Monday, April 30, 2007

Pam Rosenthal at LustBites

Not to feed the hands that bit me (grin), but there's a fascinating interview with Pam Rosenthal (AKA Molly Weatherfield) over at LustBites today. As a RomanceScholar I was particularly struck by this passage--
I’m committed to using every bit of “literary” form I figure out how to use, in order to say what I want to say as precisely as I can. I don’t see a conflict between “popular” and “literary” writing—from where I sit, all narrative writing has its roots in the paradoxes of satisfied and unsatisfied desire.
--and by this one:
I wanted to think about, to work through how libido and intellect, the urge to tell stories and the need to be ravished by narrative, are parts of the same wonderful, mysterious thing. And I thought I could try to do this through the voice of this fearless, funny, brainy character—who seemed on the one hand like an idealized fantasy view of my younger reading self and on the other hand as Generic Girl Character. The name “Carrie,” actually started out as a sort of private joke on “character.”
No time for extended meditations at the moment, but I must confess, whenever I hit a post like this, I feel like quoting Prof. Van Helsing in Dracula: "There is work, wild work, to be done!"

(I quite liked the "Friday Fairy Tale" posted by Janine Ashbless as well. Good stuff, that blog.)

4 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for the mention. Having Molly on was wonderful and I adore the interview she gave.

    I love this blog and I hope you visit us at Lust Bites again

    Tilly aka Mathilde Madden

    PS - Janine's Fairy Story - oh yes!

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  2. Also at Lust Bites, I liked the interview with Julie Cohen about how explicit she can get in a category (Harlequin Mills & Boon) romance.

    For example:

    The title of the book sort of gives away what happens. I wanted to call it Remarkably Penetrative Sperm, but my editor, alas, said no. Marriages of convenience are a major hook for category book buyers. Sperm, apparently, isn’t. [...]

    One of my editors removed a reference to (male) pubic hair once, but I’ve included it since without any problem, which is good, because romance heroes don’t tend to wax. Another editor took out a description of the hero disposing of a used condom, and I sort of agree with that because it is gross, but hey, it’s an important part of real-life sex, and, to me, an indication that he’s not a slob.

    [...] I have fun these days writing romantic sex scenes, and erotic ones. They’re two different views of fantasy.


    I have to admit that the main reason I liked the interview was because it made me laugh, but that's not to say that Julie isn't making some serious points about fantasy and realism and how the fantasy and realistic elements in different genres (and sub-genres) may differ.

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  3. Thanks for your enthusiasm, Eric, and for the wonderful Bram Stoker quote, which now, inspirationally, adorns the rim of my computer monitor.

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  4. Thanks for visiting us at Lust Bites. We loved having Pam/Molly visit us, she's definitely inspired a lot of us along the way!

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