The front cover and five pages of today's G2 section of the Guardian have been given over to Tanya Gold's "Confessions of a secret Mills & Boon junkie" and "The Magnate's Mistress – Tanya Gold's debut Mills & Boon novel: An exclusive extract."
The latter, which "swim[s] into pastiche," reminds me of Tumperkin et al's The Unfeasibly Tall Greek Billionaire’s Blackmailed Martyr-Complex Secretary Mistress Bride [Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6] and All About Romance's Purple Prose Parody contests, which were designed to "celebrate the excesses of our beloved genre. But whereas Tumperkin, her collaborators, and the PPP contestants revel in their parodies, Tanya Gold's seems a bit strained, perhaps reflecting her conflicted feelings about the genre. In an earlier essay, about the Glastonbury festival, Gold wrote that
In The Magnate's Mistress Gold writes like someone who wants to believe in fairies, who perhaps even wants to be a fairy, but who can't suspend disbelief long enough to bring Tinkerbell back to life.my name is Happy Fairy Tanya. I used to be Bitter Journalist Tanya, but then I went to Glastonbury. If you do not address me by my new title, I will rip your eyeballs out with my shimmering fairy wings.
The pages in the Guardian reveal as much, if not more, about Tanya Gold than they do about M&Bs, and they do so in a way which reminded me of an article written by Tania Modleski.
It would be naive to assume that either of the Tany/ia's is exactly as she portrays herself in her articles. Both are skilled writers, who shape their material into a particular form, in Tania's case with a didactic, and in Tanya's a humorous, intent. Nonetheless, both seem to make themselves vulnerable to the reader by exposing both their desires and their ambivalence about them.
Gold confesses that
when I am loveless or annoyed, I think – yes, I can have a Mills & Boon. I can have virtual sex with a non-existent man who is made of paper. So I retreat to my bed with The Venetian's Moonlight Mistress and live in a perfectly etched fantasy world where I get everything I want.She keeps "waiting to be told the secret Mills & Boon formula," "I still keep expecting to be given the formula. Where is it?" One begins to wonder, however, if the formula Gold is seeking is not the formula for writing the perfect Mills & Boon romance, but the formula for making herself loveable enough to resemble a M&B heroine. She admits that
I can't even begin to write a woman I like enough to give a lover to. Begin with myself, you say? How? There is nothing heroic about me. I am bilious and I smoke. I suddenly become convinced that I am too cynical to write this proposal properly and, in the pantheon of Mills & Boon readers, I am not quite sure where this leaves me. Ready to become a 60-book-a-month girl? Or does this self-loathing in itself make me a Mills & Boon heroine? A woman who does not believe herself loveable enough to write a hero for? Nah. Pass the axe.Tanya attempts to write in the Mills & Boon style but her heroine "is partly the opposite of me and partly the woman I wish I were. Either way, I hate her."
Tania Modleski has a similarly love-hate relationship with the genre and her own desires. She too has found herself "trying to understand my [...] addition to romances" (15), to understand (in Gold's words) "Why do I feel shame?" about reading romances. In "My Life as a Romance Reader" Modleski focuses on the personal nature of her relationship to romances, a genre which has "been central to my fantasy life since I was a preteen" (15). Her intellect and her desires are in conflict:
all those years of higher education and all those years of dedicated feminism hadn't lessened the attraction of the romances for me. I became consumed with the desire to figure out why I, a fervent feminist, had not shed these fantasies with all the rest of the false consciousness I had let go. (21)Gold is informed that the genre has changed, become more feminist:
Clare Somerville, the marketing director [...] says "[...] I get very cross when people say we denigrate women. I think we are one of the most feminist publishers in existence."and
Somerville smashes my preconceptions. Preconception One – in a Mills & Boon novel you get an overpowering hero riding up on a white horse and saving the heroine. This, Somerville explains, is not true. They used to publish books like that, but no more. They've moved on. "The Mills & Boon heroine," she says, "has changed from a cipher that is in every way inferior to the man to being the dominant force in the relationship." Nowadays, she explains, the woman is in control. The heroines used to have terrible jobs but today you find them running companies. The woman doesn't leave her job to marry the man. She keeps her job and marries.Modleski, coming back to the genre after some time away from it, had her preconceptions about the modern genre challenged in a similarly brisk fashion:
"Rape is out," a romance writer told me [...]. She said it as if she were announcing a style trend. Apparently in some of the "bodice rippers," as the longer racier historical romances were called then, the heroine was sometimes subjected to rape. (21)It seems undeniable, however, and both Tany/ia's are aware of this, that "Some things in Mills & Boon land are eternal" (Gold), and despite changes in the genre, it is still possible to find heroes who
are appalling. They are always saying things like, "You are a stupid little fool!" And I end up thinking women who read these books – including me – are incredibly stupid. (Gold)1Certainly, readers like the Tany/ia's seem to be incredibly conflicted. In Modleski's case, "Eventually it dawned on me that the elements of the formula that most disturbed me were the very same ones I desired for my reading pleasure" (24). Tanya Gold (at least in the persona she reveals in her article) sometimes seems to want to know the formula to turn herself into a fairy, but most of the time she doesn't really believe they exist.
- Gold, Tanya. "Confessions of a secret Mills & Boon junkie." The Guardian 11 Sept. 2009.
- Gold, Tanya. "The Magnate's Mistress – Tanya Gold's debut Mills & Boon novel: An exclusive extract." The Guardian 11 Sept. 2009.
- Modleski, Tania. "My Life as a Romance Reader." Paradoxa 3.1-2 (1997): 15-28.
1 Smart Bitch Sarah seems to have found a recent novel in this mould in Sharon Kendrick's The Playboy Sheikh's Virgin Stable Girl.
The photo is from the Guardian website, and was taken by Alicia Canter. I hope it's permissible to use it, but if either Canter or someone from the Guardian asks me to remove it I will.
This is actually circling the same point I have been struggling to convey in my abstract for the forthcoming PCA conference. I did not read romances when I was a child but as an adult woman, reading about ingenues (a character I have publicly denounced several times)it does seem to bring up the intensely personal question of: If I am nothing like this heroine, am I then unlovable?
ReplyDeleteI found that Guardian article incredibly annoying and insulting. Why on earth woudl this woman think she can "get insight into" a Mills & Boon by writing one rather than reading a whole lot of them?
ReplyDeleteIt's like me saying I can "get insight" into quantum physics or knitting by writing a textbook o the subject, and asking editors to give me a contract, rather than attempting to learn how to knit or being acquainted with particle/wave duality.
This person is an idiot.
"it does seem to bring up the intensely personal question of: If I am nothing like this heroine, am I then unlovable?"
ReplyDeleteI see what you mean, and yes, the question is, as you say, "intensely personal." It can feel like a real slap in the face to come across some things in romances and realise that if you were to step into that novel you'd be cast as a distinctly unloveable character.
In some ways I'm used to it, because I started off working on medieval texts, most of which were written for people who were Christian, male and aristocratic and the statements they sometimes contained about women, non-Christians and peasants could be rather unpleasant.
However, it was probably easier to avoid taking those attitudes personally because they're not contemporary works. The authors are long dead, and so are their audiences. The difference with modern romances is that they're expressing views which are presumably still current, so it tends to suggest that in real life a fair number of people would agree with the characters, and would therefore think of you as unloveable.
Then again, I doubt I'd want to be friends with people who had views which made me feel slapped in the face, so ultimately their opinions about my lack of loveability are really rather irrelevant.
It's still very disconcerting to come across, and can be hurtful if you've got involved in those characters' lives before realising that they'd hate/despise you.
"Why on earth woudl this woman think she can "get insight into" a Mills & Boon by writing one rather than reading a whole lot of them?"
ReplyDeleteShe said at the start of the piece that although she doesn't "read them constantly" she does read them when she's in a particular mood, so presumably she's read a fair number, over the years. It's true that she didn't take the editors' advice and read 50 of the latest offerings in the Modern line before starting to write a piece targeted at that line:
"I don't read 50 current books. I read three. I read them critically, as if I were reading Mills & Boon for the first time."
But reading 50 would have taken quite a while, and quite a bit of money, and she wasn't seriously considering taking up a career as a M&B author, so given that she probably had a deadline by which to submit the essay I think it's understandable that she didn't try to read 50.
As for the issue of "gaining insight", my impression from reading what quite a lot of romance readers have said in comments on blogs and on message boards, is that quite a few have tried their hand at writing romances, and most have gained increased respect for authors as a result because it made them realise that writing a romance is difficult. I think Tanya Gold did gain that insight.
In addition, it seems as though she gained some insight into her own personality and her own motivations for reading romances.
"It's like me saying I can "get insight" into quantum physics or knitting by writing a textbook o the subject"
I don't think it's quite like that, because a lot of M&B authors began as M&B readers. I don't think Tanya Gold's alone in trying her hand at writing fiction without having first gone on a creative writing or romance writing course.
In addition, writing is her career, and she's a successful writer of non-fiction. Obviously writing fiction is different from writing non-fiction, but in her articles she creates a kind of narrative and evokes images, so I don't think it was idiotic of her to suppose that at least some of the skills she'd learned as a journalist would be transferable.
"it does seem to bring up the intensely personal question of: If I am nothing like this heroine, am I then unlovable?"
ReplyDeleteyou know, i realize it's an intensely personal question, but even if "this heroine" were some magical composite of every romance heroine evar, the answer would still be no. people are different, and different people love different things about different people. (if that weren't the case, most HEAs would be VERY complicated, in romancelandia and IRL.) i mean, maybe if your personality resembles those of most "villainesses" you'd have something to worry about...but even then i sort of doubt it.
but maybe you already knew that, and i just misunderstood the question. :)
I didn't really so much mean me personally as I did the me-as-a-female who,like the Tani/yas, being confronted constantly with a construction of female identity contrary to my own sense of self,is made to feel/wonder whether love is dependent upon an adherence to certain types of feminine behavior? Or if it is really a "beauty in the eye of the beholder" sort of thing?
ReplyDeleteThe romance text is more problematic because regardless of what time period it is set in, it is written by a modern author for a modern audience. Therefore, as a female reader any female character is going to act as a reflection in a mirror which you have to either reject or accept. Moreover, if the constant reflection of femaleness is one that is contrary to the way in which you choose to construct your own femaleness, there is going to always be doubt about your own worth or at least, the discrepancy between what is modeled and what you are is going to force you to question (maybe just vaguely) your own sense of self.
The sense of being worthwhile is both connected to our confidence in our own identity construction and to the our sense of our own lovableness. So I can see how the Tania/yas are conflicted over a genre that defines female-ness in such stark tones and does so within the context of finding true love. It may also explain why readers to be a lot harsher critics of heroines than of heroes. There's an invested interest in the destruction of those models of female behavior that work contrary to the models we wish to believe are the acceptable ones.
But the problem I have with Tanya Gold's view of herself as a reader and then as a writer, is the lack of playfullness. Most romance that I read and write is about fantasy and escapism. It worries me that women get into large amounts of self loathng about their forms of pleasure. I was irritated by her article too.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember ever having agonised about my choice of reading material. So I have to admit I can't really relate to either of the Tani/yas' conflict and angst. In addition, I get the impression that this agonising about one's reading material is something is peculiar to the romance genre. Nobody would worry about being a feminist and liking Tennyson's poems with the suicidal heroines, would they?*
ReplyDeleteI didn't really so much mean me personally as I did the me-as-a-female who,like the Tani/yas, being confronted constantly with a construction of female identity contrary to my own sense of self,is made to feel/wonder whether love is dependent upon an adherence to certain types of feminine behavior?
But aren't there a lot of different - and contrasting - kinds of feminine behaviour to be found in romance fiction? To be sure, there is the bambi-eyed, helpless heroine who has to cling to her brawny hero for protection and what not, totters into every villain's trap, and is famously ... breathless ... and ... unable ... to ... finish her ... eh ... sentences. On the other hand, you've also got strong, intelligent and independent heroines, who kill villains of any kind (including demons and vampires) and who often do the rescuing themselves. And then you've got all the shades in between these two extremes.
I would agree that novels from the M&B Romance / Harlequin Presents line often portray a type of heroine that seems to be closely modelled on current beauty ideals (super-slim, always elegantly dressed) and to be very dependent on the strong, manly super-billionaire hero. But I'm also aware that this a generalisation and that there are certainly exceptions to the "rule".
__________
* I blame Lucy Maud Montgomery for my love for Tennyson's poems with the suicidal heroines.
"different people love different things about different people."
ReplyDeleteYes, of course that's true, and I'm not the sort of reader who daydreams about being in love with the hero, so in that sense the fact that the hero and heroine love each other doesn't make me feel unloveable. It's more about this:
"i mean, maybe if your personality resembles those of most "villainesses" you'd have something to worry about..."
If my personality more closely resembles those of the villainness, the failure of an ex-wife, or the unloveable spinster character, then I do think I'm justified in feeling that my personality is not one the characters would find very loveable and/or admirable. These negatively portrayed characters act as examples of the kind of traits that make a woman unloveable/admirable, while the heroine tends to be composed of traits which are thought to make a woman loveable and/or admirable.
Or, as Angela has said much more eloquently,
"if the constant reflection of femaleness is one that is contrary to the way in which you choose to construct your own femaleness, there is going to always be doubt about your own worth or at least, the discrepancy between what is modeled and what you are is going to force you to question (maybe just vaguely) your own sense of self."
Keziah, I think it can feel hard to feel light-heartedly "playful" when the message you get almost constantly, from a variety of sources, including your leisure reading, is that you're not good enough. Tanya's being kind of cynically and self-hatingly playful, perhaps. I tend to be analytically playful, but it's a kind of play that, I suspect, a lot of people find very boring or irritating.
"I can't remember ever having agonised about my choice of reading material."
I don't agonise about my choice of reading material per se, but I have sometimes been struck, rather painfully, by the implications of some of the contents of my chosen reading material.
"I get the impression that this agonising about one's reading material is something is peculiar to the romance genre"
I think that readers of other genres get mocked for their choices too. Readers of science fiction can be told they're geeks, readers of literary fiction can be told they're snobs, readers of comics can be told they're illiterate because why else would there be so many pictures in the books....
Even if one embraces one's preferred genre without guilt or agonising, however, one may still feel some qualms about particular elements of the genre. There have been huge debates recently online about racism in speculative fiction, for example, and those concerns led to the establishment of the Carl Brandon Society.
"On the other hand, you've also got strong, intelligent and independent heroines, who kill villains of any kind (including demons and vampires) and who often do the rescuing themselves. And then you've got all the shades in between these two extremes."
I think the depiction of violence in the genre can be a bit troubling. When we as readers are presented with scenarios in which it's really easy to distinguish between good and evil, and the good people are unquestioningly killing the evil ones it does make me think about relatively recent statements about the "axis of evil."
I don't agonise about my choice of reading material per se, but I have sometimes been struck, rather painfully, by the implications of some of the contents of my chosen reading material.
ReplyDeleteYes, I see what you mean. As you said in an earlier comment, it's easier to deal with that if it's "old" literature and the author has been dead for a good many decades. To use my earlier example again, I do like Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott", but there's only so much Victorian lit you can read before the abundance of pale ladies fading away into death and passivity will drive you potty.
I think the depiction of violence in the genre can be a bit troubling. When we as readers are presented with scenarios in which it's really easy to distinguish between good and evil, and the good people are unquestioningly killing the evil ones it does make me think about relatively recent statements about the "axis of evil."
What you're describing is most pronounced in paranormal romance, of course, which is related to fantasy. And there the depiction of evil has always been a bit of a problem, probably due to the genre's emergence from and reliance on the fairy tale tradition. In fairy tales everything everything is black and white; there are no shades of grey, psychologically speaking. As Max Lüthi points out in The European Folktale, "[t]he persons and animals depicted in folktales [...] lack physical and psychological depth" (12). They're either absolutely good or absolutely bad.
While the heroes of fantasy fiction are usually not characterised by such depthlessness, the villains very often are. Thus, if there are groups of villains, they're often not individualised, but are merely the horrible, evil orcs, who are uncouth and barbarous and threaten the communities of the good people. Fortunately, there are also quite a lot of fantasy authors who have written against this particular tradition.
I think that readers of other genres get mocked for their choices too. Readers of science fiction can be told they're geeks, readers of literary fiction can be told they're snobs, readers of comics can be told they're illiterate because why else would there be so many pictures in the books....
That's certainly true. But what I meant is that people who feel the need to agonise over their reading material as Modleski and Gold do, are often romance readers. At least this is the impression that I got.
Even if one embraces one's preferred genre without guilt or agonising, however, one may still feel some qualms about particular elements of the genre.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. And since you've read my romance chapter, you know that I do, too. :)
Journalists are always writing these kinds of articles. The number of instant-analysis pieces about romance fiction must be into the hundreds by now, and I haven't yet read a single one that reveals any striking new insights. But I'm afraid I didn't manage to read all of Ms. Gold's observations, because I got bored, so if she said something really perceptive, I missed it. Damn.
ReplyDeleteI simply don't understand why anyone should feel embarrassed about reading and enjoying any given type of fiction. To me it seems like inventing things to feel anxious and stressed about. Heaven knows there are plenty of real problems in life, without starting to worry about the kind of literature, music or art that provides a pleasurable escape from reality.
I think the key to answering that question might be the phrase "a pleasurable escape from reality."
ReplyDeleteIf someone's experience is an ambivalent one, they may wonder why they keep seeking out something that ultimately causes them more pain than pleasure. For example, someone who regularly ends up with hangovers whenever they drink alcohol, but who keeps drinking it anyway, might feel embarrassed about their behaviour. Given Tanya Gold's use of the language of addiction ("junkie in the making"), this would appear to be the kind of relationship she has with romances.
For other readers it may simply be that they wonder why they waste time on one thing when they could probably, if they made a bit more effort, find something more pleasurable and more worthwhile to do. So, for example, someone who eats crisps because they're feeling too tired to make themselves a nutritionally balanced meal that they'd actually enjoy more, may feel a bit ashamed about that. There seems to be a bit of this in Tanya Gold's attitude too, because she writes that
The men are appalling. They are always saying things like, "You are a stupid little fool!" And I end up thinking women who read these books – including me – are incredibly stupid
In Tania Modleski's case the main problem seemed be that the source of pleasure was ideologically suspect. In a follow-up to her essay Modleski wrote that in it she had been "confessing to having sado-masochistic fantasies" (134) but she finds it problematic that "dominance continues to be eroticized in many romances" (140) and adds
"Before romance writers and critics rush to denounce me for looking down on the readers of romance who enjoy this stuff, let me assure them, once again, that I enjoy it myself. And before I am told that I cannot generalize from my experience, that I am the only pervert in the crowd, I wish to point out that the novel I have quoted from was a best seller, and I only bought one copy." (141)
Yet the passages from the novel she is quoting from simultaneously seem "shocking" to her, because they "show just how far away romances can get from the 'equality' between the sexes proclaimed by the [authors of] the [other] Paradoxa articles" (140).
There can also be external reasons for shame/embarrassment, e.g. the reader knows that she will face mockery from others for her choices and their opinions matter to her.
There are very probably other reasons I haven't thought of.
Modleski, Tania. "My Life as a Romance Writer." Paradoxa 4.9 (1998): 134-44.
Your arguments are cogent ones, Laura (as usual). But the comparisons with physical addiction or with unwise diet, while probably very accurate for the readers who do agonise in this way, seem to me to suggest that such readers are taking fiction far too seriously. I don't mean that fiction is unimportant: clearly it is important. But it is not reality, and that's the point. I still think that readers who get so tense about their choice of fiction are inventing a problem where none exists, or even, to some degree, confusing reality and fantasy.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing wicked or even unworthy in enjoying a fantasy that one would heartily disapprove of in real life. Most people have sexual fantasies that turn them on mentally, but that would turn them off very sharply indeed if initiated in the real world. This is normal.
Your point about the opinions of others is an important one, of course, especially to those who are young and/or have a conviction of their own superior intellect and tastes compared with hoi polloi. I would have been somewhat embarrassed to be seen reading a category romance when I was a young woman, not because of the content, which wouldn't trouble me at all, but because of the shamefully ghastly cover art -- I would be afraid that someone might think that I actually liked the picture on the cover. Although I have never been a literary snob, I'm afraid I used to be an artistic one when young.
Anyway, I think the Tanya/Tanias need to get a life. They are making a mountain out of a molehill. If they enjoy reading this, that or the other genre, they should read it: if they don't, they should desist. But a lot of angsty public self-analysis and alleged conflict about the subject is just childish showing off, to my mind.
Okay, I am still in a testy mood...
"the comparisons with physical addiction or with unwise diet, while probably very accurate for the readers who do agonise in this way, seem to me to suggest that such readers are taking fiction far too seriously. I don't mean that fiction is unimportant: clearly it is important. But it is not reality, and that's the point. I still think that readers who get so tense about their choice of fiction are inventing a problem where none exists, or even, to some degree, confusing reality and fantasy.
ReplyDeleteI engage very deeply with the characters' emotions while I read, and the events in a novel can make a deep impression on me. Even while I know that the story is unreal, the emotions it contains can feel very real. I don't think I'm alone in responding to fiction this way. Jessica's written that
"We sympathetically identify with characters and feel, to some extent, their shock, horror, anger, fear, lust, humor, joy and sorrow. The fact that we do so is one of the great joys and wonders of reading fiction, but it has puzzled philosophers for some time. Why should I feel scared when the hero or heroine is in danger? I know they aren’t real, after all. As readers, we have the same physiological manifestation of emotion as the characters, but our behavioral response (doing nothing) reflects the fact that we are aware that the events in the book are not real. [...]
My view is that I am really feeling emotions when I am reading a romance novel — or at least when I am reading a well-written one — but I am not sure how to square this with my knowledge that fiction isn’t real. As a reader, I just accept it as one of the gifts that a good writer bestows."
Fiction can also have more subtle effects. As Growlycub's said on another thread here, "fiction can indeed teach or influence by reinforcing concepts that readers encounter in their daily lives" or, to borrow a quote from Janga's blog,
"Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die." — Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life)
People who respond intensely to fiction aren't necessarily confusing it with real life, but we can't help our response. It's not dissimilar to the way that some people are deeply moved emotionally by a piece of music. You could try telling them that it's just notes being played by instruments, so there's no reason to cry/dance/feel joyful, but I don't think that would really change the way they respond.
"There is nothing wicked or even unworthy in enjoying a fantasy that one would heartily disapprove of in real life. Most people have sexual fantasies that turn them on mentally, but that would turn them off very sharply indeed if initiated in the real world. This is normal."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that Tania Modleski had a problem with her fantasies per se. What she perhaps found problematic is that in romance the dynamic of male domination and female submission is often written as a "reality" rather than as a sexual fantasy or as these specific individuals' sexual/relationship preference. That's one of the things that makes romance different from porn: in porn it's obvious that all the scenarios are sexual fantasy. The problem with including sexual fantasies of female submission in romances in this manner i.e. disguised as reality-within-the-fiction, might therefore be that (a) some readers might not read it as a sexual fantasy, at least in part because (b) it reflects power structures that exist in society and therefore, if Growly and Anne Lamott are correct, (c) it may reinforce existing power dynamics between the genders and existing ideas about how our communities should be built.
"Anyway, I think the Tanya/Tanias need to get a life."
ReplyDeleteI've often seen exhortations to "get a life" directed at people who seek to analyse books, films etc. I'm not entirely clear what it's supposed to mean. Does one not live if one spends part of one's time analysing these things?
"They are making a mountain out of a molehill."
But it's important to them, and probably each of us has a concern that to us seems very important, but which some other person might dismiss as being unimportant in comparison to other problems. Maybe every mole views its own molehill as a mountain, because it's the mole struggling to build it. Sadly, Tal's not around to confirm whether I'm right in this speculation about moles.
"If they enjoy reading this, that or the other genre, they should read it: if they don't, they should desist"
The could, but perhaps all genres bring with them a mixture of pleasures and problems, so if they took your advice and stuck to books which brought them pure pleasure, they might be left with nothing to read at all.
"But a lot of angsty public self-analysis and alleged conflict about the subject is just childish showing off, to my mind."
It could be seen that way, certainly, but readers' emotional responses to texts are very personal, and if someone wants to talk about them, but doesn't want to/have the ability to do an ethnographic study in which they interview lots of other people, they're left with just themselves as the primary object of study.
I can see how it might come across as attention-seeking, and I can't present any proof that it isn't, but my first response to both of the pieces by the Tany/ias was to feel that they were being very brave in making public their feelings on such intimate subjects.
Sorry to reply in 3 parts to you, Tigress, but you'd left a very thought-provoking comment and I have a feeling that Blogger puts a limit on the length of comments. It therefore seemed best to break the reply up into pieces.
I've had another thought regarding the question of "showing off." I suspect it might be more likely to come across that way to people who aren't interested in reading what they have to say and therefore (a) find it a waste of space and (b) wonder why the writer was conceited enough to assume that anyone else would be interested in reading that kind of personal piece.
ReplyDeleteI suppose my interest in the pieces, by contrast, is the result of feeling that they were articulating something I've also felt i.e. ambivalence while reading some romances, due to a pleasurable reading experience being interrupted by ideological and/or personal concerns raised by the text.
Your comments are a reminder (to me, at least) of the variety that exists in individuals' responses to texts and in the way we read in general. I've really found it very interesting to think about.
Hope I haven't been too self-indulgent and bored everyone else on the thread, though ;-)
Excellent post, Laura, and fascinating comments. I love romance but I have to admit to harbouring negative feelings sometimes about reading it and being seen to be reading it. (I should also say that I have many many more positive feelings about it but it's not all good).
ReplyDeleteI'm very pleased for all of the commenters who haven't given the nature of their reading a second thought, but I have, and for me, those negative feelings come down to two main things.
1. How others perceive my reading romance - if someone sees me reading a romance they may come to any one of a number of unflattering conclusions about me (I am thick/ sexually frustrated/ prurient/ shallow for example).
Oh, and please, all readers of this comment, resist the temptation to tell me I don't need to bother myself about such narrow-minded people. I know I ought not to bother - that's not the point I am making - the point is that I HAVE felt that.
2. This is the point you made in your last comment Laura - in some romances (often categories) there may be some idealogy expressed (or implied) in the text that doesn't sit well with me. That can cause a tension with the pleasure I am getting from the read. The best of example of this is sheikh books. I've never read one that didn't bother me greatly.
Without wishing (particularly in view of the sheikh example) to encourage cultural stereotypes, I do wonder if this negativity about romance is particularly entrenched in Britain. American bloggers always seem much more 'out and proud' to me but then American bloggers may not represent American readers very well. I'd be interested to hear what Sandra had to say about German readers.
"I do wonder if this negativity about romance is particularly entrenched in Britain."
ReplyDeleteThe definitions of "romance" are different in the UK and US, which maybe makes comparisons a bit trickier.
"Romantic fiction" which includes sagas such as those of Catherine Cookson and much more does seem to sell well according to the Romantic Novelists' Association, and Clive Bloom, in Bestsellers: Popular Fiction Since 1900 (2002) writes that
At the end of the twentieth century the two leading popular genres were the same as at its beginning and still commanded the greatest sales: detective fiction and women's romance. The former now includes everything from Agatha Christie to Elmore Leonard (or subgenre writers like John Grisham) and the latter has spread from Ethel Dell to Mills and Boon, Barbara Cartland and Joanna Trollope, but both genres still retain recognisable elements from their origins, providing continuity within creative traditions, based on a knowledge of possible variations (such as the Black Lace style of women's erotic romance). (13)
Another figure I came across (and it's difficult to compare all the figures and percentages, because I'm not sure what's included in "romance" and "romantic fiction") is that "Mills & Boon has over 70 per cent of the romantic fiction market in the UK" (Clark and Phillips 24)
Obviously, though, high sales don't translate into lots of respect. I did wonder, when I saw that figure from Clark and Phillips, whether the dominance of Mills & Boon, and the stereotypes about Mills & Boon, make for different attitudes towards romance in the UK. Although in the US there are the stereotypes about bodice-rippers and Fabio, so maybe the stereotypes are just different, not better.
Here's what Clive Bloom has to say about attitudes towards the genre in the UK:
Popular genres do not, however, have equal status. Some are considered more serious than others (which often means less 'female' or less 'juvenile'). This becomes obvious when one compares the two leading genres that account for almost all the annual fictional output: detective fiction and women's romance. Detective fiction always had cachet.(14)
Harlequin/Mills & Boon, it seems to me (but this is purely my non-scientifically accumulated opinion), is the lowest in the hierarchy of romantic fiction in terms of cachet (well, Barbara Cartland might be as low or lower). Catherine Cookson and chick lit are perhaps seen as a little bit more respectable in the UK? And in the US, even among romance readers, single titles seem to get more respect than category romance.
----
Bloom, Clive. Bestsellers: Popular Fiction Since 1900. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Clark, Giles and Angus Phillips. Inside Book Publishing. Abingdon: Routledge, 2008.
I found some more figures at the Literacy Trust (UK):
ReplyDelete"In March 2007, the Library and Information Update reported on a survey of 4,000 readers, which found that a third of those questioned read "challenging literature" in order to seem well-read, even though they couldn't follow what the book was about. Almost half of respondents said that reading classics makes you look more intelligent." ("Reading to Impress")
That suggests that quite a lot of people do care about others' opinion of their choice of reading material. AgTigress is probably right to think that young people care more about this kind of thing than older people, because in the same article it says that "Young people appeared to use book to impress the most."
I also found some (rather confusing) statistics about the relative popularity of various popular genres.
In a 2006 UK "survey of 1,500 predominantly married, working women aged 35 to 59,"
"Of the women surveyed 47% said their favourite type of fiction was thrillers, 46% contemporary fiction and 45% crime, science fiction and romance were their least favourite.
The findings correspond with public library statistics, which showed that in only 10 years the nation had ended its love affair with family sagas and books about romance and was devouring thrillers - the more ghoulish the better.
Comparative figures for 10 years ago showed that the late Catherine Cookson and Barbara Taylor Bradford, queens of raw family romances, were the authors most borrowed by adults from libraries.
The top 10 borrowed titles have a startlingly different feel now. Romance still made a showing, but the list was dominated by crime novels.
Only four in 10 liked books with a happy ending." ("Women put away hankies")
In July 2009, the following figures were reported in the Telegraph:
"A poll of nearly 2,000 women aged between 45 and 60 found that romantic fiction was the most popular genre – chosen by 35 per cent of those surveyed.
Nearly two thirds said they liked raunchy scenes in novels, and more than half described sex in books as "titillating".
A further 10 per cent of those questioned on their reading habits said they actively chose books which featured lots of sex scenes.
Meanwhile crime and mystery novels got 33 per cent of the vote, and other novels 31 per cent."
In the US, the RWA say that "Romance fiction was the largest share of the consumer market in 2008 at 13.5 percent." However, Bowker's figures for 2008 put romance at 24% of the fiction market and Mystery/Detective at 34% of the fiction market (see slide 17 of the presentation embedded in this post).
At least no-one can say I didn't manage to dredge up some statistics, even if they aren't really relevant to the question of why some genres get more respect than others!
I've lots of thoughts about this and not sure how to disentangle them.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I attempted to read the post but the picture really turned me off and I stopped reading because I found Gold boring and didn't come back to the post until Laura referenced it in the comments on 'The Highwayman'.
So, my first reaction was, 'who is this crazy woman and why would she think anybody gives a rats ass about her lack of self-esteem?'. Which to an extent also applied to the other Tania when I finally read the whole post.
Then I started reading the comments and really felt dismissed by AgTigress, because while I do not publicly dissect my reading habits and I don't dress in fairy wings to get attention, I do think about the underlying message of the books I read and I get intensely involved with the story lines and characters. And I've literally thrown books against the wall and been horribly upset, even though I know very well the story and characters are fictional. So for AgTigress to say that I should get a life or not make a mountain out of a molehill feels really rather dismissive of readers like me.
Secondly, I am absolutely convinced that even well-adjusted people take subconscious messages from their reading and that these messages have the more impact the younger or the less secure the person is.
And I really think that authors who claim they never intend any messages are either lying to the readers or themselves. Why would you write if you didn't want to share your worldview? And if you write a story, world-building is part of it, and in every decision a writer makes about how their world works, they reflect or reject their own cultural rules and behaviors.
I can remember very well my incredible outrage after reading J. Lindsey's futuristics in which the "heroes" drug the heroines so they can't orgasm as punishment and spank the women 'for their own' good because they did something the "heroes" had forbidden or considered dangerous. I was only in my late teens/early twenties then and my first thought was 'what about all the young impressionable readers who may come from abusive homes who read this?' They very well might decide that men really do know best and that they do hit their women because they 'love them' and want what's best for them.
I think the outrage about Putney's 'Twist of Fate' in which a woman gets back with her abusive husband because her daddy didn't want to make her CEO of his company otherwise also reflects readers' concerns about the message that particular book might send to abused women. That it might give abused women the idea that 'yes, abusers can change and they do love you' when in reality this does not happen.
I haven't even addressed the 'shame' part of the post yet, but between author reaction to Robin's post of 'bad mothers' and AgTigress's comments, my thoughts were firmly centered around message.
Oh dear. The last thing I wanted to do was to offend anyone here.
ReplyDelete:(
I think the misunderstanding stems from the different way in which I perceive/receive fiction, compared with many (most?) of the rest of you: I enjoy reading fiction, regarding it as a pleasant leisure activity, but it is clear that I simply do not become emotionally engaged with it to anything like the same degree as other readers. I actually find it quite hard to imagine being caught up in a fictional tale in the same way as the rest of you. I am always removed, standing back, from what I am reading, in the sense that I am an onlooker, never a would-be participant, and therefore never become deeply emotionally involved.
I have the same experience, though even more so, when watching stage plays or films. I never imagine myself into the action, but remain aware throughout of the ritual nature of the entertainment, its artificiality and its technical tricks.
Clearly this places me so far outside the perceptions felt by most of you that my comments are completely irrelevant. I apologise unreservedly if anyone felt put down by my comments. Attribute them to my peculiar relationship with fiction rather than any criticism of those who experience it in a different way.
The only other point I would make is that it is highly unlikely that I am unique: there must be other similarly detached readers out there somewhere.
I have debated whether to post this additional comment, but I think I will risk it here, after repeating that I now realise that I evidently have a different relationship with fiction from that experienced by the rest of you. I suppose I have always known this, but had failed to think it through properly.
ReplyDeleteIt concerns arguments I have had in the past with several friends, including dear Tal, about modern fiction that features ancient deities, notably those of the Graeco-Roman pantheon, as silly comic characters. This is something that offends me, because I consider it outrageously rude and insensitive to mock other people’s religious beliefs, even if the people concerned, the devotees of the ancient gods, are long dead, and even if the context is fictional. Every single time I have engaged in argument about this, someone has pointed out to me, in an exasperated way, ‘but it’s FICTION, so your concerns don’t apply – the rules are different because it is NOT REAL, and there is a gulf in the readers’ minds between the cartoon gods of such stories and the historical reality of ancient religion’.
Now, I see a very odd contradiction here. I am the one who perceives storytelling as a sort of pleasant optional extra, something attractive and enjoyable, but ultimately inessential, and certainly sharply demarcated from real life. Even so, I think that fiction, because it is important to a substantial majority of people, is often influential enough that it should avoid poking fun at truly serious matters, glorifying cruelty and criminality, mocking the afflicted and so forth. That’s why images such as Venus as a phone-sex worker rile me so much. Some of the comments above, describing the extreme degree of emotional engagement with fiction experienced by many readers, and their concerns about what their tastes in fiction may say about them as people, suggest that I am, if anything, grossly underestimating that influence.
I think there are intriguing general issues here about the way in which people relate to fiction. The idea of viewing one’s own life ‘as a story’, and wishing to tweak and edit it, stunned me slightly, but is obviously perfectly familiar to many. So I formally withdraw my insinuation that agonising over liking or disliking this, that or the other genre is making a mountain out of a molehill. Clearly for many of you it is a very real concern, and my failure to grasp this was based on my own quite different experience. I would appear to lack the sensibility which would make me care about what my fictional tastes reveal about me as a person, though I care a good deal about my mental and emotional relationship with my work. (Maybe my sensibilities were permanently blunted by all the Victorian pornography I read in my youth, which not even the most naïve reader could have confused with reality).
However, I do not withdraw my accusation that worrying about what other people might think of one’s literary tastes does amount to inventing a problem where none exists. To worry about one's preferences oneself may be justifiable, especially during one’s youth: to worry about other people’s opinions seems to me a completely futile exercise. Whatever and whoever we are, some people will like and admire us, and others will dislike and despise us. There is simply no point in brooding about it.
"Now, I see a very odd contradiction here."
ReplyDeleteYes, in this case you do seem to be acknowledging that fiction can contain facts/attitudes which might shape readers' thinking even once they stop reading the fiction.
"Every single time I have engaged in argument about this, someone has pointed out to me, in an exasperated way, ‘but it’s FICTION, so your concerns don’t apply – the rules are different because it is NOT REAL, and there is a gulf in the readers’ minds between the cartoon gods of such stories and the historical reality of ancient religion’.
I don't like this either. Firstly because I don't like to see texts "mock other people’s religious beliefs" either. [I find it much more acceptable for people to mock their own current or former beliefs, but we'd probably better not get into a debate about that!] Secondly, because I've read a lot of the Greek and Roman myths and so to me the Greek gods are as "real" as any of the fictional characters I've read about. I don't like the idea of sequels being written which change the personalities of characters I've grown to know in previous books, because that seems to me rather like telling lies about people I know. Some sequels can be done well, though, so it does depend on the execution and intent.
I suspect that sometimes when people use the "‘but it’s FICTION, so your concerns don’t apply – the rules are different because it is NOT REAL" argument what they really mean is "I liked this book and I don't want you to spoil my enjoyment of it by making me think about possible negative consequences it might have."
I may be wrong about that since obviously I can't mindread, and I'm not claiming that the argument's always used in that way, but I think it's quite possible that it is used that way at least some of the time.
"to worry about other people’s opinions seems to me a completely futile exercise. Whatever and whoever we are, some people will like and admire us, and others will dislike and despise us. There is simply no point in brooding about it."
You may well be right, but it's a bit like saying "sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never harm you." Words, and the opinions other people express via those words can be intensely harmful if you care about those people's opinions. Humans are social creatures, so we do tend to care about some other people. Obviously we could try to limit the number of people whose opinion of us really matters to us at an emotional level, but (a) some people are better at doing that than others and (b) there will probably always be some people whose opinions continue to matter to us, because if there weren't we'd be very isolated emotionally.
Even from a purely practical perspective there are reasons why one might want to shape the image that other people have of one. It can affect one's status and thus one's access to power/money/promotion/success.
"Secondly, because I've read a lot of the Greek and Roman myths and so to me the Greek gods are as "real" as any of the fictional characters I've read about. I don't like the idea of sequels being written which change the personalities of characters I've grown to know in previous books, because that seems to me rather like telling lies about people I know".
ReplyDeleteThat's an excellent point, Laura, and it is undoubtedly part of my concern, too. There is an element of falsity there that grates on me. 'Make up your own *&^%$ deities', one wants to say. 'Don't mess about with the existing ones'.
Yes, we present a certain range of images of ourselves to the world, images that may vary widely according to context. Everyone appears in different guises before his/her family and intimates and in formal or public situations. But all those guises are perfectly genuine aspects of the individual's real personality, just as the different liguistic registers we use are all genuine aspects of our dialects and personal speech-patterns; they do not involve any kind of deception or misrepresentation.
The people whose opinions matter most are those with whom a person has deep emotional ties, and one of the characteristics of such relationships is that one reveals far more to them as a matter of course than to more casual connections, so they already know the worst, so to speak, and like one in spite of it.
Ag tigress - I'm not sure if I'm one of the people you think you offended - but just for the record, you didn't. However, I do want to point out that I do not spend time 'agonising' over my fiction reading. I think there's perhaps a misapprehension on your part as to how extremely some commenters feel about this issue. For my part, it's an occasional discomfort, a sort of 'wrong note' as I read or just plain old embarrassment about a lurid cover. It is not a deep rooted lack of esteem or self-belief.
ReplyDeleteMe personally, whether or not it's 'important', I am fascinated by the way we relate to fiction and your comments about Greek deities really serves to underline that. I'm sure we all have our personal triggers.
I do agree that there is a spectrum of reader-immersion (for want of a better term) with fiction and it's something I have been pondering over the last week or so. (I may post something about this myself soon, Laura!)
No, it was Growlycub who sounded quite upset by my comments, something I regret.
ReplyDeleteI just thought, and said, that all the angsty carry-on in the Tanya Gold article was completely over the top, and then comments were made that implied that her intense relationship with fiction was more normal than my comparatively distant one.
Growlycub said above, 'I do think about the underlying message of the books I read and I get intensely involved with the story lines and characters. And I've literally thrown books against the wall and been horribly upset, even though I know very well the story and characters are fictional. So for AgTigress to say that I should get a life or not make a mountain out of a molehill feels really rather dismissive of readers like me'. (my emphasis).
This took me aback. I did mean to be 'dismissive' of Tanya Gold's article, not least because it was rather ill-informed and exceedingly boring, but I then discovered that others evidently sympathised, at least to some extent, with all the conflict and self-loathing, or whatever it is.
I think I'd better shut up.
:(
"I do agree that there is a spectrum of reader-immersion (for want of a better term) with fiction and it's something I have been pondering over the last week or so. (I may post something about this myself soon, Laura!)"
ReplyDeleteSounds good! It's really fascinating to me how differently brains can work. I suppose that often, until we discuss these things in detail, we tend to assume that our brains all work in similar ways. And then we find out that, actually, they don't.
"I then discovered that others evidently sympathised, at least to some extent, with all the conflict and self-loathing, or whatever it is.
I think I'd better shut up."
I empathise with the conflict, because although I love the genre, I don't do so unreservedly, and I sympathise with anyone feeling self-loathing, because sometimes romances do manage to make me feel bad about myself. But it's been interesting to work through all this with you around, Tigress, because otherwise, as I just commented to Tumperkin, the rest of us wouldn't have been aware of the range of ways different people relate to the books they read.
Please don't shut up! I've found all these exchanges very thought provoking.
ReplyDeleteWading in again, if I dare.
ReplyDeleteIf a reader experiences fiction to some extent as a participant -- as though she were taking part in the story as an extra, or even acting out the part of one of the main characters, then I think I can see why enjoying things she would not enjoy in Real Life might give rise to some kind of conflict, some speculation as to her real feelings. I suppose this is what all that identification and 'placeholder' stuff is about, which I always found a bit mysterious.
If one experiences fiction as I do, strictly as a spectator, standing back outside it, on another plane, and watching the story unfold, then it is perfectly normal not to feel one's inner self compromised in any way by events. One can respond sympathetically, just as one might when reading a newspaper story about events affecting strangers, but one does not feel personally affected, as one does when things happen to oneself or real people close to oneself.
Yes, one gets to know the characters in a book, to like or dislike them, but they are always imaginary people 'out there', as though on a virtual stage, and so there is no personal impact. The only possible feeling of identification I get is sometimes with the writer of the story, not her characters. The characters and the tale are the products of her brain, which she is allowing me to observe and share.
I'm not sure I can explain it any more clearly than that.
I experience stories as a spectator too, but I still feel very emotionally involved because for me the characters are not "always imaginary people 'out there', as though on a virtual stage." They often feel very real to me.
ReplyDeleteI think I'll have to put up my next post, because I've got quite a bit to say about placeholders, identification, and being a reader who's more of a spectator.
This was a fascinating post and comments. :)
ReplyDeleteGreat job!
Thanks, Amy. I'm glad you liked it.
ReplyDeleteAgTigress, in case you're feeling lonely, I just want to say that you've expressed very well my thoughts to much of this discussion.
ReplyDeleteLike growlycub, I can become very engrossed in a story, invested in the characters and their actions, BUT I can't say that I take these heroines as role models or as a measure against which I fall short.
Perhaps that makes me shallow. Perhaps it makes me pragmatic. I'm more concerned about the day-to-day problems in my life-- politics at work, paying my bills, worrying about my kids-- this doesn't leave me a lot of energy for worrying about how I measure up to fictional characters and whether I'm contributing to the downfall of femininity by supporting the art form.
Frankly, I didn't much get Jessica's post about the paradox of fiction, either. I can feel for the character, be sad when they hurt and happy when they win, without losing sight of their inherently "not real"-ness.
I don't know what's missing from my experience, but I just don't get the angst.
And now you know why academia is not for me. <wink&gr;