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Reading binges, romance novels, pumpkin pie and other stuff
I'm enjoying the hell out of this four day weekend and all I've really been doing is reading for pleasure. Pure unadulterated guilty pleasure reading. Ripped through two books in two days. Now on my third. Haven't done that since maybe the Jim Butcher novel. Granted they were fairly short books and easy reads. But fun, fluffy, and sexy. No violence. No death. No rape...seduction yes, BSDM definitely, but not "rape". (ie. rough consensual sex.) The Kindle is wonderful - did you know that you can buy books between 0$ and $3.99 in the romance/erotica/chickflick genre? I don't how these people are making any money. I used to rob my mother's and Granny's bookshelves for these items, or the corner used book store. Now - I can stay comfy in my flat, search for them on Amazon, read excerpts and reviews, then wham, buy them on the Kindle. It's quite delightful. Plus you don't have to deal with the embarrassment of people seeing you read the things.
(Although why I am embarrassed, I've no idea. As Nora Roberts recently stated - we shouldn't condemn ourselves or each other for "reading for pure pleasure". I read a lot of tech stuff for work (read the equivalent of ten books on railroad switches and station design in the last two months - to say they are sleep inducing would be an understatement, but hey cool pictures), also, ex-English Lit Major here, not like I haven't read and analyzed the classics. Carl Sagan once said that there are a 100-200 books you should read before you die. I disagree. In part, because it's been my experience that most people lose 85% of their memory by the time they die and don't remember half the stuff they've read anyhow, so who cares? I think Neil Gaiman is right - you should love what you are reading whether it be Twilight or Lord of the Rings or The Mayor of Casterbridge or Candide or Crime and Punishment...screw what everyone else thinks. One doesn't read to impress after all (okay maybe some people do?), one reads for love. I try to find the love in all that I do, otherwise...life is just hard. For me? Books, specifically fiction, have always been my first love. I love them more than anything else in the world. Books and writing. I could give up everything else - just not those two things. There's no greater pleasure in the world - no bigger stress reliever - than losing oneself completely in a book, laughing with it, and reading til the wee hours. The only thing better? Losing yourself in something you are writing yourself...that story you are telling yourself with words typed or handwritten, fingers not moving as fast as your mind.)
Any romance genre fans out there? Do you want reviews? I'm reading erotica, chick-flick, sweet romance, and BSDM. Sort of everything including the kitchen sink. On a bit of a binge at the moment - no clue how long it will last, anywhere from four days to a year. Some people go on drunken binges, or clothes/electronics binges - me? I go on cultural binges. And.. This - my friends is what happens after three months of plodding through the gritty war torn world of George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire Series, not helped by a series of other, equally violent fantasy novels read prior to it. I think I may read the comic novel How I Became A Famous Novelist by Steve Hely which I picked up off the street, next. Been saving it for after Feast of Crows but I needed to take a break from Feast for a bit. I was getting depressed.
Did watch two Harry Potter films - the first two, before things got all dark and bleak. Am considering a rewatch of A&E's Pride & Prejudice which I haven't seen in 10 years. Either that or West Side Story. Also watched part of the Woody Allen doc on American Masters (which was fascinating...they had to drag poor painfully shy Allen into being a stand-up comic and performer kicking and screaming, he used to throwup before his gigs and really only saw himself as a joke writer.).
Oh and made another pumpkin pie - which turned out far better than the first attempt, it's not lopsided and the custard didn't fall. Yes, the other one tasted fine, excellent even. But I think this one may be better.
(Although why I am embarrassed, I've no idea. As Nora Roberts recently stated - we shouldn't condemn ourselves or each other for "reading for pure pleasure". I read a lot of tech stuff for work (read the equivalent of ten books on railroad switches and station design in the last two months - to say they are sleep inducing would be an understatement, but hey cool pictures), also, ex-English Lit Major here, not like I haven't read and analyzed the classics. Carl Sagan once said that there are a 100-200 books you should read before you die. I disagree. In part, because it's been my experience that most people lose 85% of their memory by the time they die and don't remember half the stuff they've read anyhow, so who cares? I think Neil Gaiman is right - you should love what you are reading whether it be Twilight or Lord of the Rings or The Mayor of Casterbridge or Candide or Crime and Punishment...screw what everyone else thinks. One doesn't read to impress after all (okay maybe some people do?), one reads for love. I try to find the love in all that I do, otherwise...life is just hard. For me? Books, specifically fiction, have always been my first love. I love them more than anything else in the world. Books and writing. I could give up everything else - just not those two things. There's no greater pleasure in the world - no bigger stress reliever - than losing oneself completely in a book, laughing with it, and reading til the wee hours. The only thing better? Losing yourself in something you are writing yourself...that story you are telling yourself with words typed or handwritten, fingers not moving as fast as your mind.)
Any romance genre fans out there? Do you want reviews? I'm reading erotica, chick-flick, sweet romance, and BSDM. Sort of everything including the kitchen sink. On a bit of a binge at the moment - no clue how long it will last, anywhere from four days to a year. Some people go on drunken binges, or clothes/electronics binges - me? I go on cultural binges. And.. This - my friends is what happens after three months of plodding through the gritty war torn world of George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire Series, not helped by a series of other, equally violent fantasy novels read prior to it. I think I may read the comic novel How I Became A Famous Novelist by Steve Hely which I picked up off the street, next. Been saving it for after Feast of Crows but I needed to take a break from Feast for a bit. I was getting depressed.
Did watch two Harry Potter films - the first two, before things got all dark and bleak. Am considering a rewatch of A&E's Pride & Prejudice which I haven't seen in 10 years. Either that or West Side Story. Also watched part of the Woody Allen doc on American Masters (which was fascinating...they had to drag poor painfully shy Allen into being a stand-up comic and performer kicking and screaming, he used to throwup before his gigs and really only saw himself as a joke writer.).
Oh and made another pumpkin pie - which turned out far better than the first attempt, it's not lopsided and the custard didn't fall. Yes, the other one tasted fine, excellent even. But I think this one may be better.
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By which I do not want to judge anyone who likes them because I have a gazillion guilty pleasure ready and totally get the appeal of not only reading high quality works. My sister always wanted me to read thomas bernhard in the middle of my hardcore a book a day dragonlance phase. I have times where I will read anything that has an elf or a spaceship in it, no matter how bad.
and i wont even start with how much I swallow from comic books.
It's weird that it's the sexism that puts me off romance novels but that I can read Fables or even some Manara porn thingy without being much bothered by it. I guess it is because it's easier to discount it as completely off the rooker male fantasy than seeing the internalized sexism in chick lit, where the woman is at the center but is still all about men.
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By which I do not want to judge anyone who likes them because I have a gazillion guilty pleasure ready and totally get the appeal of not only reading high quality works. My sister always wanted me to read thomas bernhard in the middle of my hardcore a book a day dragonlance phase. I have times where I will read anything that has an elf or a spaceship in it, no matter how bad.
and i wont even start with how much I swallow from comic books.
Exactly. It's why I try not to judge the people (including family members) who love Twilight novels. I've gotten so much crap in my lifetime for loving things like comic books, daytime soap operas, romance novels, westerns, pulpy sci-fi/fantasy, and Ann McCaffrey.
Seriously, sometimes politically correct is a bit boring. And it's nice to sink into another view.
I always say...one person's kink is another's button.
It's weird that it's the sexism that puts me off romance novels but that I can read Fables or even some Manara porn thingy without being much bothered by it. I guess it is because it's easier to discount it as completely off the rooker male fantasy than seeing the internalized sexism in chick lit, where the woman is at the center but is still all about men.
I'm the exact opposite. I like the female fantasy...the internalized struggle...it's fascinating to me. My own odd desire for it...yet hatred of it. The complexity. See when women write it - it's complex, not simple. Surprising, not cliche, when a gal writes about wanting to be seduced, to be tricked into marriage - she's struggling to compromise her desire for marriage, for great hot sex in marriage - yet also to be independent and powerful in her own right. In chickfic and female written romances - she's in control, she has power over the men in her life. They want her so badly they can't control themselves. They need to control her.
While in Fables and the male books - she has no power. He does. She's in one role and one only - an object of his desire. And if she has power - it is emasculating. He rapes her, doesn't seduce her. He breaks her, doesn't coerce. The male books are about power with violence, the female with sexual seduction/flirtation and manipulation.
For me, I prefer the female - because she doesn't have to be raped to be powerful. There's no vicitmized little girl turned kick-ass heroine. She doesn't have to become violent to be strong.
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In the romance genre the male gaze is not only a side dish, it's the main course. being attractive is shown as a form of power (same as in the male gaze comics, only to a higher degree) but since I perceive it as fake power it squicks me.
it's also the rape thing, or rather the demirape thing in many romance novels. where she "secretly" wants it. that's such a rape culture trigger for me. the woman that cannot simply want sex but needs to be coerced into it.
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The difference is in the romance genre - women use the male gaze against the man, to manipulate him. Not sure you've ever watched Marilyn Monroe films..where she did the same thing. She is oddly the most powerful character in many of those films. It's similar to how the female gaze was used by Whedon in Buffy, where Spike manipulates Buffy by her lust for him. Is it successful - no. There's a definitive price.
In truth? It depends on how you want to see power played out?
I've grown tired of watching it or reading it through the veil of violence. But people have different buttons. And what bugs me changes constantly. Three years ago - Dollhouse didn't bug me at all, thought it was fascinating. Now? I find it unwatchable. I know why. But I also understand why I didn't three years ago...I think, what I've come to appreciate is that there are multiple ways of perceiving the same thing? And I think...the problem, and I share this and am trying to fight against it in myself, is a stubborn tendency to believe our perception is the correct or only one.
(ie. That seduction is "demi-rape" and connotes a view that she secretly wants it" - Not everyone sees it that way. That doesn't make them naive or wrong or sick, their life experience is different is all.)
I just read one novel that yes, feels very much like a commentary on demi-rape and male gaze. Very odd story. In some ways felt like a horror tale. And it's ending surprised me - it did not go the way I thought it would. Never sweetened it. You can learn a lot from this much maligned genre - the reason it is maligned and the male dominated sci-fi/noir genre isn't is men rule the world. Romances in a way are a commentary on it.
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I definitely agree with that. And I also agree with you about the buttons thing. We all go through different stages in our lives where different forms of oppression bug us more or less.
To me the external male gaze is something I find fairly easy to fight off, while the internalized male gaze feels like a dagger in the back. I find it much easier to laugh of some unrealistically drawn bombshell in a comic book drawn by a man than the inner monologue of a woman constantly worrying about her looks or if some dude find her hot instead of having constructive thoughts, written by a woman.
I do believe you that there are novels where the "But secretly she wants it" trope is done in way that does not feel like the oldest rape defence in the book, but my experience with romances is really very limited because what I read was so massively misogynist.
I think both takes on power are massively misleading. The power that comes from violence always ends in really bad places in reality. And the power that comes from seduction does not really exist either. Both are imho wishful fantasies and far away from the tedious process that you gain power with in reality.
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But..tv shows like Breaking Bad? Where power is achieved through increased violence...and in the real world? Walt would in prison or dead. I shrug off.
I do believe you that there are novels where the "But secretly she wants it" trope is done in way that does not feel like the oldest rape defence in the book, but my experience with romances is really very limited because what I read was so massively misogynist.
That's why I think you need to read a wide wide range in a genre before critiquing or commenting on it. For example - I know women who perceive the Western genre as misogynistic. It's not. Or the noir genre as misogynistic - yes and no, but no not really. Some sure. But actually that's in the minority. Same with comic books - people think it is all action heroes and women drawn to look like centerfolds and it's madly misogynistic. It's not. But people generalize based on little information. I often find myself asking them the question - but have you really read any of it? Or just a few books here and there?? Are there horrible episodes in daytime soaps? Yes. But there's good writing in there occasionally too.
I've read the whole range. The Boddice Rippers - which I have a feeling are the ones that pushed your buttons? They have rough sex and seduction - which at times feels like rape to a lot of people. (I highly recommend hunting down and reading Margaret Atwood's Rape Fantasies - if you haven't already. Also Nancy Friday's book of erotica entitled Secret Garden - where she analyzes female fantasies.) Rosemary Rodgers and Kathleen Woodwiss were the most famous of the boddice ripper bunch. In the 70s they were quite popular. Don't see them that much any longer. I sort of like them and don't see them the same way as others, but I can see why they push people's buttons. Just as I could see why so many people hated Buffy S6 and found it offensive.
There's also the sweet romances. The strong female tough gal ones. The romance genre is as broad and varied as science fiction and fantasy. Anne McCaffrey's Dragon-Rider series has often been categorized as romance and there are points in it that...people view as massively misogynistic and "demi-rape". With a hefty male gaze.
Both are imho wishful fantasies and far away from the tedious process that you gain power with in reality.
True, but these are fantasy stories - fictional, not real - they aren't trying to be real. It's not non-fiction. It's escapist fiction.
Fantasy fiction. There's nothing wrong with wishful fantasy. Real life is bleak at times...tedious, fantasy is an escape from it and we're smart enough to know the difference. At least most of us are. ;-)
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Naja, not sure it's the best example. Because in BB the negative consequences of power through violence are shown in every detail and I am fairly certain the show will end with Walt dead or in prison. It's more slowly describing the way there. The consequences are not ignored.
The Boddice Rippers - which I have a feeling are the ones that pushed your buttons?
I think the books I'm thinking of would be categorized as that, yes. They really did not leave any room to call it anything else but rape. It was only backwardly glorified rape that ended with marriage.
The Pern series is for example nothing I would categorize as romance, so maybe we are also regarding wildly different fields here.
fantasy is an escape from it and we're smart enough to know the difference. At least most of us are.
Are most of us? Where romance is concerned? I guess that is why I find them so triggery because while downright fantasy/scifi etc. is known to be unreal by almost all it's readers,I see many people who buy into the romance type fantasies in the sense that many women focus themselves entirely around the male gaze and self objectify massively in order to achieve something with those imagined "weapons of a woman".
I guess if I could see it as just fantasies that no one buys I would be more bored and less bothered. But for that I see too many women with really skewered views of themselves.
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Why not? They are more romances than Lois Bujold. Lessa is saved by Fl'ar who seduces her after she gets picked by her dragon, the dragon mating, causes them to have rough erotic sex...the whole story is about F'Lar finding Lessa and the dragons are sort of in there.
Definitely romance - or in that category. Romance as a genre includes mystery, thriller, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Romance novelists write both.
And there's a huge gamut.
I guess that is why I find them so triggery because while downright fantasy/scifi etc. is known to be unreal by almost all it's readers,I see many people who buy into the romance type fantasies in the sense that many women focus themselves entirely around the male gaze and self objectify massively in order to achieve something with those imagined "weapons of a woman".
I guess if I could see it as just fantasies that no one buys I would be more bored and less bothered. But for that I see too many women with really skewered views of themselves.
Has it occurred to you that the person writing the romance is depicting their own views of themselves? It's often not men writing this, it's women reacting to the media imagery presented to them. Male dominated tv shows, books, etc - where women are told they are "supporting characters", wives, mothers, no career, and if they have a career...or women who have given up their career to raise children and be a wife...their novels are often expressions of their own pain, own frustrations, a coping mechanism as it were.
We read for various reasons...fantasy, comfort, whatever.
I think you have to be careful not to make broad generalizations.
And well, respectfully agree to disagree?
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Because the romance is not dominant. I was not interested in it at the time (and can't remember it now) and still had alot of story to like and remember. I would not categorize Bujold as romance either for the same reasons. I mentioned it because it has a romantic storyline I found interesting.
The way I defined romance novel the romance is the strongly dominant storyline which it is neither in the Pern books nor in Bujold's books the case. I'd call the first fantasy and the second scifi.
I do agree with what you wrote about the genderstereotypes played here are a result of the world the author lives in. But at the same time they do enforce them.
we can of course simply disagree, we don't even do in most points. I think most of it is a difference in definition.
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And Shadowkat mentions Kathleen Woodiwiss, and I remember one of the first romances I ever read was Woodiwiss' "The Flame and the Flower" which, at the time I read it as a 13 year old, seemed very scandalous, but in retrospect... oh my god. She was forced to marry her rapist! (No wonder I always disliked that books' hero and always found myself wishing the heroine would run off with his brother.) But that book was written in the early 1970s. It was fifteen years out of date when I read it in the late 80s. And I do sort of see where the whole pre-feminist mindset of "good girls don't want it... but it it's forced on them...?" influenced those original 'bodice rippers'. It was basically okaying female erotica... which hadn't been 'okay.' Perverse? You betcha. But I sort of see where those early novels developed that trope (which isn't a reason for that trope to continue to exist.) But, oddly, in the original... I actually think it was sort of a perverse rebellion against a culture that wasn't allowing female erotica because 'women aren't supposed to like it." (And I always find myself comparing Woodiwiss' "The Flame and the Flower" with her "Shanna", because...other than the fact that Shanna is bitchy as all hell, it's pretty unambiguous that she's the one with all the power for the majority of the book. So...yeah... not sure where I'm going with that. Weird factoid, I guess.)
On the other hand, not all romances are like that and not even all older romances were like that. Out of sheer curiosity a year or two ago I ordered an out-of-print book from Amazon which was in fact the very first romance I ever read as a young girl. It's actually... still pretty interesting. In modern fiction, I'm not at all sure that it would still be categorized in the romance department rather than Young Adult, because there's really nothing but implied sex in it and the majority of the book is more travel/mystery/adventure about a young orphan in Tibet who was sent to England for education, and then was returned to Tibet... and there was some mystery that I've forgotten now. But it was still entertaining and non-offensive.
And, though I haven't read romances in years, I can think of several that deliberately try to subvert genre tropes (I tended to have a thing for that so many of the ones I read were about that subversion... some more successful with it than others). (cont'd because I ran REALLY long...)
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There was one that I remember (and I remember hating) that cast it in some sci-fi/fantasy world were there was very much a gender reversal going on and it was an powerfeul female society where men were valued for their chasteness, etc. And it was... honest to god, a boddice ripper in reverse! Which if you ever wanted to be smacked across the face with the offensive nature of the old "boddice ripper" trope, this gender reversal story really highlighted it by reversing the gender. I remember at the time the amazon reviews of it being quite divided with some loving the gender reversal and others being repelled because it was the exact same trope as the bodice ripper in a gender reverse. I'm still unsure whether the writer actually thought it was a 'cool twist' or whether it was intended as a social experiment of "how will people react if I were to reverse the genders"... all it did for me was remind me why I disliked the old trope bodice ripper. But, re: male gaze it's difficult to argue that that one wasn't written to be a direct confrontation of it... in some respect (still not sure how she intended it though).
A more successful one in my memory was one that was more subtle about it but still reversed some of the trope by the heroine being a widow suspected of having murdered her first husband and having a very upright-naive-do-good military officer fall for her. It wasn't quite as in-your-face with the trope reversal as the one that was romance couched in sci-fi/fantasy, but a deliberate reversal was definitely going on.
Which was sort of why I wanted to jump to the romance novels defense, because while its true that the books you're talking about absolutely exist, there are other books in the genre. And as time has gone on there seems to be an awareness among some of the writers of the tropes you're talking about who have the urge to subvert them... or at least not adhere to them. It's probably the genre that affords some of the most experimentation of female writers because it's the genre where female authors dominate, and I remember listening to a lecture on genre fiction where the professor noted that romance is probably the most inclusive genre in that romance readers will accept multiple dramas. Mystery readers seem to have rather specific requirements about what fits its genre. Westerns do as well. And so do sci-fi and fantasy... and yet romance willingly accepts all of the above. So while there's a fair degree of formula involved, it's actually more inclusive of other formulas than most other genres are. Basically, it's a genre where there are female writers who experiment in them...it's just that with the hokey titles and even hokier covers, few people know that that subset of romances are also going on and they aren't all just old trope bodice rippers.
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Though I think I read the book about the orphan in tibet as a kid in german. It was called "Wenn im Tal der Mondbaum blüht" and I just looked the author up. Her name was Madeleine Brent.Is it the same book? I barely remember it except that there was a lot about yaks. I also saw it more as a travel/adventure book (but I was like 8 when I read it) and I don't remember there being romance.
I think the definition of romance I talk is more narrow then the one you and shadowkat are using. I also think you are right with your explanation for rape trope but it still turns me off massively.
Basically it is the same in every genre. There are real treasures everywhere and I think there certainly are very good romances. The experiences I had with it are with fairly old literature and in the end it's mainly some very common romance tropes that make me cringe so hard, like the rape thing you described.
It's really fanfic that taught me that the genre can be very diverse and fascinating if it grows freely. But there the play with the gender roles seems to be more common than in the established romance literature (but I'm talking about a superficial glance here).
Actually I would be quite interested in trying romance that does not enforce gender stereotypes (or directly put them upside down), but I've never come across anything that goes without the manly man, womanly woman thing?
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Often in the romance novel genre - the FEMALE gaze takes center stage. Unlike the horror, noir, and male dominated genres, in the romance genre, the guy is hot, the woman is mousy or feels unattractive. She's the ugly duckling. When she is attractive in the novels...so is he. We don't get the fat schlub who wants a night with Eliza Dusku or a supermodel.
Example? Bridget Jones's Diary. Romance novels much like other genre run the gambit.
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I think that was the reason, why I mentioned Bujold when you were talking about searching for romance novels.the first book of her saga is essentially a romance where the parents of her future hero meet. The fact that made it attractive to me despite it containing so much romance was that both characters were extremely human and neither of them was objectified.
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In the end I suspect that other than the free trial that came with kindle, it ultimately works like my Audible Account where I pay a monthly fee and it allows me a "free" book each month... which isn't actually 'free" because I've paid a monthly fee, but if you're savvy about what you're using your free credit on you can get something like a $50 audible book for your $13 fee.
Basically, I think it's a way to have a constant revenue stream so they allow you pretty good value for your money, but it isn't as 'free' as they're claiming.
Now, local libraries actually do kindle lending libraries. I learned this from someone at work who gets audio books and kindle books through the local library site, and I think Amazon/Kindle promised a list of associated libraries. I know my own local library allows it, so I should actually go get an account with my library, as we're 'taxed' a library fee each year with my property tax I am a member, I just don't have an online account. So, long story short, public libraries also allow you to 'check out' kindle books.
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So far no cliches. Granted I haven't read this stuff in a while, but they aren't cliche or really all that predictable. Well the endings are...sort of, I mean part of the appeal of this genre is you know they will end up together or be happy in some way, whether they should or not end up together and its happy (as in the weird one I read last night) is quite another matter. ;-)
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I actually deleted this one from my Kindle after I read it. Let's just say it makes Kathleen Woodwiss and Rosemary Rodgers look like a walk in a park in comparison and leave it at that, shall we? Very odd book. Felt like a frigging horror novel. At the end of it, I was thinking - stupid heroine, yes, I get that the orgasms can be awesome at times and I guess it's a turn on to have a guy lust after you that badly (he makes Spike look positively sane in comparison), but seriously why haven't you run from this jealous bastard? And I mean run - as in for your life and your sanity. (And no this isn't a fantasy or supernatural romance, it's modern day contemporary erotica. Erotica tends to be fairly short - no more than 50 pages at most. )
Weirdly...of the three trashy romances I've read? It has the least typos. LOL! (That's what you get reading 0 -.99 cent books off of Amazon.