tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post5553899514207347831..comments2024-03-26T01:10:13.720+00:00Comments on Teach Me Tonight: Paranormal Romances: Better than X-Ray Vision for Critics!E. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-52163771845997787892007-01-26T16:25:00.000+00:002007-01-26T16:25:00.000+00:00The anxiety caused by choice hypothesis might also...The anxiety caused by choice hypothesis might also suggest a reason why stories about arranged marriages/marriages of convenience are still popular in the romance genre despite them being so very, very rare in Western society any more. [Although it could also be argued that the marriage of convenience plot is an easy way for authors to get the hero and heroine in close proximity, that would only explain the appeal of this setup for authors; it wouldn't explain its appeal for readers.]<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/040301crbo_books">The article you linked to</a>, (I've just put the link in again, because I couldn't get your link to work properly) suggests two different types of anxiety caused by an excess of choice.<br /><br />One is that people might wonder if they've made the right choice, which leads to the 'grass is greener' type speculations. Being certain that a partner is a soul-mate bonded for life would sort out that problem.<br /><br />The second possible anxiety caused by the amount of choice available is that caused by the very act of choosing. Consumers sometimes feel overwhelmed by choice in the supermarket and, similarly, single people can feel overwhelmed by the complexities of having to date. If fate steps in and finds the ideal partner for you, that simplifies things hugely, so I think it might be an appealing fantasy from that point of view too.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-85708292749348473822007-01-26T15:45:00.000+00:002007-01-26T15:45:00.000+00:00No, I absolutely think that's a valid observation....No, I absolutely think that's a valid observation. I'm not saying the topos doesn't work sometimes. It worked for me for the first few Feehan books and definitely works for J.R. Ward, so far. But when it works, the authors add other conflicts, rather than just, "I'm meant for him? Oh, okay. Let's go do it." And I'll admit it adds an edge to the story, knowing that the characters are PERFECT for each other, and I can absolutely see that coming from subliminal concerns with the perception of rising divorce rates and second and third marriages messing with the idea of one partner meant for the other and no one else that Western marriage has been based on for 200 years. If it's paranormal, you know you were meant, and that overwhelms all other more mundane concerns about melding two different lives into one shared life.<br /><br />I'm reading Stephanie Coontz's <i>The History of Marriage</i> right now. I know Laura's talked about it before, but it's a fabulous book, and I got some of my ideas in this comment from her discussion of the effects of changes in the purpose of marriage over the millenia.Sarah S.G. Frantzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10413768227099945783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-14652293822591577272007-01-26T15:38:00.000+00:002007-01-26T15:38:00.000+00:00Re: Supernatural Bonds
A sudden thought this morn...Re: Supernatural Bonds<br /><br />A sudden thought this morning. <br /><br />We've been approaching this through Frye's notion of "destiny" as a mask, in effect, for the real force at work in any story: authorial desire and design. These may not always go in tandem, I gather; there are authors who insist that their characters refuse to do what the author wanted, or lead the story in unexpected ways, but I take it that such moments show the author's unconscious sense of literary design at work, over-ruling her conscious intentions. (On some level, she knows or senses that a longed-for plot development would spoil some other logic or structure in the story, for example.)<br /><br />From that perspective, the topos of h/hn as pre-destined soul-mates could seem lazy or a case of overkill. Of course they're "destined" to be together, the reader may respond; the conventions of romance have already taken care of that! <br /><br />What, though, if we look at the proliferation of this topos as answering some perceived desire or anxiety in the reader? What might it meet or assuage? <br /><br />My thought this morning is that it addresses a dilemma that the newspapers and magazines were full of a couple of years ago: what sociologist Barry Schwartz calls "the paradox of choice." (He has a book by that name; there's a good review of it in the New Yorker here: http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/040301crbo_books?040301crbo_books.)<br /><br />Perhaps there is some part of the market, some set of readers, who dislike the feeling that there are (or might have been) other choices or options out there--in this case, other romantic partners. How then to be entirely satisfied with the one you have or have ended up with, knowing that had any number of purely contingent factors played out differently, you might have ended up with someone else? Would that have been better? Was this the right decision? Can I even make a decision, knowing that it forbids other options? (Such anxieties are well documented in psychological literature, and I can hunt up some sources if anyone likes.)<br /><br />The "fated soul-mate" romance novel, then, offers an immediate innoculation against this anxiety of choice. While reading it, one inhabits a world where destinies are not just ineluctable, but also overt, asking only to be embraced with a sort of amor fati. (That's what, Nietzche? Ecce Homo? Will need to check and see.)<br /><br />I guess I'm trying to use this topos to map the unspoken need it could fulfill: a surplus of inevitability that assuages the anxieties brought on by a surplus of choice. This move might even help explain how such texts revive those "ideas of essential gender difference": that is, they speak a nostalgia for such differences in the face of their breakdown in real life.<br /><br />Hmm... put that way, of course, it sounds like a banal observation. Grrr! What do you all think? Am I on to something, or spinning my wheels?E. M. Selingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-72304713722872879642007-01-26T07:04:00.000+00:002007-01-26T07:04:00.000+00:00I much prefer this depiction of love because it ma...<I>I much prefer this depiction of love because it makes me feel as though the protagonists are continuously making a choice to stay together. For me this makes marriage/romantic relationships seem more of an organic, ever-changing and growing thing over which humans have some control and for which they have to take responsibility, rather than a sort of magic spell which binds them forever.</I><br /><br />Yes, exactly. I'm another reader that's looking for this type of romance. Reading the other sort of story is, at best, like eating a carob chip cookie when what I want is chocolate. Kind of similar, but it doesn't really hit the spot. It's probably the same for readers who want the more mythic stories, when they come across something more mundane.<br /><br />I really wish there were some way to distinguish between the two. <br /><br />My main problem with the kind of story talked about in the post is, I think, how steeped it is in ideas of essential gender difference that are, imo, terribly confining. And, at times, almost parodic in the way it turns culturally enforced behaviors into products of nature. <br />The supernatural bond can imply that, in their natural state, men and women are so different as to almost belong to different species which cannot connect with each other. That's an idea that makes me rather sad.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-18464510542600218362007-01-26T05:14:00.000+00:002007-01-26T05:14:00.000+00:00Hi Sarah,
Thanks, this is a great Post. You raised...Hi Sarah,<br />Thanks, this is a great Post. You raised many intriguing questions and considerations for me. For example, regarding your Comment to Nora Roberts, "Because all romance heroes, are, of course, created by women. They're 'reincarnations' of women in the image of what we wish men could be." As I thought about the heroes in my romance novels, I tentatively concluded that maybe my men (the heroes in my book) represent the kind of man I wish I were(?). Interesting.<br />Thanks,<br />BillDr. Bill Emenerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00707755608580620460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-1875875664579384772007-01-25T19:04:00.000+00:002007-01-25T19:04:00.000+00:00"Really curious about a man's POV."
So I gather!
..."Really curious about a man's POV."<br /><br />So I gather!<br /><br />I'll need to think (and write) about this at some length, Sarah. When I read romances during the school year, especially during a quarter when I'm teaching a romance class, it's hard for me to take off my cap and gown and have the sort of "natural" reading experience that would make the best source of reflections on this topic. My gut sense is that I read different books differently, and find different pleasures in them, even when I'm not actively thinking about my courses, so I'll have to mull this over for a while. But I will answer, I promise!E. M. Selingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-1282167602194203432007-01-25T18:53:00.000+00:002007-01-25T18:53:00.000+00:00Eric, yes, I'm really interested in what you like ...Eric, yes, I'm really interested in what you like about romances. Do you read them for the heroine and put up with the hero, like I put up with the heroine for the hero? Do you read them purely to analyze them or do you enjoy them then go back to analyze them? Do you like seeing the characters grow together, or do you focus on the plot rather than the relationship?<br /><br />Really curious about a man's POV.Sarah S.G. Frantzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10413768227099945783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-39938912599416055142007-01-25T18:37:00.000+00:002007-01-25T18:37:00.000+00:00Too funny, Laura! :D
My heroes are definitely me...Too funny, Laura! :D<br /><br />My heroes are definitely men--that's the point. And the alpha-er (?!) the better. But men falling in love, men with emotions is what I want, which I guess is closer to Krentz than anyone else, with some Kinsale thrown in.Sarah S.G. Frantzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10413768227099945783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-39946103993639121082007-01-25T18:21:00.000+00:002007-01-25T18:21:00.000+00:00Put that way (with hero as mother, the reader's ps...Put that way (with hero as mother, the reader's psyche or horse), I'm beginning to wonder if the hero as a person (and not the embodiment of something else) would be a really radical theory? ;-)<br /><br />Sorry, that was me being flippant. To be serious again, I think these theories probably work best to describe romances at the more mythical end of Frye's spectrum.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-49893935483550122422007-01-25T17:40:00.000+00:002007-01-25T17:40:00.000+00:00Sarah, you and Laura might both be interested in t...Sarah, you and Laura might both be interested in the discussion about types of heroes that's going on this week over at Michelle's Romance By the Blog. The first entry is here: http://romancebytheblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/julie-leto-plotmonkeyblog-king-of-my.html. They keep going all week, evidently. <br /><br />(The guest blogs, not the heroes--sorry, couldn't resist!)<br /><br />I need to spend some time thinking through my own reaction to various heroes, I suppose. What are the approaches out there in the criticism? Hmmm... There's Radway's (the hero is really the nurturing Mother); and Kinsale's (the hero is a part of the female reader's psyche); there's Krentz's (the hero is Black Beauty, whose taming proves the heroine's power). Each of these can be useful, depending on the book, but surely none is sufficient for all books, and I'd love to hear about (or have us generate) more!E. M. Selingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-44198517997207128992007-01-25T13:17:00.000+00:002007-01-25T13:17:00.000+00:00reading experience is different from real life exp...<i>reading experience is different from real life experience and the READERS know that, even if most critics don't.</i><br /><br />Yes, there's been a lot of discussion in online communities that I've visited about the difference between the readers' fantasies and their reality (e.g. they like to read about an alpha, protective hero but in real life wouldn't want to be married to that sort of man, or they find 'bad boys' attractive to think and read about, but probably wouldn't trust one in real life). There are exceptions there too, like the readers who say they are married to a former 'bad boy' or a man who's very alpha.<br /><br />But for me these types don't work either as a 'fantasy' or in real life. I suppose my 'fantasy'/reading 'life' is as mundane as my real one. I mean literally 'mundane' as opposed to leaning towards myth and heroic heroes.<br /><br /><i>What we try to do as critics, I guess, is extrapolate that into more general experiences, which is both our gift and what gets us in serious serious trouble sometimes!</i><br /><br />I know, and people sometimes think that academics are completely objective, when of course we can't be. It's different if the subject is pure maths, but objectivity isn't possible when it comes to literature, because we all bring our own cultural baggage to the texts. And if we're writing about reader responses we can't really know for sure how typical we are unless we do a lot of surveys, and even then the questions we ask may influence the answers we get. That's one reason I tend to stick to analysing themes, imagery etc, because then I don't have to worry about other readers' responses. I can still get into trouble, of course, because if the author's background is very, very, different from mine I might be making very big and very mistaken assumptions about the sub-texts in a novel. So I'm always ready to be corrected.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-47621240028274820932007-01-25T12:36:00.000+00:002007-01-25T12:36:00.000+00:00The "protective streak" thing jarred me too--not w...The "protective streak" thing jarred me too--not what I look for in real life, but I'll admit it's often there in the heroes of the romances I enjoy. I don't think I'd be able to live with ANY of the heroes I enjoy reading about, though, and my husband is certainly nothing like them, so it's all relative. That's what bugs me about critics saying that romance heroes are what readers are REALLY looking for. No--reading experience is different from real life experience and the READERS know that, even if most critics don't.<br /><br />As to the paranormal romanace trope of "they were meant for each other." That bugs me, too. I said that paranormals were not really my thing, and this is mostly why. I stopped reading Christine Feehan precisely because of this--absolutely no conflict between the characters, to my mind, because they're instantly meant for each other and know it, so they don't fight it at all, and don't have to work at the relationship. I really hope J.R. Ward doesn't get sucked into this problem, because her characters have similar feelings. <br /><br />I did a lightning review of Jory Strong's <i>Spirits Shared</i>, a m/m/f menage book available at Ellora's Cave, on my personal blog and had precisely this problem when I read it: "There was no conflict. Jory Strong certainly tried to manufacture conflict: would they have sex now or later? How submissive would she be? But the upshot of the paranormal element was that the three of them were meant for each other....there's absolutely no doubt BEFORE they [have sex]that they're going to stay together for ever and EVAH. Which is kinda boring, if you ask me. Yes, erotic romance (or Romantica, as Ellora's Cave has TMed it), is still a ROMANCE and therefore needs the HEA. But if that means you're going to give the reader the HEA before the characters MEET, just so that you can spend more time on the [sex], I'm not really interested. If I wanted that, I'd read porn or true erotica, where it's all about the one encounter, rather than about a HEA. I've got enough good erotica, I don't need to find it misnamed as romantica. Hot sex does not equal romance, even if characters have HEA. You've still gotta have conflict--real, life-altering, character-driven, tough-decision-time, get-over-yourself conflict."<br /><br />So I agree with you there. But the two stories in OTM were short stories and I think they handled the meant-for-each-other-ness well. In fact, in the Kantra, they were meant, but the conflict is to whether that will actually happen because of external conflict, so it worked out well.<br /><br />I go for ALL the masculine communities!! :D Suzanne Brockmann's SEALs, Susan Elizabeth Phillips' football players (new one out next week! Woohoo!), J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood, Nora Roberts' Quinn brothers, so I know of what I speak. And other readers obviously do, too, because all these series are best-sellers. And yes, the authors have other skills that make them rise above the rest of Romancelandia, as the Smart Bitches call it, but I think their appeal is also directly related to their male characters.<br /><br />I love seeing that other people read for different reasons. The post recently on Smart Bitches about reading expectations between SF/F readers and romance readers was like exploring another world for me. I almost couldn't imagine reading for the reasons the SF/F readers were listing. So it is all personal, all about one individual reading experience. What we try to do as critics, I guess, is extrapolate that into more general experiences, which is both our gift and what gets us in serious serious trouble sometimes!Sarah S.G. Frantzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10413768227099945783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-23183397660090863592007-01-25T11:13:00.000+00:002007-01-25T11:13:00.000+00:00I found this really interesting because I look for...I found this really interesting because I look for such different things in romance. I agree that these features are present in many romances, and I'm sure they do explain the appeal these romances have for many women. For me, though, these features are ones which alienate me. It seems that so much of what makes these novels appealing to some women, and what makes them explorations of some women's fantasies and fears, is speaking to experiences and needs which aren't mine.<br /><br />For example, I tend to assume that both parties will feel the same about each other, but I find the idea that either party <i>can't live</i> without the other worrying. To me that suggests obsession. I can't remember the line precisely, but at the end of Heyer's <i>Frederica</i>, when the heroine thinks she may be in love, she asks if love means feeling not quite happy or being irritable when the person she loves isn't there. And Lord Alverstoke agrees that that's what love is. It seems that for them being without the other creates a niggling sense of not-quite-rightness, but not a devastating feeling of aloneness or a sense that they will perish without the other. You get a similar sense in Austen's <i>Persuasion</i> that Captain Wentworth can live without Anne. He's done it for years, after all. But he's much happier with her.<br /><br />I much prefer this depiction of love because it makes me feel as though the protagonists are continuously making a choice to stay together. For me this makes marriage/romantic relationships seem more of an organic, ever-changing and growing thing over which humans have some control and for which they have to take responsibility, rather than a sort of magic spell which binds them forever. And it suggests more of a continuum between romantic love and other kinds e.g. love of friends, family etc.<br /><br />Re masculinity and 'the focus on masculine communities (brothers, SEALs, vampires, football players)', again this is something that doesn't have any resonance for me, probably because the men I know have similar interests to the women I know, or at least, the interests they have aren't easily divided into men having 'masculine' interests and women having 'feminine' ones.<br /><br />Re <i>the image of what we wish men could be</i> again, I don't have one ideal of what I wish men could be. I know what I like about my husband, but I see men as individuals, rather than as part of a group (and the same goes for women). I suppose I just don't see that great a divide between 'men' and 'women'. I see people, all of whom are different. So for me, romances which are exploring the type of masculinity you describe, and contrasting it with 'female' values/needs just don't fit with my experience. I wonder if this takes us back to some of the <a href="http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com/2006/09/different-preferences-variety-and.html">discussions we had earlier on the blog</a> about archetypes, what's erotic, and the two poles of romance described by Northrop Frye. I'm sure it's no coincidence that Laura Kinsale's books and views featured prominently in that discussion too.<br /><br /><i>she supposed every red-blooded woman in America had dreamed of a man like Lucas Rollings--body by God, face of an archangel, a protective streak a mile wide. Who wouldn't want somebody like that by her side?</i><br /><br />Hmm. So could it be that this is more of an American thing? It's the 'protective streak a mile wide' that's jarring, for me. I've noticed that this is something that turns up a lot in American romances, but it's not something I or my female friends have ever looked for in a man. I don't know if that's because we're in the UK and the construct of masculinity is a bit different here, or just because I happen to be friends with people who have somewhat similar ideas to mine.<br /><br />I feel I should apologise because this comment is very much about me, but I can't help but use myself as an example of a different sort of reader, who prefers a different type of story. However, the very fact that I do prefer a different type of story, and that I immediately recognise what you're describing, makes me think that you're right in what you say about why this kind of story is so prevalent in the genre and why it appeals to so many women.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com