Here’s some lunchtime reading for you, should your day be at that point where you’re hungry and looking for things to read and ponder whilst you munch: The Atlantic has a fascinating article by Caitlin Flanagan about the allure and, dare I say, sparkle of Twilight for adolescent girls. Flanagan gets a few things spot-on, in my opinion, most notably the secret world of adolescent girls and the walking, shifting maelstrom of ambivalence that is your average pubescent female barely balanced between childhood and adulthood, and how the novel allows readers to access that time in their lives, regardless of age. I mentioned in my review that reading the book reminded me of my angsty teenage self.
While I didn’t continue past book 1, I watched many people around me gulp all four volumes in as few days as possible, downing the novels in a drive so intense I’m surprised they didn’t leave flaming tire tracks behind them as they revisited that teenage angsty wasteland themselves. And while I still have bone-deep problems and a not-insignificant level of discomfort with the degree to which Bella subsumed her identity into Edward’s - she herself wanting to be ‘gulped down’ literally and figuratively - I find myself pondering the article, because perhaps Flanagan has identified part of the element that makes these books so very, very gulpable - and it’s not gullibility on the part of the reader. It’s a vulnerability to teenage emotional time travel.
[Thanks to Holly Watson and Barb Ferrer for the link.]
Thanks to FD, I have a link to an advice column from the Guardian penned by one Mariella Frostrup which addresses the emotionally unavailable man.
As FD said in the email to me, the part in the beginning where she ladles on the pathos in an attempt to establish empathy was irritating, and her assumption about Mills & Boon heroes is way off the mark imo, but her point about the emotionally unavailable man is thought provoking.
I have to wonder if everyone went through the “tragic mate” phase in their 20’s, finding partners with the urge to fix and make them happy all the time - aka “the more tragic, the better.” Probably we all did at one time, if not the 20’s then at some other point.
But I take issue with Mariella’s point that Mr. Darcy is a malfunctioning man, a “monosyllabic” grump, and serves more as a canvas on which we readers paint our ideal tragic hero:
Darcy is a classic malfunctioning man, and the idea that he could be transformed into some Mills & Boon-style romantic hero by the barbs of a bright woman - no matter how persuasive actors like Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen have been in trying to make us believe it - is just schoolgirl fantasising. The sad truth is that the monosyllabic man in the corner of the bar isn’t usually thinking deep thoughts about the future of mankind; he’s a monosyllabic man in a bar. One thing you can’t knock women for is their imagination. We can fantasise miserable Darcy into a totemic love god, a plethora of myopic musicians into babe magnets, and an actor outspoken about his determination not to marry into the sexiest man alive.
From my perspective, and granted I haven’t reread P&P in a number of months, Darcy is socially awkward and certainly a snob who has to get over himself already, but emotionally broken hero? I don’t think so.
Do you disagree with Frostrup? Perhaps you never got the Darcy-mania any more than the Edward-mania, and find him to be as stunted and unattractive as she does? What’s the deal - do you think Darcy’s a broken male?
I’m hoping Jane Porter‘s sense of humor is iron clad and in top shape.. Not only did the trolling asscheeses of hell unleash themselves in the comments to a Seattle PI article about Porter’s book-to-movie on Lifetime this month, but it seems the poor woman is also being seduced in fiction. With bondage!
Is “not Googling the name of one’s heroine” the new black? Because dude. Ouch.
[Thanks to Serena Robar for the link.]
In The SB Book, we take a look at the fact that romance cover models are the opposite of the rest of the modeling world: we know many of the men’s names, but the women? Not really.
Until now! Thanks to some courtroom drama ker-brou-ha-fuffle, we now know Cindy Guyer’s name. And we also know not to fuck with her, lest we want our hair pulled. Ow.
[thanks to many, many Bitchery members for the link.]
Here’s the final episode of DocTurtle’s snarking of a contemporary category romance novel: a mathematician reads Kathleen O’Reilly’s Sex, Straight Up!
Almost there, folks.
It’s been a few weeks since I last snarked on this book, and even longer than that since I read the chapters I’m supposed to be snarking, so I’m finding myself re-reading the book trying to recapture my feel for it.
As I admitted in my last post, I finished reading the book in one sitting one morning before heading off to class. Although it would be a stretch to call the book’s ending thrilling, I found the story engaging enough to track down and tackle the denouement uninterruptedly. Kudos, Ms. O’Reilly!
Ultimately the book came together well for me, but more on that later. Here’s a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of the last 60 pages or so…
A website that reviews romance novels from a couple of smart bitches who will always give it to you straight. No bullshit. No gushing--unless the author really deserves it.
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Lots of work fun here.
“Your thesis is implied rather than explicit.”
Don’t fight dirty.
