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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.
no subject
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. ;-)
no subject
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.
no subject
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?
no subject
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.