You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
Jessica writes
I read this in 1996ish. I dont remember the publisher, but I’m pretty sure
it wasnt a category. The cover featured a swooning, brunette woman, possibly
in a blue dress, in the arms of a well-endowed man. Both are tastefully
dishelved, and of course, the bosoms are heaving.Okay, so I think the time period is the late 19th century and the heroine
is a headstrong American heiress whose name might be Amanda. She has a
brother (she gets a crash course in sex after seeing him with one of the
maids in the stables—naughty!), a dead father, and a domineering mother.
They have a mansion in Newport, and her mother hosts a party in order to
thow her at the hero: an honest-to-goodness English duke! He’s poor and
needs to marry an heiress, so the mother is ecstatic, but Amanda wants
nothing to do with him and accidentally says so in the duke’s hearing. This
makes the duke decide that she would perfect for him.Stuff happens, then Amanda goes to Paris with her aunt Zoe as a chaperone.
And what a coincidence, the duke is there too! Not that Amanda cares. In
fact, she winds up meeting a dreamy French artist and has sex with him!
Repeatedly! But then he gets sick (TB or something) and orders her to stay
away for her own safety. But she’s headstrong, so she goes anyway and gets
kidnapped and held for ramsom. Her aunt turns to the duke for help, and he
saves Amanda.Here’s where it gets good (if I’m remembering this correctly): the duke
knows that she was sleeping with the artist, but he doesn’t care. He
doesn’t get upset, or call her a slut—he just thinks, huh thats a little
surprising, and shrugs it off. He and the aunt then arrange a quicky
marriage to protect her from the scandal of being victimized. I think the
duke even arranges her to visit her sick lover before they leave Paris.I’m pretty fuzzy on what happens afterwards. I think they honeymoon on the
French Riviera, and I remember Amanda being presented to all of the duke’s
staff in England, but I don’t remember how everything resolved into the
happily ever after.This book didn’t get me hooked on romance immediately—that came later
with a vengeance—but after reading my share of crappy romances with alph
asshole “heroes” (Catherine Coulter’s cream-toting douches come to mind .
. .), this one has come to stand out in my memory as something special. So
hopefully someone else remembers this.
Whoa. WHOA. Someone has to remember this – and how on earth did this not sell you on romance for the rest of your reading life?!
I so respect you guyz! When I went back to college I was a 32 year old Bartender. The Eng dept teachers made me feel like
such trash. Now I realize they were terrified new Phd’s but back then—I NEVER commented on the books chosen. The one time I mentioned all the bad choices & suffering and terrible endings in the books I got read the riot act and told—if I wouldve had a better background I would understand. His class and no contrary comments. I wanted to die. Now I would grind him into dogfood. xxoocf
Earlier this summer, I began reviewing books for (a small) profit. One of my husband’s friends (who had had his English Degree for less than six months and was unemployed) had the brass balls to walk in, look at my stack of romances, and ask “Whose dime store romances?” I could understand (not condone, mind), if they’d been Harlequins and Silhouettes, but these were not monthly installations of a theme. So I gave him the coldest stare I could, and said “Oh, those? I got a job as a book reviewer.” Shut him up, and I’ve never heard a peep out of him about what I’m reading since. And for those of you that want further proof that the romance gods believe in Karma? It’s been a year since he’s graduated and he still has no job.
It still amazes me how attitudes about reading change from grade school to college graduation… In grade school, they’re just happy to see you crack the cover of a book that you’ve chosen to read for your own fun, while by the end of high school or college discussing your choice in reading material becomes its own exercise in social Darwinism. I don’t care what my future kids will read- as long as they enjoy doing so.
“She LOVED long, pretentious, go no where stories about women with cheating husbands and fishing trips ending up with a guy dying of a heart attack.”
Oh, that just cracks me up. If there’s anything I hate, it’s those kinds of stories! At least with genre fiction, you can count on something actually happening!
Well, Austen and EM Forester are great literature and have HEA. Anya Seton. George Eliot.
Thank you for the interesting thread everyone! Whoever it was that was coughing over Catcher in the Rye, really made my day. Thank you. If Literature is about books passing the test of time, that book really, really didn’t.
Nevertheless, this piece of classic literature is part of the huge and never ending fight I have with my father, who is disappointed that his only reading child is a Fantasy and Romance fan, and doesn’t read “good” books. Which drives me mad.
So when I was a teenager I wasn’t allowed to rent new books from the library before I read Catcher in the Rye. Which I did, and which didn’t help my father’s quest to make me read real Literature at all.
This is how I learned and decided to never judge anything anymore by it’s Literature label, and this is also why the term literary fiction gives me the creeps.
Heh. That sounds like the sort of thing I read and tried to convince myself I liked when I was in my first couple of years of university. I was the epitome of the pretentious feminist academic, whereas now I am a less-pretentious, only occasionally academic feminist, and less depressed.
I haven’t completely given up on literature/literary fiction either. My favourite book is East of Eden, even if the ending is bittersweet rather than happy (and even though it was on Oprah’s list).
Today is Virginia Woolf’s birthday. Definitely Literature with a capital L. Here’s what she had to say:
In her long essay about women and literature, A Room of One’s Own (1929), she wrote: “So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery.”
She is definitely one Smart Bitch.
Today is Virginia Woolf’s birthday. Definitely Literature with a capital L. Here’s what she had to say:
In her long essay about women and literature, A Room of One’s Own (1929), she wrote: “So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery.”
She is definitely one Smart Bitch.
This is what I love about this website—a simple HaBO request turns into a spirited discussion on literature vs. popular fiction.
It occurs to me, reading through these posts, that it’s not “literature” per se that’s causing all the agonized tooth-gnashing, but modern literature. What’s happened in the past hundred years or so that, in order for a book to be anointed by the grand pooh-bahs of literary criticism, it must lack a discernible plot? That good, thoughtful writing can’t be page-turning as well? No wonder we keep turning back to the Austens and Trollopes and Eliots and Brontes.
For those looking to smack down modern literary snobs with your good taste, without sacrificing thrilling narrative, I’d suggest the novels of Patrick O’Brian. Every time I give birth, I re-read all twenty of his Aubrey-Maturin novels during breast-pump sessions. (When I get to the end, it’s time to switch to formula.)
I don’t know about the other Lit majors, but when I was in college (early 90’s) we did NOT read Austen, Bronte, or any of those other cool chicks. As a matter of fact, I and about a hundred other souls signed up for what was suppose to be an awesome class about Victorian women writers but surprise surprise they kept the Victorian but changed the class so we had to read some crap I really don’t recall except to say by the end I stopped reading the books and told the teacher to kiss my ass I had enough credits to graduate.
Needless to say at the end (not my HEA) I regretted my major: I thought “Literature” looked better on a resume than “Creative Writing,” but I fit better with the creative writing clan.
Final straw, some old goober told us to write our papers about what he thought the book was about. I didn’t and got an “F.” This credit I did need, so I regurgitated his erroneous ranting and now will be forever stained…dirty…running through moors ranting…tearing my hair out…screaming Catherine (another book they didn’t want us to read, even though we begged for a Gothic Women’s Lit class).
In regards to Lit HEA, I think Kafka’s character was happier as a roach and let’s not forget Faulkner’s Emily (Rose for Emily) got her HEA…and the neighborhood got a new smell. I know, not romantic, just wanted to add to this awesome thread. HABO sounds awesome.
I discovered I was a literary snob when I read a review of one of the later O’brian books in The Atlantic Monthly. I didn’t think Atlantic Monthly would review genre fiction, a historical action/adventure at that. The reviewer’s assertion was that the series was just one, long novel. I picked up the first book and have been enjoying it ever since.
Just goes to show, you never know when those snob buttons will get pushed. I try to keep an open mind now. There are only two kinds of writing – good and bad, and they come in all genres and in Literature, too.
I discovered I was a literary snob when I read a review of one of the later O’brian books in The Atlantic Monthly. I didn’t think Atlantic Monthly would review genre fiction, a historical action/adventure at that. The reviewer’s assertion was that the series was just one, long novel. I picked up the first book and have been enjoying it ever since.
Just goes to show, you never know when those snob buttons will get pushed. I try to keep an open mind now. There are only two kinds of writing – good and bad, and they come in all genres and in Literature, too.
Very interesting thread! As an Edith Wharton aside – if you ever get the chance to visit her home in Lennox Mass. I highly reccomend it! Beautiful place. Amazing gardens, so peaceful.
And the original request in this thread made me think of a couple of novels I read years ago…so I dove into the memory bank and actually came up with the name of the author. Suzanne Frank – Reflections in the Nile and Shawdows on the Aegean. I remember a scene that made me look at honey in a whole new way…
Well, it’s definitely true that one person’s literature is another person’s crap. Like pretty much everyone else here, it seems, I never really cared for Catcher in the Rye, for example, but I had friends who GOT IT. Ditto On the Road. Not for me. I just don’t have an angry teen from the 1950s raring to be free inside me, I guess. On the other hand, I read everything, and I mean Everything, of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I loved it (still do), especially the short stories. And The Great Gatsby is still one of my favorite books (apparently I do have a 1920s outsider yearning to belong inside me).
Some one else commented that there’s just good writing and bad writing. Too true. My fear, though, is that romance readers feel so looked down upon by the mainstream (and I get, we pretty much are assumed to be moron, lonely, spinster cat ladies, regardless of our actual demographics) that there’s an impulse to circle the wagons and defend the genre anytime anyone makes a general criticism. Once you’re an autonomous adult, no one should read what they don’t want to read, or write what they don’t want to write. But—do we have to go to “literature is depressing, romance is happy, they hate me for my HEA and I hate them for their dead babies and broken dreams?” Or trash the whole establishment because we didn’t like particular books in it (after all, isn’t that what we hate when other people do it to romance—trash the genre because they read a few books that didn’t work for them?).
Read what you want to read. Don’t read what you don’t want to read. Love whatever books you want and hate whatever books you want. But reading and loving romance doesn’t have to be because you had a bad experience with Henry James, or J. D. Salinger. No justification is necessary to like what you like.
Sorry for the rant—I’m not even sure exactly what I’m ranting at anymore, but I’ll post this anyway.
Teehee. It tickles me when I see someone else who doesn’t like Catcher.
I read it in jr. high while on a family vacation. Mom handed it to me and said, “Your brothers had to read this in high school so you might as well too.” I hated it. Fast forward to high school, we were reading it and I STILL thought it was the dumbest POS ever written. I asked the teacher why we had to read it and she replied, “Because ALL teenagers can identify with Holden.”
I said, “I don’t.”
Her reply, “Don’t be stupid, of course you do!”
Now as for The Great Gatsby, I feel that was more poor teaching on the teacher’s part. He was more concerned with finding himself a wife then teaching his students. He used to come in and whine about his lousy dates.
(Sad story with him. He eventually did meet a woman who was divorced with one daughter. They were married and deeply in love. Within one year of getting married he had a huge stroke. I understand he now has the mentality of a 9 year old or younger and will have to live the rest of his life in a home. It just devastated both the wife and daughter, I hear, because they both loved him so much. Apparently he was a wonderful father, more so then the daughter’s biological dad.)
I’m late commenting on the Buccaneers thread of this discussion, but has anyone seen the Masterpiece Theater version? It’s amazing—several hours of beautiful costumes and sets, and the book really comes alive.
This has been hilarious/wonderful/rotten and so full of great story ideas! ANy wannabe writer could just use this thread for live eva and get—maybe—six books outa it. Love youse girlz. xxoocf
“She LOVED long, pretentious, go nowhere stories about women with cheating husbands and fishing trips ending with a guy dying of a heart attack”. I suppose it’s too much to ask for the guy with the heart attack to have been the woman’s cheating husband. That would, after all, be a HEA – for her. Also, you wouldn’t want to suggest the possibility of divine retribution. I don’t know if other people are having a problem or if its just my computer, but big chunks of the original synopsis are either unreadable or missing. This has been happening on this site for a while now. Spamword quality 58; well, I suppose I can read about 58%.
@Sandra – sorry, two different stories by two different people. The guy with the heart attack was written by a guy writing about a bunch of men on a fishing trip in Alaska. And the entire story was all leading up to just that heart attack. It’s like “Boring, long winded description, mundane things no one cares about – BOOM! HEART ATTACK!”
Cheating husband was written by a woman who was writing about a wife and husband visiting his native land of France. (She was American.) Of course he cheated with her best friend. She cried and stayed with him. *facepalm*
I have that problem – I find if I highlight it, the text magically appears. Until then it’s like it’s squished.
On a side note, at the time and for awhile after I was writing short fetish stories involving BDSM where the women were always the one tied up. (Sadly, you can probably still find my efforts out there if you googled my full name with safe search off. Ug. Good thing I’m not famous, huh?) I wonder how my “All women are good, all men should be locked in cages and only be left alive for breeding purposes” teacher would’ve reacted to those stories instead of my superhero ones.
I’m a bad girl, aren’t I?
@Beatriz
Perhaps the names we have mentioned didn’t know they were writing “Literature” at the time. They just wanted to tell a good story any way they could. It seems now that some contemporary authors are so self-conscious and worried that their stuff might be taken for
genre fiction, that they deliberately take anything resembling a plot or character development
<"cough"Cormac McCarthy"cough">
out of the book. People will be reading and rereading Larry McMurtry and Elmore Leonard long after other authors are forgotten. 100 years from now, they will be Literature.
@Beatriz
Perhaps the names we have mentioned didn’t know they were writing “Literature” at the time. They just wanted to tell a good story any way they could. It seems now that some contemporary authors are so self-conscious and worried that their stuff might be taken for
genre fiction, that they deliberately take anything resembling a plot or character development
<"cough"Cormac McCarthy"cough">
out of the book. People will be reading and rereading Larry McMurtry and Elmore Leonard long after other authors are forgotten. 100 years from now, they will be Literature.
There’s a reason I structured my entire undergraduate experience so as to avoid taking any 20th literature classes other than the single one required to graduate. Part of that reason is my fervant hatred for the beat poets in general and “On the Road” in particular, but most of it is that every classic of 20th century literature I read in high school was grindingly depressing—you know it’s bad when Hemmingway is the bright, cheerful spot in your curriculum. But at least Faulkner, Steinbeck, et al.‘s writing has scope and characterization and plot. It’s just not characterization or plot that I *like*. A lot of post-modern stuff…
My personal opinion is that when people are selecting the Great Novels of the 20th Century in a hundred years or so, Tolkien’s LotR will have a bigger spot on the list than any capital-L-Literary novels from the past twnty-thirty years. Considerations of quality or taste aside, it’s certainly been more influential.
I think some authors forget that humans seem to be hard-wired for narrative at their own peril.
Actually, I just finished reading an Edith Wharton book that does have a HEA. It was out of print for a long time and I just heard about it. The Glimpses of the Moon is about Nick and Susy, two poor upper-class types who make a bargain get married and live as long as they can off the generosity of their “set” – borrowed villas, fat wedding checks and the like – always with the understanding that should a better chance come along for each of them, that person is free to take it. They figure that they’ll do better as a couple than they would individually. And they do…until those other opportunities come along.
Speaking of Catcher in the Rye…both of my kids had to read it in high school and both thought the main character, Holden, was whiny and self-centered. (The way many, but thankfully not all, teens can be.) My daughter’s English class essay on the book was titled, “Why Holden Caulfield Should Be Dipped Groin First—That’s Right, Groin First—Into A Vat of Boiling Oil.”
She got an A+.
@Lori – Your daughter is awesome and makes me wish I had kids.
The fact the teacher gave her an A+ rather then the F I would’ve gotten from my teacher says that the teacher is awesome too. They deserve a great end of the year gift.
Elspeth, I did the same thing in picking my literature courses! I did everything I could to avoid Hemingway, modernism, and most 20th century literature. I wasn’t entirely successful—I had to take a class in British modernism and ohmygod I could have cheerfully slit my wrists.
One of my favorite classes was heroic epics: my prof made Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings the focus of the course. So we actually got to read great novels and examine the works that influenced Tolkien. It was one of the only lit classes I ever took that was at max capacity.
@Lori – sorry for bugging you, but you know, I would LOVE to read your daughter’s essay. Any chance of posting it online so we can all enjoy her genius?
@JamiSings,
Lol, I don’t know if the entire essay was as good as the title! But this was several years ago and she no longer lives at home. If we have a copy, even a digital one, I wouldn’t know where to look for it. (The title is something I’ll never forget, though!) But thanks for asking! 🙂
Yikes! Talk about karma. J.D. Salinger just died (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/author-jd-salinger-dead-at-91-report-2010-01-28). *hangs head*
RIP.