[bksvol-discuss] OT: op-ed article by an English professor/romance novelist
- From: Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 22:09:56 -0800 (PST)
I think this more properly belongs in the bookshare
list, but since we have had some discussions about
romance novels and, recently certain classics (some of
which are, in their own way and time, romance novels.
I always enjoyed Jane Austen and definitely consider
those romance novels) I thought I'd post it here, too.
It was sent to me by a friend. I thought I'd share it.
Delete immediately if you're not interested.
Cindy
February 12, 2005
> OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
> A Fine Romance
> By MARY BLY
>
> AMN you precious virgins!" snarled the
> bodice-ripping rake over the sound of
> tearing silk. It was fifth-grade choir practice in
> the spring of 1972, and I
> was learning about sex from a copy of Kathleen
> Woodiwiss's "Flame and the
> Flower" that a classmate had purloined from his mom.
> Now that was a
> bodice-ripper:
> passionate, crazed and outrageously overwrought.
> I fell in love with romances on the spot. But my
> father was a poet, and he
> would have preferred that I had fallen in love with
> Whitman. So he laid down
> the
> law: for every romance, I read a classic. Kathleen
> Woodiwiss wrote quite a
> few novels; I finished Mark Twain's works by the
> time I was 13.
> That divide, between literary novels and their
> illicit fellows, has
> structured my life. These days, I'm a professor of
> English literature - and
> an author
> of historical romances. I teach Shakespeare and
> Renaissance culture; I place
> my
> novels 200 years later, during the period when Jane
> Austen was writing her
> comedies of manners.
> My two worlds rarely come together because they are
> sharply demarcated by
> prejudice on both sides. Academics tend to deride
> romance; romance readers
> often
> ignore literary fiction altogether.
> Intellectuals never seem to believe that a strong
> story and an interest in
> relationships could explain the popularity of
> romance. I've been repeatedly
> asked by academics whether romances are anything
> more than female porn - a
> question that to me seems linked to a fear of female
> sexuality, as is the
> dismissal
> of romances as "bodice-rippers." In fact, I'm not
> sure that the term, with
> its
> implication of enjoyment taken in forced
> intercourse, ever was an accurate
> description of romances; even the silk-ripping rake
> of "The Flame and
> Flower"
> passed out before he damaged anything more than
> clothing.
> There's desire and sex in every genre. Elinor
> Lipman's "Pursuit of Alice
> Thrift" is indubitably a work of literary fiction.
> It's brilliantly written,
> wickedly funny and imbued with cruel send-ups of
> pretentious surgeons. It
> also
> includes a description of terrific sex between a
> first-year surgical intern
> and a
> fudge salesman. Apparently that scene wasn't enough
> to provoke disdain;
> Publishers Weekly called the novel "a triumph."
> So why is romance the only genre ghettoized for
> including those scenes? In
> the early 80's feminists like Janice Radway
> maintained that romances channel
> women's desire into patriarchal marriage, but now
> these scholars are issuing
> apologias, having discovered that many romances
> depict working, independent
> heroines. As Ms. Radway has since declared, romances
> actually validate
> female
> desire. Clearly, the genre's struggle for respect is
> part of a larger
> cultural
> battle to define and control female sexuality.
> The contempt for romance reflects a deeply
> unproductive divide in American
> culture that keeps some people from reading novels
> that they would enjoy and
> that frightens others from fiction that has the
> imprimatur of "literature."
> Romance appeals to all demographics, not just to
> heterosexuals. The Oscar
> Wilde
> Bookshop in New York City tells me that gay romance,
> a genre quite apart
> from
> erotica, sells well to both male and female readers.
> We are all interested
> in
> talking and reading about that difficult process of
> living with another
> person.
> Yet it takes guts for an intellectual to pick up a
> romance novel at Borders.
> At the same time, it takes courage for a woman or
> man (yes, I have male
> readers), who primarily reads romance to pick up
> books labeled "literature."
> "I
> never read classics," readers tell me. "I find them
> boring." Yet when I put
> a 1594
> Richard Barnfield sonnet in a book, they write me
> and ask where they can
> find
> more of his poems. They send me e-mail messages
> saying that they quite like
> Catullus, and too bad they didn't read anything like
> him at school.
> Romances feel to me like a conversation between the
> woman who wrote the book
> and myself as a reader. Women talk about desire, but
> they also talk about
> the
> difficulties of building a new partnership with an
> old friend, or
> negotiating
> the shoals of a fragile marriage. Ms. Lipman's novel
> about an intern and a
> fudge salesman is part of that conversation; but so
> is, for example, Susan
> Elizabeth Phillips's "Ain't She Sweet?," the tale of
> a prodigal returning
> home to
> face her well-deserved bad reputation. Romances are
> sometimes stories of
> courtship, but also stories of marriage and
> consequences. Many of my own
> books, in
> fact, have been about failing marriages: they are my
> footnotes to that
> particular conversation.
> So let's quit this out-of-date mockery of the genre.
> Focusing solely on the
> sensual content of romances and deriding them as
> bodice-rippers leads to the
> assumption that America is full of women gobbling up
> romance novels because
> they're sexually frustrated and want to be
> overpowered by a strong man.
> These
> days, however, a romance heroine is likely to toss
> her own bra, and if
> buttons are
> skittering on the floor, they're quite possibly
> shirt studs.
> We all long for stories with narrative drive,
> stories that talk about
> relationships, and stories that aren't riddled with
> violence or death.
> Romances
> reflect no more than what most of us hope for in
> daily life - and that
> includes
> being lucky enough to experience shared desire. I've
> a good notion that many
> Americans, no matter their reading preference, are
> hoping for a Valentine's
> Day
> that involves a bit of flying lingerie.
> Mary Bly, a professor of English literature at
> Fordham University, is the
> author, as Eloisa James, of "Much Ado About You."
>
>
> Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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