Over at Reader, I Married Him Elizabeth is analysing Connie Brockway's As You Desire.
There are excerpts of the novel here and here, and a variety of rave reviews here, here, here. I did manage to find one slightly more critical review, which can be found here.
Elizabeth's post isn't a review, it's "a close reading of Connie Brockway’s As You Desire focusing on anti-colonial and Orientalist tensions within the book." Elizabeth elaborates both on the ways in which
Orientalist and romance novel tropes will be set up and elaborated upon at great length. These tropes will then be revealed as moments of intensely parodistic humor and dispelled by the actions or words of the “real” characters. [...] Brockway deftly takes up Orientalist stories and refashions them with parodistic humor into a world where Egypt is normalized, England is romanticized, and the entire process of constructing the other is laid bare as a foolish and ultimately immature process. Yet there are also elements of the book that did not ring true for me, moments where Orientalist themes were embraced as well as mocked.and she takes a closer look at the real historical context in which the novel is set and the extent to which this is (or isn't) reflected in the novel. For example
The increasingly urbanized, educated, and technologically proficient class of Egyptians and Turkish-Circassian elites who by 1890 were articulating powerful and complex desires for national sovereignty is largely absent from the text. The first woman’s periodical, al-Fatah, was published in Alexandria in 1892. Political journals had been printed and distributed within Egypt as early as the 1870s. These journals catered to the increasing portion of Egyptians who were literate, politically engaged, and self-consciously nationalist. Fierce debates over the social roles of religion, women, national identity, and modernization were unfolding in Cairo just as they were unfolding in other urban centers of the time: London, Paris, Berlin, Istanbul, New York, Chicago… Cairo’s struggle to constitute an Egyptian form of modernity was vibrant, complex, and contemporary with European debates over the same issues.Whether or not you've read the novel, I'd encourage you to go and read what Elizabeth has to say about it.
Brockway conveys only a hint of this complexity.
Ha - I just did the same thing (but without the helpful linkage and context). I was really looking forward to this post, and wasn't disappointed.
ReplyDeleteRomance totally needs a scholar with a background in post-colonial studies (is this what Elizabeth actually did, or have I made it up? Are the terms 'Orientalism'/ 'Orientalist' a total no-no post-Said?)
I am greatly disadvantaged by not having read the Brockway novel, but I could not help feeling that the level and nature of analysis to which it was subjected in the 'Reader, I married him' blog might go somewhat beyond what was justifiable.
ReplyDeleteI am strongly in favour of conscientious historical and cultural research, but in writing, as in painting, it is possible to block in a background setting in an impressionistic manner, rather than in a minutely detailed one, without necessarily doing any violence to its accuracy or integrity. I have no idea whether there are real errors of fact and understanding in the presentation of late 19thC Britons and Egyptians in this story, but to 'convey only a hint' of societal and cultural complexity at a given place and time is surely a criticism that could be levelled at many very good novels that have fictional personal relationships, rather than cultural history, as their primary focus.
Serious academic analysis of popular fiction is clearly to be welcomed, but I felt uncomfortable about the weight of potential significance that was being assessed in the case of a book that sounds as though it is actually intended to be light-hearted and none too realistic. Perceptions of other cultures, past and present, and both within and outside the framework of imperialism, are worthy themes, but I just wonder whether the author of the essay is in the position of a person who is judging a pretty conventional landscape rendered in wool embroidery against standards more appropriate for an oil by Constable.
Romance totally needs a scholar with a background in post-colonial studies (is this what Elizabeth actually did, or have I made it up?
ReplyDeleteMeriam, I'm not sure exactly what Elizabeth's studied. In the "About" section of her blog she only mentions that she's learning Arabic but it doesn't seem very likely that she's only been studying the language. Maybe you could ask her?
Are the terms 'Orientalism'/ 'Orientalist' a total no-no post-Said?
Again, I don't really know. Clearly this is going to be a comment in which I reveal the extent of my ignorance along with my amazing skill at using Google and the Romance Wiki bibliography!
I do know that Emily Haddad, who's written this essay:
“Bound to Love: Captivity as a Trope in Harlequin Sheikh Novels.” Empowerment versus Oppression: Twenty-first-Century Views of Popular Romance Novels. Ed. Sally Goade. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars P.
has also written Orientalist Poetics: The Islamic Middle East in Nineteenth-Century British and French Poetry. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002.
Even more recently, there's actually been a volume on Said published which includes an essay on romance by Hsu-Ming Teo, and that uses the term "orientalism":
Teo, Hsu-Ming. 2007. 'Orientalism and Mass Market Romance Novels in the Twentieth Century,' in Edward Said: The Legacy of a Public Intellectual, ed Ned Curthoys and Debjani Ganguly (Carlton Vic.: Melbourne University Press), pp. 241-262.
Also published last year was this essay:
Taylor, Jessica, 2007. "And You Can Be My Sheikh: Gender, Race, and Orientalism in Contemporary Romance Novels." Journal of Popular Culture 40.6: 1032-1051.
I am greatly disadvantaged by not having read the Brockway novel
Yes, so am I.
in writing, as in painting, it is possible to block in a background setting in an impressionistic manner, rather than in a minutely detailed one, without necessarily doing any violence to its accuracy or integrity
I had the impression that that's what Elizabeth acknowledged when she wrote that
The contradictions and complexities of 1890 urban Cairo are obscured beneath a nostalgic patina that emphasizes old quarters of the city and exotic suqs.
This is largely an effect of the book’s main thrust. After all, Brockway is writing a European Historical romance in a colonial setting. We do not see realistic scenes of Egyptian nationalism or middle-class Egyptian life because these moments are irrelevant to this text.
Re your comment that
to 'convey only a hint' of societal and cultural complexity at a given place and time is surely a criticism that could be levelled at many very good novels that have fictional personal relationships, rather than cultural history, as their primary focus
I think it is a criticism that's been levelled at good novels in the past.
There's an essay available online, by Diane Capitani, in which we can read that
Recent articles and publications indicate inquiry into “Sir Thomas Bertram’s business in Antigua” and into Austen’s view of Empire. Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, for example, explores the paradox at the heart of Mansfield Park: that “everything we know about Austen and her values is at odds with the cruelty of slavery” (107). Is Austen, as Ruth Perry has suggested, taking a position of moral neutrality? Is it possible that she does not care about the situation on those far-flung slave plantations? Does she ignore the fact that the comfortable, orderly lifestyle the Bertrams enjoy and Fanny Price misses so desperately when she visits her family in Portsmouth, is maintained by the work of slaves, often under desperate conditions?
So it seems to me as though the detailed treatment Elizabeth has given to Brockway's novel isn't exactly without precedent. Of course, you then go on to say that
Serious academic analysis of popular fiction is clearly to be welcomed, but I felt uncomfortable about the weight of potential significance that was being assessed in the case of a book that sounds as though it is actually intended to be light-hearted and none too realistic.
Is Brockway's novel much more light-hearted or partial in its depiction of social reality than Mansfield Park? I don't know, but I think that sometimes even when (or perhaps particularly when) a work is intended to be "light-hearted and none too realistic" it can reveal a lot about the author's attitudes/the genre's conventions. As the saying goes, "there's many a true word spoken in jest."
Hmm. It is part of the human condition that we focus upon life in a way that makes it bearable, and this means setting aside painful matters of which we are well aware for a great part of the time. Indeed, those who are unable unconsciously to edit even the visual and aural stimulation that bombards every one of us every minute of the day are unable to function and communicate at all, while anyone who seriously contemplates the more distressing aspects of life for more than a few minutes at a time sinks into serious clinical depression.
ReplyDeleteI am not saying that it is wrong to examine what Austen (or Brockway come to that) knew or thought of the realities behind the fictional characters in her work, but I certainly regard it as wrong to berate either of them for failing to address issues that did not form part of their conscious artistic purpose. This is to criticise a comedy of manners, not for being an incompetent comedy of manners, but for failing to be a work of penetrating social and political history. I should be justifiably enraged if a review of one of my non-fiction books, studies of Roman material culture, were panned for its lamentable lack of witty dialogue and the absence of a happy-ever-after love-story.
Some artists, faced with a choice between painting a sublimely beautiful view and a rotting corpse, will paint the one, and some the other. That is their choice to make, not ours: it is then our choice to praise or reject according to our own judgement of how well the artist has achieved his purpose - not some other purpose. We should not assume that either artist made the choice lightly, let alone that he or she was unaware that there was a choice.
It is arguable that devoting time and energy to artistic creation of any kind is a wicked frivolity when there are so many appalling wrongs to be righted in this world, so much pain and suffering. I do not accept that view, and I am glad that great artists of the past, operating in a society that was just as bad as our own, devoted themselves to cultivating their talents rather than to ineffectual attempts to improve the reprehensible conduct of the human species. It is tempting to point that those who are concerned with the absence of gritty reality in Austen could be spending the time that they are currently devoting to literary analysis in going out and trying to oppose the manifold evils of this early 21st-century world - which, incidentally, still includes slavery. Not their métier perhaps? Quite.
Tigress, in this particular case, given that Elizabeth concludes by saying that
ReplyDeleteUltimately As You Desire is a fascinating and enjoyable text that makes wonderful use of parodistic humor to critique the romance genre and its engagement with Orientalist discourse. This self-conscious engagement with colonialism makes moments where imperial privilege is unexamined even more fascinating to dissect.
That last sentence seems to me to indicate that Elizabeth is as aware as you are that "We should not assume that either artist made the choice lightly, let alone that he or she was unaware that there was a choice" and it is precisely because of this awareness of authorial intention that Elizabeth analyses both what the author has chosen to include and what she chose to exclude.
In addition, I get the impression that Elizabeth isn't being extremely critical of the novel, and nor is she unaware or unappreciative of the humour it contains.
It is part of the human condition that we focus upon life in a way that makes it bearable, and this means setting aside painful matters of which we are well aware for a great part of the time.
That's true, but unfortunately some kinds of humour, while they may make life more bearable for some, may make life less bearable for others. I'm thinking, for example, of misogynist or racist "humour." So while I'd agree that it would be
wrong to berate [any work of fiction] for failing to address issues that did not form part of their conscious artistic purpose. This is to criticise a comedy of manners, not for being an incompetent comedy of manners, but for failing to be a work of penetrating social and political history
I don't agree that there shouldn't be analysis of the elements of social and political history which are present in comedies of manners. To take an example of a romance novel I have read, Heyer's These Old Shades appears to suggest that the aristocracy are genetically more suited to rule than peasants (since the son of peasants, though educated and brought up as an aristocrat is nonetheless socially awkward and only really interested in farming, whereas the aristocratic child brought up in poverty has an innate grace and charm).
Equally, I think analysis of which elements are left out can be interesting and useful. We might wonder why it is that aristocrats are considered more romantic than mill workers, or discuss whether "Harlequin’s success in the Eurasian sphere is actually a result of the romances’ success in fulfilling an ideological fantasy for their readers, one that has more to do with the benefits of successful capitalism than it does with America itself." (Darbyshire). Or we might ask what the implications are of the lack of older, sexually experienced heroines in the works of Barbara Cartland.
It is tempting to point that those who are concerned with the absence of gritty reality in Austen could be spending the time that they are currently devoting to literary analysis in going out and trying to oppose the manifold evils of this early 21st-century world - which, incidentally, still includes slavery. Not their métier perhaps? Quite.
I think the point being made by such critics is that not that all works must be gritty, but that some apparently non-gritty works may, either by omission or through what they include, perpetuate harmful attitudes among their readers which may in turn lead to more "grittiness" in the real world. Of course, this does return us to the discussions about how readers read. For example, Heyer's The Grand Sophy may not function to normalise antisemitism for all readers, but it might, for some, reinforce at least one antisemitic stereotype.
Certainly all literary critics could go out and work directly to help oppressed people. But it's precisely because so many literary critics believe that texts can be extremely powerful both in perpetuating/legitimising certain attitudes and behaviours, and in obscuring discussion about others, that they choose to focus on analysis of texts (or other works, including advertising, film, music lyrics).
"To take an example of a romance novel I have read, Heyer's These Old Shades appears to suggest that the aristocracy are genetically more suited to rule than peasants".
ReplyDeleteHeyer certainly does suggest precisely that, and thereby demonstrates her historical accuracy even in that very early and technically imperfect book - though the belief in the inherent superiority of pedigree persons over hoi polloi was as true to the period in which Heyer was writing (1924, in that case) as to the period she was writing about (circa 1760s). (Interestingly, many people today who would be outraged at the suggestion that breeding within a tightly restricted genetic pool produces superior humans still believe precisely that about the controlled breeding of domestic animals. Very weird.)
Well-written and well-researched fiction will normally reflect the social mores of the setting with some accuracy. I am not suggesting that these things should not be analysed, but only that the analysis should always be mindful of the author's intentions and the context of the fictional setting, in which the chief subject is not the social history, but an imagined tale and imagined characters who act it out. The author should still get the background right to the very best of her ability.
Tal will tell you that I have a very peculiar take on fiction generally (or so I am told), and perhaps I am failing to connect here because I am making assumptions that most readers do not share.
Well-written and well-researched fiction will normally reflect the social mores of the setting with some accuracy.
ReplyDeleteYes, but there's a big difference between the author ensuring that the characters have opinions which reflect the social mores of their day, and the author herself shaping the plot so that it validates those social mores. Heyer could, without sacrificing historical accuracy, have made the child of the peasants be an intelligent, cultured person. She doesn't. She chooses to depict him in a way which suggests that the characters are right to think that aristocratic blood is more important than nurture. Similarly, it may be realistic and historically accurate for her characters to be antisemitic, but did she have to include a Jewish moneylender who conformed to pretty much every stereotype about Jewish moneylenders? I don't think so. And was the choice to depict him this way made on the basis of historical accuracy (i.e. were all Jewish moneylenders really like Heyer's Goldhanger?) or was it the result of Heyer's own prejudices? I'd suggest it's most likely to be the latter, precisely because Goldhanger is such a stereotypical character.
Interestingly, many people today who would be outraged at the suggestion that breeding within a tightly restricted genetic pool produces superior humans still believe precisely that about the controlled breeding of domestic animals. Very weird.
I too feel outraged at the suggestion, so I don't consider such outrage weird. Given such horrors as genocide, the holocaust, the treatment of slaves as breeding stock, eugenics and the enforced sterilisation of many women, I think it's more than understandable that people would be outraged by the idea of breeding humans in the same way as animals. Animal breeding methods would definitely be highly unethical if applied to humans.
(a) animal breeding programmes usually involve the sterilisation/removal from the breeding stock/death of the animals which are not deemed to have desirable traits. Sterilising or killing humans on these grounds would generally not be seen as ethically acceptable.
(b) Inbreeding, while it can reinforce desirable characteristics, is more likely to lead to the emergence of recessive traits which are harmful to individuals. Human incest taboos make a lot of sense when looked at in the context of genetics. In an animal breeding programme the outcome for the particular animals which are born with these traits may be death (administered by the person/people running the breeding programme). Again, these side-effects of a breeding programme are not ones that most people would currently find acceptable if applied to humans.
(c) Animal experimentation and animal rearing often takes place within a legal framework which attempts to minimise any suffering caused to the animals. Humans would be aware of the programme and would be very likely to be extremely emotionally traumatised by it.
And finally, I'm not even sure such a programme would have much scientific basis because
(d) Animal breeding programmes tend to select on the basis of very specific traits, most of which can be easily assessed. It's pretty easy to tell which cow produces most milk, for example, and then breed from her. Many of the traits which make us human (empathy, intuition, imagination) are not easily measurable, and they may in any case be affected greatly by cultural factors.
Another practical consideration is that
(e) Humans have relatively long life-spans and the gap between generations is also relatively long. You can breed dogs or mice and be able to see relatively quickly if the breeding programme is working. Humans, however, are slow to mature.
Oh dear, you have utterly misunderstood me. I apologise if what I said was not clear - I thought it was perfectly clear when I wrote it, but evidently not. I did not mean that the outrage was weird: I meant that the inconsistency of being able to believe two diametrically opposed concepts simultaneously was weird.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely reject the notion that inbreeding over generations is likely to produce superior human beings. I also reject the notion that the same strategy produces superior animals of other species. What I find odd is that many people who sneer at the traditions and beliefs surrounding privileged human beings are apparently able at the same time to believe that the 'aristocrats' of domestic animal species actually are superior to the mongrels.
There is much more to say about the Heyer examples, but even if this is the place, it is not the time, at half-past midnight.
"Animal breeding methods would definitely be highly unethical if applied to humans."
ReplyDeleteThey most certainly would. My point is that they tend to be unethical when applied to animals, too.
Oh. I'm sorry I misunderstood you. Perhaps it's because it's not surprising to me that something that is considered by many people to be appropriate for animals might not be thought beneficial or appropriate for humans, and this could explain why they would be "able to believe two diametrically opposed concepts simultaneously." For example, many people are not vegetarians, yet they'd think it morally wrong to kill and eat a human.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that I also misunderstood you because I wouldn't say that
I also reject the notion that the same strategy produces superior animals of other species.
It does depend how you define "superior," though. Selective breeding programmes can definitely create herds of cows which produce more milk, flocks of sheep with particular kinds/quantities of wool etc. However, there are likely to be downsides to any breeding programme. It's fairly well known, for example, that certain dog breeds have particular problems e.g. bull dogs with breathing difficulties because of the way their noses are so squashed, or Labradors and mobility problems in older age. So although the breeding programme may lead to the animals being superior according to some criteria, they may well not be superior in other ways, and the mongrel or wild variety may be much more healthy overall and/or much more able to survive without human assistance.
I'm in the same time-zone as you and I do agree, without any reservations or qualifications, that it is very late.
The Tigress and I have been discussing the concept of inbreeding a fair amount recently. We are both very fond of cats and regular viewers of the "Cat of the Day" website; and we find the inbreeding that has produced the flattened muzzle of the "Peke-Faced Persian" (as well as the commonness of spinal defects in the Manx cat) to be a tragedy. Also, the Tigress has just written books about horses and dogs, where the issue comes up, and we have discussed extensively the tragic death of the filly Eight Belles (as well as the even greater Ruffian) and the fragility of the leg bones of Thoroughbreds due to the inbreeding resulting from the closed stud book. We both advocate REQUIRING outbreeding in such species; and I believe it is now required in the standards for the Manx cat.
ReplyDeleteWV -- gwrop: Inuit word meaning "That was no walrus; that was my wife! Oh, wait! My wife IS a walrus!"
GRRRR! I just wrote an even longer comment about Regency fiction, and Blogger ate it!
ReplyDeleteHi everyone,
ReplyDeleteThis is my first post on TMT and I’m entering this conversation a few days late. Still, because I happen to be an imperial as well as postcolonial historian working on Orientalism and romance novels at the moment, I thought I’d add my two-bits worth. This conversation is fascinating for me because I’ve just about finished writing a long chapter on history, historiography (i.e. the study and philosophy of writing history), rape and the Orientalist historical romance. The novels I’m mainly looking at are from the 1970s.
Most people are familiar with Edward Said’s 1978 publication, Orientalism, but did you realise that the mid- to late-1970s also saw the rise of the Orientalist historical romance? I was really surprised to find that in the same year that Orientalism came out, the following romances were also published: Julia Fitgerald’s Royal Slave, Bertrice Small’s The Kadin and Love Wild and Fair, Christina Nicholson’s The Savage Sands, Julia Herbert’s Prisoner of the Harem and Janette Seymour’s Purity’s Ecstasy, while Johanna Lindsey’s Captive Bride was published in 1977. There was definitely something about the 1970s that provoked American interest in the Middle East (because the novelists were all American apart from Fitzgerald who was British). Reeva Simon argues in The Middle East in Crime Fiction that this interest was related to the Six Day War between Egypt and Israel in 1967, and ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict including the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the oil crisis after that – the same things that spurred Said to write Orientalism in the first place – meant that the Middle East became more prominent in popular consciousness and culture.
Are the terms 'Orientalism'/ 'Orientalist' a total no-no post-Said?
The term ‘Oriental’ is a no-no post-Said. ‘The Orient’ in the western imagination is supposed to be a geographically vast region that stretches from North Africa, Turkey (or even Greece, in Byron’s poetry) and the Balkans, across the Deccan peninsula and to east Asia. I’ve even come across a book which called the Pacific Islands ‘oriental’. Given this vast reach, the dozens of nations and religions, and the hundreds of cultures – both national and tribal – included in the term ‘Orient’, it really doesn’t make any sense to talk of ‘the Orient’ or of ‘the Oriental’ because there is no such single entity. In fact, Said argues that Europeans (he focuses mainly on the French and British) created the figure of the Oriental as the polar opposite of everything superior westerners are supposed to be: ‘Orientals’ are violent, oversexed, perverted, barbaric, despotic, childish, irrational etc. Therefore the term is always a demeaning one.
As for the term ‘Orientalism’, it has undergone a change in meaning pre- and post-Said. Pre-Said, it referred to the study of the Orient and scholars who engaged in this work were Orientalists. So it was a respectable term then. Post-Said, the two terms have become pejorative and are often associated with a racist understanding of global politics. Said argued that Orientalism was not actually the study of the Orient but the of the representations – scholarly writing, diplomatic briefs, literature and art, etc – that actually nominate and make up the Orient for Europeans (and later Americans). Since it is constructed as inferior to the west and therefore justified French and British colonization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Orientalism has become a negative word, as has Orientalist.
Studies of Orientalism in romance novels therefore look at the ways in which this centuries-old literary and artistic tradition of Orientalist discourse is used in romance novels set in Middle Eastern, South Asian and Asian regions, whether real or fictitious.
There are lots of problems with Said’s work, including the fact that the main imperial powers he focused on were Britain and France so that he could draw a direct line to American imperialism after that. However, French and British attempts at colonizing the Middle East only began in the 19th century and Said completely ignores the fact that the dominant imperial power in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East from the late fifteenth to twentieth centuries were the Ottomans. Also, Said didn’t pay any attention to gender and popular culture. My own work on Orientalism and western women’s popular culture builds on earlier work I’d done in Anglo-Indian imperial romances, and whiteness in 20th century romance novels. But it was also sparked off by his comment that ‘the Orient seems still to suggest not only fecundity but sexual promise (and threat), untiring sensuality, unlimited desire, deep generative energies,’ – which was actually something positive and attractive as far as many Europeans were concerned – but then he completely dismisses this and says that he’s not going to speculate about why this is the case.
I was going to write something about history and the historical novel, and how women’s historical romance novels can actually challenge the male tradition of history writing but this is already a very long post - especially for a first one! - so I’ll stop here and get on with finishing my chapter.
Relevant works in addition to those already cited by Laura above:
Bach, Evelyn, ‘Sheik Fantasies: Orientalism and Feminine Desire in the Desert Romance’, Hecate, vol. 23, no. 1 (1997), pp. 9-41
Gargano, Elizabeth, ‘“English Sheiks” and Arab Stereotypes: E.M. Hull, T.E. Lawrence, and the Imperial Masquerade’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 48, no. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 171-186.
Simon, Reeva S., The Middle East in Crime Fiction: Mysteries, Spy Novels, and Thrillers from 1916 to the 1980s (New York: Lilian Barber, 1989).
Teo, Hsu-Ming, ‘Romancing the Raj: Interracial Relations in Anglo-Indian Romance Novels’, History of Intellectual Culture, vol.4, no.1, October 2004, http://www.ucalgary.ca/hic/hic/website/ 2004vol4no1/framesets/2004vol4no1teoarticleframeset.htm
Teo, H-M, ‘The Romance of White Nations: Imperialism, Popular Culture and National Histories’, After the Imperial Turn, ed., Antoinette Burton (Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 279-292.
Teo, H-M, ‘Orientalism’, Companion to Women’s Historical Writing, ed. Barbara Caine, Ann Curthoys, and Mary Spongberg, (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005), pp. 389-398.
Talpianna - thanks for the background information on the animal breeding discussions you've been having with the Tigress. And I'm sorry you lost your other comment.
ReplyDeleteHsu-Ming - it's really good to "see" you here. Welcome!
did you realise that the mid- to late-1970s also saw the rise of the Orientalist historical romance? [...] There was definitely something about the 1970s that provoked American interest in the Middle East
No, I didn't know about that. I know so little about the romances published in this period that I don't think my observations are going to be very helpful.
I know there were some Mills & Boon contemporary romances from that period which are set in the Middle East/include sheiks. As for M&B historicals, there's a list of them here and I can only spot two from the period 1977-1979 which are set in that "geographically vast region that stretches from North Africa, Turkey (or even Greece, in Byron’s poetry) and the Balkans, across the Deccan peninsula and to east Asia":
Julia Herbert, Prisoner of the Harem, 1978. (1793, Naples/Algiers)
Lee Stafford, Fountains of Paradise, 1979. (India, 19th century)
As for single-titles published in that period, written by British authors, and set in "the Orient," the only one that leaps to my mind is M. M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions (1978) but as you know, it's set in India, not the Middle East. And I noticed that in "Romancing the Raj: Interracial Relations in Anglo-Indian Romance Novels" you say that this part of "the Orient" had also become of more interest to American than to British readers and authors of romance:
With the loss of India as a colony after 1947, British romance readers seemed to lose interest in the region. Most of the romances set in India during the 1950s and 1960s were published in New York, rather than London.
For me, "Orientalism" means that aspect of the Romantic movement of the late 17th-early 18th centuries that focused on the Orient as part of a general interest in the exotic, a good example being William Beckford's VATHEK. Other Orientalists of about a century ago had a genuine knowledge of the Middle East, like T.E. Lawrence, Sir Richard Burton, Gertrude Bell, and James Elroy Flecker. And there's always Lady Hester Stanhope, of course.
ReplyDeleteI think that our association of the East with exotic sexuality probably comes from the fact that the few Eastern artifacts Westerners were sufficiently knowledgeable about to be interested in were the likes of the KAMA SUTRA, THE PERFUMED GARDEN, Indian erotic sculptures, and Japanese "pillow books."
WV -- cucwcmz: Inuit word meaning, "Darling, I heard she was made in Japan...and in India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and several of the South Seas Islands!"
I find Hsu-Ming's post extremely helpful in clarifying some issues.
ReplyDeleteI have never read Said's 1978 polemic, though I remember reading reviews of it when it appeared, but it seemed, and still seems, to me that to use the archaic and fairly specific terms 'Orientalism, Orientalist' in as wide a sense as he did was not conducive to the understanding of anything at all.
"...it's not surprising to me that something that is considered by many people to be appropriate for animals might not be thought beneficial or appropriate for humans".
ReplyDeleteNo, because this is traditional received knowledge and most people therefore do not question it. Many social and racial attitudes to other human beings used to be regarded as simple facts, rather than ideas and beliefs that should be examined and perhaps challenged.
I am simply suggesting that breeding horses that can run like the wind and cows that give far more milk than they should and sheep so loaded with wool that they can barely move is no more ethical than it would be to breed humans for comparably limited, specialised abilities. Certain species have been domesticated and exploited by humankind for many, many millennia, and though they have been misused in many ways, it has only been in the last 250-300 years or so that the extremes of pedigree breeding have evolved and taken hold. We need to re-examine this in the same way that people began in the 18th century to re-examine the idea that it was okay to enslave another human as long as he or she was black.
I realise that this is a side-issue, but you have inadvertently proved my point, Laura, in your sentence that I quote above. It doesn't seem strange to you that completely different rules should be applied to people and animals, because that has been normal thinking, probably since early prehistory. That doesn't mean it is right.
By the same token, it didn't seem odd to Heyer that a peasant should always be obviously and intrinsically inferior to an aristocrat, or that Jewish moneylenders were invariably despicable individuals - because such thinking was normal, everyday, received knowledge in her generation. But it was wrong.
If the human race survives at all, it may have to learn that treating animals the way we do is also wrong. And now I'll drop the subject!
;-)
I realise that this is a side-issue, but you have inadvertently proved my point, Laura, in your sentence that I quote above. It doesn't seem strange to you that completely different rules should be applied to people and animals, because that has been normal thinking, probably since early prehistory. That doesn't mean it is right.
ReplyDeleteI didn't say it was right, I just said that I wasn't surprised by that way of thinking, because it's so common.
But to clarify, I think it's wrong for humans to breed animals in ways which cause many of the resultant creatures a lot of pain. However, I do think that some "different rules should be applied to people and animals." I would also treat some animals differently from others. I would think that a dolphin, for example, has a great deal more intelligence and capacity for pain than a fruit fly. So while I would never torture a fly or a clothes moth, I might kill one without feeling any moral qualms about it.
In general I believe that animals should only be harmed when there is some very good reason for it.
Laura and Hsu-Ming - thank you for the clarifications. I have the Said book... somewhere, but I don't think I've ever cracked it open.
ReplyDeleteStudies of Orientalism in romance novels therefore look at the ways in which this centuries-old literary and artistic tradition of Orientalist discourse is used in romance novels set in Middle Eastern, South Asian and Asian regions, whether real or fictitious.
Thank you for this, too. A very neat explanation.
Now, I should go off and do some reading, because all of this is fascinating but the more I talk, the more I expose my ignorance of the issues involved. I'm really looking forward to more analysis from Elizabeth (I hope something about Mr Impossible, which really annoyed me with its heavy handed cultural stereotyping), and hopefully Hsu-Ming, too.
AgTigress said: I am simply suggesting that breeding horses that can run like the wind and cows that give far more milk than they should and sheep so loaded with wool that they can barely move is no more ethical than it would be to breed humans for comparably limited, specialised abilities.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually a fairly common theme in science fiction, where humans are genetically altered so that they can live in zero gravity, or on less-than-Earthlike planets. Sometimes these adapted people are treated as chattels, in which case their revolution is usually the plot of the book. The treatment of robots and androids deals with similar themes. Clifford D. Simak wrote a number of stories about devoutly Christian robots and the Roman Catholic Church's treatment of them.
WV -- bvmowu: Inuit word meaning "I don't want my daughter to marry a walrus, but I wouldn't mind if she took one as a blubber."
I was sufficiently intrigued by aspects of this debate to look for the Brockway book yesterday so that I could read it and come to my own opinion.
ReplyDeleteAlas, there is not a single Brockway novel in the Oxford Street (London) branch of Borders...
I will never understand why that silly pussycat won't shop at amazon.uk.
ReplyDeleteVW -- vuojrxan: Inuit word meaning "Did you try Waterstone's?"
I DO shop at Amazon UK, but not for novels. Oxford St. Waterstones is totally useless. Borders at least has a small 'romance' section - Waterstones doesn't. Anyway, I didn't want the blasted book badly enough to make a special effort to get it online: if I had seen it on a shelf before me, I'd have bought it. If not, not.
ReplyDeleteSort of like Macbeth and the dagger?
ReplyDeleteWV: fcezfvy -- Inuit word meaning "Doesn't she know when it's inappropriate to quote Shakespeare?"
Well, I'd have looked through it first, which is what one cannot do when buying online. I don't buy novels sight unseen. I have to know them already (as when replacing clapped-out Heyer or Ngaio Marsh paperbacks which have been read scores of times). Otherwise, if new and unknown to me, I require the opportunity to 'taste' them, to read a few pages at the beginning, middle and end.
ReplyDeleteThis is quite different from buying work-related books, which I often do through Amazon or abebooks; these may be books I have to have, and anyway, I have often already used them in a library, or they may be older, OOP works with which I am very familiar, and I decide I need my own copy.
The "Search Inside" feature on amazon.com allows you to browse inside the book, especially the "Surprise Me" button.
ReplyDeleteWV: amzxj---Inuit word meaning "I guess I should have checked amazon.com after all."
No, Tal - you can do that with many books on Amazon, BUT NOT ALL. The publisher has to enable the feature with Amazon.
ReplyDeleteWhy are we arguing about this? It's silly.
I did link to two excerpts in my original post. One's from the beginning and one is from somewhere closer to the end.
ReplyDeleteAnd Tigress, if, having had a look at the excerpts, you'd still like to read the book, we're in the same country so I could easily post my copy of it to you. You can send me an email via my website if you're interested.
That's very kind and generous of you, Laura, but I wouldn't want you even to expend the postage on it, unless I could send you something in exchange from my stock of very old category romances. I'll e-mail you anyway.
ReplyDeleteI had read the first excerpt earlier, and simply dismissed it as rather silly, but I got a bit of a jolt reading the second one just now: "even Ra himself cannot resist you. Only see how he lathes your cheeks and brow with his heated tongue."
Wow. Lathes? Poor girl. I don't think I can take seriously anything written by an author who does not know the difference between the verbs lathe and lave!
I carefully checked that this is not an AE usage (like careen for career, which is now so widely used in AE as to be accepted). It isn't. Anyway, even if it were, it should not be placed in the mouth of a 19thC English character. There was also an example of an American turn of phrase in the dialogue in one of the quotations on the Elizabeth Litchfield blog - I forget what it was now. Of course, I would not let that put me off in itself, since sometimes officious editors change things that authors get right.
:-)