only ones whom read romance novels. I check out just as many to men (yes, straight men before you say anything or stereotype) as I do to women at the library. Some, obviously, are getting them for house bound mothers and wives. Some get them because our library was built before ADA laws and the adult fiction is mostly downstairs with the exception of some paperback romances, mysteries, and the new books, and these men can’t walk downstairs anymore. However, it doesn’t matter why – they read these romance novels and ENJOY them JUST as much as women do. Sometimes more.
I wonder, Nate, what you would’ve said had you seen the 90 year old man recommending Broken Wing to a woman in her mid-to-late 30s?
For that matter, I wonder what Alan would’ve said.
There’s men who like romance novels. They’re just not as vocal as us women.
Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if many romance novelist are really men writing under a female pseudonym. A reverse George Sands if you will….
MichelleR: I was just wondering if comments were having an easier time getting through because the Smart Bs who wanted to leave a comment on Elsner’s post seemed to be having issues. And now I’m wondering if katiebabs was the only one with the issue.
Stacia K: Thanks for the link. I promise to read it after my nap.
JamiSings: *raises hand* I am not fan of P&P, and I am a huge romance fan. (I appreciate Austen, especially after reading numerous essays about what that book means, but I personally do not want to read her again.)
I joined HufPo and posted a comment and it showed up pretty quickly… of course it was also full of long, convoluted sentences and big words.
Sarah, I want to have your strong female children. (Parthenogenesis, just sayin’.) You rock so hardcore. I thought your rebuttal was sharp enough to wound gravely w/o being completely lethal, provided he gets treatment, of course. I want to be you when I grow up. Info only.
Thank you, Sarah.
Thank you Sarah! Definitely one of your best pieces of writing!
I guess there will always be people out there who consider romance as a lesser genre not worthy of respect, but as long as you’re out there setting them straight, I’m sure we’ll all be right behind you cheering you on!
=D
I’m so glad you wrote that response, Sarah. It strikes me that people like Alan (and Nate-the-troll) are far more concerned with what other people think about what they read than what they actually enjoy. I love that we have this community of women who read what they like and refuse to allow anyone to make them feel ashamed of it.
Sarah,
I loved the HuffPo response. I hope they are brave enough to allow all the comments to post. I do have to say one thing, though, one of the commenters said something about real journalists doing research… it almost made me snort tea out of my nose. 20 years ago, journalists interviewed experts to get their stories. Today, journalists interview each other as if THEY were the experts. spw
Great response,Sarah-what really annoyed me about Eisner’s essay was the condescending tone he took about the lascivious nature of the material he read-“you ladies have the right to read those naughty books,too!’ and his high horse stance on caring more about love than sex in his writing.
Well,thank you very much,buddy boy,for giving us permission to have libidos and your so-called preference for “love” in your own writing? Buck up and be honest,man-if you can’t do it without blushing as you type,that’s fine. Just don’t act like you’re too good for that,seriously. I’ve written a book with the most romantic parts being red hot kisses(not yet published or agented-still trying there) mainly because that’s what I’m most comfortable with as a writer. Nothing wrong with that,but don’t kid yourself about your more “enlightened” stance on true love,please!
Sorry for the rant-and oh,JamiSings,don’t worry about not having read Austen much. I didn’t read any of her books until I was in my late twenties/early thirties and my first one of hers was Persuasion. Maybe you should try that instead of P&P or even Northanger Abbey. Sometimes going for later books in an author’s canon is a better way to start.
Oops-Elsner not Eisner-my bad!
I offer this in penance:
Excellent rebuttal, Sarah. And kudos for providing a reading list, something which Mr Elsner failed to do in his original post, and which I found the most irritating part of his article (even more so than the “porn” comment.) As the posters on The Straight Dope are always saying, “Cite?” In other words, don’t bother to present an argument if you can’t provide examples to back it up.
I’m not sure naming “Lord of Scoundrels”, of all possible historical romances to be picked, is actually helping your case. 🙂
Because upon reading that book I couldn’t help but feel that it ticks all the boxes for what romance is often accused of.
Let’s face it, that book is nothing short of a Dear Penthouse letter, all that keeps the protagonists of the novel together is their mutual carnal longing.
P.S.: Sorry for first posting this to the wrong entry, but my browser mocked up and reseted the page on my first try to enter this. 🙁
Sarah: Your response was so succinct. I have much envy at you. 😉
Gerd D: OK, good. You’ve read Lord of Scoundrals. Would you mind very much listing the sections and scenes that you feel support Elsner’s premise? Then we can have a discussion of the book in detail, which is often what happens here during book reviews. Please note, I am NOT being facetious. I am sincerely inquiring into what parts of LOS you found to be like a Penthouse Letter.
Thanks. Hope you read your comments soon.
-Randi
Where is DocTurtle is all this? Doc? yoo-hoooooooo….
Lord of Scoundrels? Really? O_o
I agree with Randi, I would really, sincerely, non-sarcastically love to see what about the book made you think Dear Penthouse. I’ve read a lot of stuff that purports to be erotica that I felt was insufficiently romantic, and wrote it off as porn. LoS, absolutely not. I’m boggled.
excellent rebuttal…i wonder if he will read it
Well said. Thanks for your art.
Well done! If it were up to me, you’d be given the Romance Medal of the Trembling Virgin for fighting the good fight. It’s a sort of dashboard hula girl in period dress, except her over-exposed bosoms are also on springs.
I think I want that. How do I get the matching hero?
spamword: deep68 *giggles*
Regarding LoS:
For one we have the prerequisite “love at first sight” when they meet in the story, only that it ain’t love at all but a pure and simple, driving lust. And naturally she’s a virgin, which I guess is some kind of staple with Historical Romance. I do have to give it that her hero is certainly no Alpha male, actually I thought his constant woe is me whining to get a tad annoying; it’s called getting a grip, boy!
But what bugged down the story to me as a mere Dear Penthouse letter is that there is very few character growth beyond the initial premise of she wants him and he wants her; they do grow somewhat as characters but only individually, in the end the premise turns out to be already the summarization of their relationship.
Now while I have few trouble to believe that there are people that get together initially for no better reason than feeling sexually drawn to each other, I doubt that any such arrangement could hold up if there wasn’t something deeper, more lasting to it, but neither of them goes out of his way to actually learn anything much about the other.
I felt that apart from shooting him (a scene which, I have no doubt, Freud could derive some sexual symbolism from) every other conflict in the book was solved by having sex or her, and that became by and large the whole angle around which the book revolved: The first half they chase each other to marriage only to be able to have sex, the main conflict of their marriage is first his reluctance to finally have sex with her when he finds that she’s still a virgin and later her emotional withdrawal during marital sex over some trifling or other.
So yeah, LoS serves better to illustrate that Romance is indeed just coded soft-porn where the story becomes a simple vehicle to transport a number of sexual encounters, or at the very least closer to erotica than what I expect romance to be. Not that I mind that, I just mind the industries failure to call a Duck a Duck. I simply see there no other difference to what Anaïs Nin used to write than the romance label stuck to it.
Gerd D.
Interesting. You don’t see that Dain’s character arc is complete as it pertains to his issues of abandonment and acceptance? Jessica’s character plays the role of paramour, wife and mother to allow Dain’s character to “heal.” It’s also Dain’s plot arc.
The couple also goes through a courtship ritual where overall Dain proves that he is worthy of TRUST therefore love and building a life together.
Erotica? I don’t think it is because the story would need to hinge on the sex. I don’t think it does. The primary plot arc is Dain’s. Sex is NOT only a component of Dain’s plot or character arc. Another is his acceptance of Jessica’s love and her willingness to stay. The third is his acceptance of his child.
I’m sorry the story didn’t work for you but throwing a porn label on it says more about how you categorize stories than it does about the story itself.
I find myself curious—is the emotional content of sex invisible to some of the reader spectrum? (I hesitate to say ‘male reader’ because it probably washes over into some female readers as well.) It seems from the original Elsner post and Gerd’s comments that some people cannot read about sex without the very act completely obscuring for them the deeper emotional motivations and growth of the characters. Is this indicative of a greater societal disconnect between sex/emotion? Why is the emotional content invisible to some people as soon as you add sex to the mix? Whereas for other readers, the very explicitness lays bare the emotional core of the characters (@Stacia, for example)?
No answers, just lots of ponders…
Anthea,
That’s an excellent question and one I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask, succinctly, since Gerd D post his first comment.
The answer: there must be. In the same way that a poster mentioned, in the first thread about the Elsner article, how her version of Brave Heart has nothing to do with her husband’s version of Brave Heart. That what they each get out of Brave Heart, is wildly divergent.
Gerd D: Can you list a couple of books that you consider romance?
Gerd D: When I have more time I expect to respond to the majority of your post. However, I wanted to respond with a quick overview of the history of female sexuality. Women weren’t supposed to want sex or have sex until they got married. Even when they got married, they still weren’t supposed to want sex. So…MOST historicals deal with virgins, because virginity was the ONLY valuable a woman could bring to the table. We can, and do, argue about the right and wrong of that assumption. But for most of recorded history, women have not been allowed to be sexual creatures without being denigrated.
That Jessica, in LOS, was a virgin, would have been expected of her, based on her station in life and the period in which the story was written.
I’m still with Randi, and would like to see what you (Gerd D) would consider romance. My sense from your post is that you haven’t read much porn, if you think that Lord of Scoundrels has no story or character growth without the sex. I remain boggled.
It would be really interesting to get a big swack of people to all read the same selection of books with varying amounts of sex, emotion, and violence, and see what they all take away from it. And then break them down by gender, age, education, occupation, geographical location, etc. and see waht shakes out.
Ah let’s see, what books do I consider romance:
Patricia Briggs “Cry Wolf” & “Hunting Ground”, naturally.
I would put Nicholas Evans’ “The Horse Whisperer” & “The Loop” down under romance.
“Blood & Chocolate” classes as teen (paranormal) romance.
Kelley Armstrong, far as I read her, is romance centered.
Those would come readily to mind as definitions.
“Bridges of Madison County”, eventhough it ranges in my worst books list.
I guess that Celia Ahern & Nicholas Sparks would make the cut for me, once I got round to actually read them. 🙂
Gerd,
You seem unfamiliar with the contract with the reader. A romance requires a Happily Ever After. When the Horse Whisperer has the hero stomped to death… and when Bridges of Madison County has him driving away… these do not provide the romance reader with something they expect.
I agree that they are good books. They just aren’t romances. In fact, very little of Sparks work actually is. spw
First off: Gerd B, thank you for your continued presence and amenability to continue this discussion. I, at least, appreciate it.
Sandee: While I totally and completely agree with you, that Sparks and Horse Whisperer and BOMC are not romances as we define them (and in fact I did not find them romantic AT ALL), to HIM, to Gerd B, they ARE. Which is what we asked him for. We could get into the terminology and expectations the romance community has, and you’re right about that contract with the reader, but that should be a different question/thread to him. I think, right now, we’re (or at least I am) curious what he finds romantic and why.
So my next question to Gerd B would be: what about these stories, makes them “romantic” to you? Aside from Briggs, whom most here WOULD classify as romance, even though it’s found in the SciFi/Fantasy section AND even though it’s a series, your examples, for me, equate to depressing tragedies. I’m curious about how tragedy is romantic, to you.
I’m finding this awfully intriguing.
It was a great response! But, until romance is marketed as romance and not porn-lite with titles like ‘seducing the earl’ and step-backs that look like the man is penetrating her right there & then, maybe romance will be treated thus. And frankly more and more I find no depth or plot development…just ‘he was hot’…she ‘was hot, but wasn’t sure how or why’, yadda, yadda. Also, not naming your website ‘trashy books’ might help!
Romance still is pulp fiction it is not literature. It’s not meant to be nor does it need to be – it has value of it’s own. The sexist assumptions and undertones are repulsive. But frankly I’ve decided not to visit HuffPost anymore – too many porn gals, lindasy lohan spread, tiger’s mistresses, lesbian teachers, who’s-on-playboy-this-month, etc. And below – woman raped and beaten to death, baby girl with STD, girl escapes from sex slavery…and on & on – anyone else see the irony. Sick of it, sick of HuffPost. Not clicking there and I’m spreading the word they are trash like Faux news and the rest of ‘em. So, there! (tongue sticking out!)
@Sandee: I understand that for some reason there has to be a HEA at the end of a romance, but if don’t have the feeling that these people stay together for the right reasons I would rather see them go their separate ways.
@Randi: Fair Question. I guess it’s that I get from those stories the feeling that the characters show a real interest in each other that goes beyond simple lust.