Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Anyway: conjugal enemies? Hell yes. The protagonists in these old-skool novels couldn’t stand each other. The heroine’s loathing for the hero was writ large every few pages (at least, until the first orgasm, and then the loathing transferred to her own body as well), but they still couldn’t stop conjugatin’ all over the piece. This lack of control over their passions--even if it was passionate hatred--was often transformed into passionate love through a mysterious alchemical means I’m not entirely sure I’ve figured out yet. At some point in the book, the heroine suddenly sees the hero’s lack of control and little signs of tenderness (not raping her until she bleeds, not forcing her to meet his former mistress, allowing her the freedom to indulge in some unconventional-for-the-time activity like sailing or running a business or communing with the whales or whatever the fuck) as signs of affection, and she re-interprets her actions and reactions as being signs of True Luuuurrrrve as well. I don’t find these transformations convincing, but I know many other people do, and the different reading and interpretation process is fascinating to me.

This isn’t to say that adversarial relationships aren’t fun to read about, or that they can’t be used as convincing indicators of two people who resist falling in love with everything they have. When these relationships are more balanced, I tend to think of them as “loving adversaries"--circumstances or their own personalities don’t allow them to act on their attraction, so they spar and snipe as a way to act out some of their tensions in ways other than bonin’ each other six ways to Sunday. I recently watched His Girl Friday, and that was the term that immediately came to mind. Underneath the constant quipping and sparring and attempts to one-up each other between Walter and Hildy was a sense of attraction and true affection.

But there was more to it, too. I think what made it an adversarial relationship as opposed to one based on enmity was the way the two of them were portrayed as equals. Walter would try to pull a fast one on Hildy, but oftentimes, she’d be just one step ahead of the game and have blocked his move before he could complete it. Hildy, at least until the end, is a strong woman with enough power and experience to make her choices and moves count.

And that’s not something you can say about the old-skool heroine. Most old-skool novels make a point of systematically stripping power from the heroine--she’s young, she’s alone in the world, and most of the meaningful choices over when, how and to whom she wants to express her sexuality is denied her. The only true power she has is her hold over the hero, but she’s unaware of this until a significant part of the book is over; her constant expressions of hatred were a way for her to deny the hero his emotional hold over her. The power imbalance results in a much more virulent hatred instead of a more playful sparring, and it’s this hostility that raises my hackles and makes it difficult for me to accept the transformation from conjugal enemy to lover. Adversarial relationships, on the other hand, are not necessarily based on enmity, and I find the resulting clashes much more satisfying and believable to write about.

Interestingly enough, the old-skool romance and His Girl Friday end in much the same way: the heroine capitulates to the hero, and the resolution feels a bit limp as a consequence. Hildy’s transformation at the end of His Girl Friday is less than convincing for me because the writer made her pliant--almost wide-eyed and confused. It’s disappointing because Hildy has real power that she seems to cede over to Walter once she acknowledges that she still loves him. The old-skool heroine’s often abrupt about-face, while startling, is at least consistent with the worldview of the book--she gains power once she stops struggling against the hero and accepts him.

Not all romance novels end this way. One of the reasons why I love Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale so much, for example, is how Merlin and Ransom are locked in an adversarial relationship throughout much of the book, but you never lose sight of how much affection and love the two of them feel for each other. Ransom finally makes a significant power-grab when he takes what Merlin loves away from her (those of you who’ve read the book know what I’m talking about), but in the end, the power balance equalizes when he learns to love and live with Merlin as she is, not as he wants her to be.

Not all romance novels use the conjugal enemies/loving adversaries model; Patricia Gaffney’s best work, for example, as well as Barbara Samuel’s, don’t set up their conflicts that way. But it’s a fun way to set up a story, and like the Energizer Bunny, it’s easy to allow the conflict to go on and on and on. I also know that many people view the adversarial relationships between hero and heroine in old-skool romances than I do. What do you think about power structures and loving adversaries vs. conjugal enemies?

Read on.

On 6 June, the Pilot published two letters, one from JulieAnn Singleton-Smith, a fellow military wife, who stated that she has “a career and a series of degrees” and therefore objected to the “cheap, hot pink high-heeled shoes” as an image that “conveys a message that military wives are cheap and trashy.”
Another letter praises the image as on par with the WWII era photo of the sailor kissing a nurse on V-J Day.

But the reaction continued on!

On 7 June, more letters appeared.

First, a rather fascinating analysis from Dr. Frederick Lubich Chair of Old Dominion’s Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, who calls the image “controversial” as it may be “insulting” or “intimidating to those military wives who are...more than just lusty ladies in waiting.” But Dr. Lubich then likens the image to:

mythic memories of seafaring warriors” such as Ulysses and Penelope, providing the epic model for this timeless human experience, in which ‘passion’ in its archaic sense connotes the suffering of separation and the ecstasy of reunion.

From the shorts of ancient Greece to the modern ports of Hampton Roads, there is nothing offensive about young lovers dressing up to celebrate the magic...of homecoming and its nostalgic euphoria.

Dr. Lubich also recognizes the similarities to the V-J Day photo, and states that the photograph “symbolically encodes the increasingly more complicated lifestyles and love lives of our own times and...stand[s] as an iconic image.”

But wait, there’s more. A former military wife weighed in by relating her memories of “choosing carefully what to wear to enhance that special first evening home,” and pointedly responding Ms. Singleton-Smith that “one can have degrees and careers and still look fabulous while celebrating while celebrating the ship’s return from a difficult mission.” A second military wife also said she thought the picture was “absolutely great” and that it had “nothing to do with how many degrees you’ve got” but the “joy of having your ‘sailor’ home again.”

Another letter said he thought the image was not cheap or trashy, but “touching and poignant” and offered “a unique perspective on that familiar theme” of families reunited during wartime.

But another spouse was “saddened” by the paper’s decision to highlight that particular photo as “inappropriate” for the Truman’s homecoming, as “a woman’s legs and her high heels with the price tag still on the bottom...do not capture a...homecoming for one of our beloved aircraft carriers.”

I’m struck by two things: one, the seeming desire to asexualize a homecoming. Those who objected referred to the aircraft carrier, not the people on it - people who loved and missed their families, and in some cases spouses who, one would hope and pray, were loved in a demonstrative fashion once they arrived home. The asexualization of the military and the concept of homecoming vs. the sexuality and human need for contact on the part of the servicemen and service women on board are quite at odds with one another in the responses, especially in the context that we are, after all, at war, and deployment is a life-or-death issue for many, many enlisted individuals. Coming home safe means coming home alive, and let’s be frank, the most affirming way to celebrate the fact that one is alive, home, and safe? Sex. Hugging. Kissing. Possibly more sex. (I hope it was awesome.)

And two: that yet again hot pink shoes are very, very eye catching.

Personally, I thought the image was very evocative and certainly sexual, and that’s not at all a bad thing from where I stand in my shoes which, today, are brown. I don’t know if I can stand anywhere and judge the welcome-home wear of a woman whose husband has been deployed for seven months, but I surely wouldn’t dare start by casting aspersions on the relative cost of someone else’s shoes.

However, what is the lesson in this minor kerfuffle? That pink shoes are eye catching? Publishers already know that!

No, the lesson may be: take the price tag off the bottoms of your shoes. You never know from what angle you may be photographed.

Addendum: welcome home and thank you to the service men and women of the Harry S. Truman, the Oscar Austin, the San Jacinto, and the Winston S. Churchill and anyone else who returned home. Hope your reunion was so great you had to take your shoes off.

Once again the industry of books and music are compared to one another - which is always a rocking good time, because while they have some finer points in common, among them being structurally bugfuck crazy, the two models are very, very different. However, ancillary market profit might be one of the areas that the two medias come to share. The question is, how?

Music sales from “touring, merchandising, and licensing” are becoming mainstays of band profit as “downloads… steadily undermin[e] record sales.”

So, what about books? BEA was all about eBooks, baby, and ebooks are the new market for books. Touting the Kindle-Aid, Krugman draws a parallel between downloaded music and downloaded, aka pirated, books.

How will this affect the publishing business? Right now, publishers make as much from a Kindle download as they do from the sale of a physical book. But the experience of the music industry suggests that this won’t last: once digital downloads of books become standard, it will be hard for publishers to keep charging traditional prices.

I wrote recently about the price tag of ebooks but my problem with the price has nothing to do with the comparative $0.00 sale price of ebooks from pirate sites. For one thing, I like good reading and know that snagging a free book means one less byte of good writing for me in the long run. For another, the formatting is often atrocious, the quality crap, and did I mention the immediate satisfaction vs. future quality reading thing? Yeah. Threaten me with the absence of good books from talented authors, and I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll even clean the sink trap (*ew ew ew ew*).

Krugman points out that newspaper attempts to profit by ancillary subscriptions for content they otherwise give away have backfired - and that free vs. subscription prejudice from consumers works both ways. Count me among those who get very ornery when a magazine I subscribe to prevents me from reading that same content I already paid for on the publication’s web site. (Consumer Reports, are your ears burning? The only reason I pay twice is because you’re a non-profit and your recommendations never fail me).

However, with publishing attempts to market books in innovate ways, the free ebook is making many, many consumers happy, and if it’s working appropriately, then one free download that’s professionally sanctioned (and professionally formatted, please, kthxbye) can make a world of difference in creating new fans and new customers of an author’s backlist of product. 

But here’s the part that really made me stop and ponder:

Indeed, if e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors’ other activities, such as live readings with paid admission. Well, if it was good enough for Charles Dickens, I guess it’s good enough for me.

This is the part where I wonder, “Hmm. Do romance readers figure into dire predictions of the death of publishing as we know it?” How many readers here and at other sites swear by paper books, the tactile experience of them, and the pleasure of shopping for them, trading them, borrowing them, and keeping them for rereads?

Books as promotional materials for other activities? I’m confused. I’m still rather startled at the degree to which authors are asked to make themselves in to celebrity representatives for the sales of their own books, and that they allow greater access to themselves for the sake of a voracious readership that wants more, more, more between the issue of each new book.

If you’re a reader like me, you read fast and eagerly, and the finish of one excellent book is a sad event soothed only by the anticipation of the next adventure in a new book, with luck also a good one. Reading is among my very favorite activities (right up there with sleeping, eating pastry, and drinking wine). So whether I’m reading an ebook, or a print book, I’m still after the book, not the promotional reading. I’m a solitary person by nature; I don’t have any desire to sit in a room with other people to listen to my reading. I want to read by myself in the quiet. I’m not after the author and I’m not after the experience of reading-as-interaction. I just want the reading of the book, in any form. And while I do blink at the equal price of ebooks, I still buy the ebook or the paper, because I want to read.

I agree with Krugman that the markets that intend to profit from digital media will have to alter themselves mightily to create new functioning models that account for the sizable difference between pages and bytes. But am I alone in thinking that so long as there are books to be read, there will be folks like me paying for them?

Thanks to SonomaLass for the link.