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

I think there are two ways to create change (and for the record, I hate the corporate speak term ‘effect change.’ Or ‘affect change.’ Seen it both ways, despise both). One is to storm the castle from the outside and climb the walls and scare the crap out of everyone inside because change is coming in on a swinging rope through the window and it looks a lot like Kevin Costner and it’s coming whether you like it or not!

And then there’s working from within, subtly changing through concerted, repeated effort, bit by bit, gradually so that people don’t get all scared and entrenched in the old way, and are gently introduced to new ways of doing things.

Some things that need changing pronto right now move it, like, say, segregation, you can only storm the castle. But once the castle is stormed, the second way of change usually takes over, in that people let go of their old conceptions and learn (one would hope) to adjust to the new ones. This is, clearly, a big huge honking steaming pile of generalization but you get the drift.

That said, I think romance is mostly the second kind of change, and that change is reflective of the advancement of women’s movements at the time romance came into the market. Moreover, books written about women’s sexuality, and that describes (however often inaccurately) women’s sexual experiences, is inherently, as you said, subversive, and a direct assault on the virgin/whore motif that affects so many female characters in literature.

And also, I hate to get this party started, but when someone levels the accusation that romance is “porn for women,” there’s a part of me that agrees, but based on two points: one. There is nothing wrong with porn (between consenting individuals, obviously). Material designed to sexually arouse is not inherently bad. Two, women are turned on by different things than men, and most of us find the descriptions of emotionally-charged well-written sex scenes quite stimulating, and more than one commenter has remarked, “My husband has NO problem with the side effects of reading romance, wink wink nudge nudge!” Writing stories that sexually stimulate women and provide them intellectual and sexual arousal is also, inherently, subversive in a patriarchal, male-dominant culture.

However, we could also have a hootenany of a party discussing all the patriarchal and sexist subtext reinforced by romance, and how many of them are being spanked by erotica, paranormals, and other “newer” genres.

Candy: I do agree that there are two major modes of change, and it sometimes seems as if the “storm the castle approach” is sometimes necessary for kick-starting the more subtle, more pervasive changes.

I’m not sure I’d agree that most romance novels directly assault the madonna/whore dichotomy, since many of them buy into a modified form of the dichotomy.

Yes, most of the heroines give it up, and do so again, and again, and again, and again--but only to the hero. If she’s given it up in the past, the rule generally is that she didn’t enjoy it, and will only come her brains out once her grotto of lurve feels the sting of the hero’s orgasmatronic schwanstucker. And I’m not just talking about during the course of a book, since I don’t have any problems with a romance portraying a strictly monogamous relationship. I’m talking about the course of a heroine’s entire life, which is reflected in the genre’s obsession with virginity and/or sexually frigid women.

This isn’t too far removed from a message that says “only nasty girls do it with boys, and only the REALLY nasty girls love it.” But that first step, i.e. allowing women to have positive sex lives, and allowing readers into the bedroom--that’s huge. That’s pretty damn subversive, especially during the time when romance novels as we know them got their start.

I’m also thinking about a lot of feminist literature and literary fiction that deals with women’s issues, and I’m struck by how unhappy a lot of it is. Granted, a woman’s lot hasn’t historically been one of much choice or empowerment, and I have a soft spot for the beautiful, grim narratives that show us the struggles women have faced. But I enjoy variety in my literary diet, and there’s only so much grimness I can take.

Vonnegut has claimed that literature is the enterprise of showing how much life sucks (I’m paraphrasing wildly here), but I think there’s great value in showing the flip side of the coin, too. Because life isn’t always about how much your very existence sucks monkey balls, and about how happines is juuust within your grasp, but no, evil fate will intervene and turn you into an eccentric, lonely old lady musing over your grand lost love and squandered opportunities.

There’s a prejudice against the happy ending, and I’ll go out on a limb here and say that the snobbery isn’t entirely unjustified. I’ve read far too many books in which the endings were far too pat and far too easy. On the other hand, I’ve also read a great deal of books in which I could just tell the authors were gleefully rubbing their hands over the Portentious and Tragic Ending for Our Struggling Protagonists and *wrist on forehead* it’ll be so literary and ironic and heart-rendingly tragic.

Ultimately, I want the ending to be true to the tale, and sometimes, a happy ending makes sense. Romance novels help correct that imbalance in fiction about women, where so many bad things happen to the female protagonists that I sometimes wonder whether the authors are expressing some sort of deeply-seated punitive urge. The fact that women consistently get a happy ending in romance novels may not subvert a whole lot other than certain types of literary pretensions, but I think it’s still an important subversion.

Further, according to the Times, some passages are taken verbatim. Of course, the Times’ article is a little soft and cuddly; comparatively, Viswanathan gets a major red-faced bitchslap from the Harvard Crimson, which must be a lot of fun for her since she’s a sophomore there. They’ve also published a side-by-side comparison of the allegedly plagiarised passages.

Publishers for both sides are scrambling to figure out what to do next, but her publisher has shocked me to my big comfy shoes by reporting that they will reissue the book with an acknowledgement to McCafferty. To quote the Washington State Herald, which is outraged by the potential of profit from their plagiarism, “What could the acknowledgement possibly say? ‘You might want to read “Sloppy Firsts” first’?”

Many reports are examining the contractual obligations to the author, the publisher’s duties and the rights of the author to material, and what constitutes plagiarism and copyright infringement, two different legal matters:

“Plagiarism is passing off one’s work as your own, but that doesn’t necessarily make it copyright infringement,” Justin Hughes, the director of the intellectual property law program at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, said. “In an infringement action, a person can use a ‘fair use’ defense. That is, that they didn’t use so many words as to be guilty of infringement.”

As the Hindustan Times reports, sales for all three novels have gone up up up on Amazon’s sales tracker, and as of today Opal was #87 in their sales rank and was #81 yesterday.

Definitions and legal consequences aside, personally I’m very curious about the role 17th Street Productions might have played in all this. In several articles, Viswanathan is revealed to have no ambitions to be an author as her career (which at this point is probably a good thing).  I know from some coverage of The Gossip Girl series, also 17th Street Production novels, that the production company calls itself a “multimedia packaging company” that moves beyond mere book publishing. They market several series, mostly YA, bringing in a writer after they’ve come up with a concept, a potential plotline, and key points to include in the book. It’s like a publishing offshoot of trend marketing: spot what’s hot, cobble together several key elements that should sell, find a writer to hook it all together, and do so as quickly as possible. As one source, former Sweet Valley High writer Lizzie Skurnick, quoted at Media Bistro’s Galley Cat puts it, “[packagers] serve as writer and editor of a book” and make that pesky book publishing process easy for the publishing house. Ka. Ching. So how hard would it be for a young writer, suddenly handed a contract and a map to follow while writing her book, to draw upon previously published sources? And would there possibly, maybe, be pressure to do so just to get the damn book out already?

I wonder.

Ron and Sarah at MediaBistro’s Galley Cat have been digging through the media investigations into 17th Street’s modus operandi, and have come up with some fascinating bits of information. The Harvard Independent has found some evidence of prior plagiarism coming out of 17th Street, and more than one writer has also raised the possibility that 17th Street will take some blame.

In my humble opinion, the whole mess points to a few sad truths: the state of publishing in this country is a crapful profit-driven enterprise controlled by a very few, and while it’s always true that good writers go unpublished while bad ones get multiple book deals, what does it say about the future of the author that the development and creative process of coming up with a book, and the roadmap to writing it are the product of the editor and publisher, and the author is a necessary small cog, the person who hammers out a few thousand words to string all their creative work together? Obviously, I am not naive enough to pretend that creativity is more important than profit, but is it really surprising that a very young woman, contracted for an absolute assload of money to write a book, might easily take the short way out?

I’m not excusing her plagiarism, or anyone’s for that matter, because it’s a downright shitful thing to do, but the fact remains, not much will change because of this case. The humiliation of all this spectacle is the most damaging punishment Viswanathan’s likely to get, and 17th Street will probably continue to mine through the trends and will farm out that pesky writing to authors who are willing to take a minor share of the total profit of their labor. It’s awful to have to confront what publishing is becoming - or perhaps has already become - but am I surprised that this is happening again? That someone cheated to get the job done and the check cashed faster to move on to the next novel? Not hardly. Business is business. It pays to cheat.

Now, were Candy and I queens of the known universe, in the Smart Bitch Court of Publishing Justice, she’d lose her advance, or be forced to give it to a literacy charity, and all profits of that book would become McCafferty’s, including the share belonging to 17th Street Productions.

But since there is little that can be done in a criminal sense, McCafferty and her publisher will have to take the pains to sue the shit out of all involved, placing the burden of proof, made slightly lighter by Harvard’s dogged reporting of the scandal, on the victim, and it won’t slow 17th Street down at all. Pre teens who probably shouldn’t read the material in the first place will still buy The Gossip Girl series, as well as The A-List series. The saddest part of the whole scandal is that the scandal itself may be the only satisfaction McCafferty will get, because nothing will change. 

Alessandra Cecchi is the daughter of a prominent fabric merchant in Florence at the end of Lorenzo d’Medici’s political dynasty during the 15th century Renaissance. Born with an unstoppable curiosity and considerable artistic talent, Alessandra understandably chafes at the restrictions placed on women at the time, and The Birth of Venus chronicles her life from her early teens as her sister marries and her brothers continue to torment her, through her own marriage and life outside of her parents’ home. 

Unable to study painting as she would have were she born a male, Alessandra tutors herself in secret, reading books on technique and hiding her contraband art supplies in various places in her room, supplies purchased for her by her slave, Erila. She sketches on scraps of paper, making her own paint tints from household by-products like egg yolks and burnt copper scrapings, while dreaming of her own studio, her own teacher, and her own commissions to paint.

Her father brings home a painter from northern Europe to paint the walls and ceiling of their family chapel, and Alessandra is unable to stay away from him. Intrigued and attracted to not only the painter himself, but his talent - what she calls “God in his hands” - Alessandra sneaks out of her room, creates fictional reasons to find him, and breaks just about every rule of daughterly propriety for just a few seconds of his time and for his evaluation of her untutored but enthusiastic artistic efforts.

Alessandra’s story is set against the swift, almost pendular political swing that occurred in Florence after the death of Lorenzo d’Medici. Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican monk, orchestrates from his pulpit an almost complete reversal of the culture of Florence. Savonarola overthrew the Medici’s rule, and established a democratic republic focusing on moral rectitude, religious observance, and fear. Instead of the flourishing artistic development present under Medici, Savonarola subtly attacked the standing of the rich and opulent, creating laws against personal vanity, and sending out teams of boys to bully and cajole women into parting with fur collars, silver buttons, and anything else that would cause them to stand out apart from anyone else. Women were forbidden to attend church, and were forbidden from being present on the street without their husbands.

As her world is shifting, Alessandra is married off to an older gentleman, and is betrayed by her family and by her new existance as a wife when the future she had envisioned as a married lady is revealed to be built on lies. Worse yet, the freedom she had yearned for from her locked position as an unmarried female was taken away from her by the political shift in the climate of Florence. But Alessandra continues to attempt development of her artistic talent, and tries to ignore her attraction to the painter while seeking his opinion and perhaps his instruction, unable to stop fueling the curiosity and talent within her.

Alessandra is a marvelous character- she is foolhardy and brave, impetuous and clever, wicked smart and talented, but prone to nearly shooting herself in the foot on several occasions. It is Alessandra’s character that prevented me from putting the book down. While I grew irritated with her stubbornness at times, her negotiation of a changing society that no longer welcomed her gender or her passions as an artist or as a woman was inspiring and fascinating.

Further, Dunant’s writing style is lyrical, almost poetic, and evokes a tone appropriate for the memoirs of a Renaissance lady, the device used to tell Alessandra’s story. In online reviews and discussions I’ve found, more than one reader has mentioned that they went back to the beginning after finishing the book and started again, and that more was revealed in the second reading. Since this is a borrowed copy and I have a TBR pile that wants to pimpslap me into next year, I don’t have the indulgence of a second read, but the moments of foreshadowing and pieces of early story that mirror the ending were noticeable in my first reading, so much so that I put a post-it where I thought something significant had been referred to, only to flip back and find that I had been right. Dunant is a big fan of foreshadowing through symbolism. And, in case you are a member of a book club, there’s a reader’s group list of seriously softball questions in the back of the text I have - from “To what extent is Savonarola the villain of the novel?” to “To what degree is this novel about a city as much as a character?”

I won’t bore you with my answers.

But I will try to explain why this book, as addictive a read as I found it to be, did not merit an A: the ending. I don’t want to get specific because the experience of reading The Birth of Venus is worth borrowing your own copy, and I don’t want to spoil the finale, but suffice it to say that Alessandra’s choices at the end of the book, especially in regard to her opportunity for a happy ending, are infuriating and don’t accurately represent her character - at least, not the character in the first three-quarters of the book.

I laid awake last night thinking about the difference between a romance structure and the structure of this novel, and found myself asking in frustration why she didn’t make different choices when it was within her power at the end to do so. After seizing every chance to crack the border defining the limits of women in society, to see her take a seat one inch from the edge of her own completion was beyond frustrating and seemed to be an incomplete ending and a betrayal of her character.

Several reviewers in online discussions raised their own frustrations with the ending, wondering if the author phoned in the finale because she was done writing, and it’s comforting to know that other people found the Alessandra at the end to be a shadow of the Alessandra of the beginning, though no one could attribute the change in her character to any traceable reason.

Regardless of how the book ended, the middle of it and the characters within, from Alessandra’s mother to her husband Cristoforo (both magnificently infuriating and yet sympathetic creations on Dunant’s part) will stick in my brain for awhile as I chew over the fascinating elements of the story. With the obvious parallel to the increasingly conservative and religiously-fueled culture forming in many societies right now, the questions inherent in the balance of art and religion, creativity and divinity, are still valid and of importance then and now. Certainly The Birth of Venus has given me a lot to think about, and has left me with the feeling that I learned quite a bit- something every good historical novel should do.

But the best part of the book was reading the reviews when I finished, particularly this quote from the Reader’s Paradise Forum (beware: spoilers at site)

This story reminds me of what Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in “The Third Man” said:

“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Substitute Florence for Italy and the Medicis for the Borgias and it would still be an accurate assessment.

The status of women, the value of art, and the question of the role of religion in society and politics are still subjects that have not been adequately explored or resolved, but within books like the Birth of Venus, the reader has the opportunity to learn from history and, with the exception of the readers guide at the back of the book, ask some very important questions. A poor ending to a fictional account cannot take away from the vital duty of repeatedly confronting these questions.

A lot happens in this book. So much that the words “a lot” aren’t nearly enough. There is more plot in this book than there is mantitty on our website. You hear what I’m saying? Plot, plot, puh-lot. Lots of it.

Kallista Varyl is a Captain in the Adaran army, an army made mostly of women. She’s a specific kind of Captain, though, as she is a wielder of magic, or naitan, who commands several others like her. Each naitan in the Adaran army has a bodyguard, and we meet Kallista just before a battle, inspecting the perimeter of the walled city she, the army, and the other naitani must defend, and outlining her strategy with her bodyguard, Torchay.

Adara has been invaded by the all-male army from Tibre, a country to the north. While the Adaran army bases its offensive and defensive strategies on the naitani and their abilities, which range from lightning throwing to food spoiling, the Tibrans use cannons and weapons and some big ass guns to attack - a battle between the magic and the phallic.

When the Tibrans attack, they reach 90% smackdown of the Adaran defenses, killing all the naitani but Kallista, and breach the walled city with hoardes of soldiers. Kallista calls upon the One Goddess whom they all worship, demanding assistance and decrying the goddess’s willingness to watch her people be slaughtered.

The Goddess delivers: everyone in the Tibran army is killed instantly, save for one man, a warrior named Stone. And after regaining consciousness, Kallista realizes she has saved the city and the lives of the Adaran soldiers around her- and then realizes that she has been Godstruck, and now bears a large compass rose on the back of her neck. And hello, Stone has one, too.

More importantly, Kallista is now gifted with some serious kick ass magical powers, far beyond the lightning magic she had originally.

It has been more than a thousand years since an Adaran woman has been Godmarked, and this development causes a great deal of interest within the army and within the royal circle surrounding the Adaran ruler, the Reinine. Kallista, Torchay, and Stone are summoned to court to discuss the events of her marking, and to discuss what to do with Stone, and the ever-pesky Tibrans to the north, who will certainly try again to invade Adara. Kallista, Torchay, and Stone, along with Aisse, a woman who ran away from Tibran servitude, are then bound together by the Reineine into an ilian, a polyamorous marriage, before they are sent to Tibre to stop the invasions.

That’s a very, very rough sketch of all that happens in this book, and it is hard to put it down and pick it back up again - one, because you want to keep going, no matter what time it is and how cold the bathwater has become, and two, there is SO much complex world building going on that if you put it down for some time, recalling all the intricacies once you revisit the story will be a challenge. Dayton is possessing of some serious world building skills, introducing the kingdoms of Adara and Tibre with gradual detail, so each seems equally real, but without an infodump overload that would assault the reader. While each kingdom has defined influences, from the femnocentric rule of the Adaran culture to the male-dominated culture of the Tibrans, the reader isn’t hit over the head repeatedly with the differences, so that in the end you recognize the forces driving each culture, and the motivations causing the men and women of each kingdom to act the way they do. Further, the exploration of matriarchal vs. patriarchal societies allows the reader to examine the flaws inherent within each, thus lending Kallista’s ilian, with members of both kingdoms, a curious balance of two extreme cultures.

The characters themselves are also well done. Each member of Kallista’s ilian, and more members are added as the story continues, is an individual character, instead of a facet of one element of Kallista’s character. This isn’t polyamory-as-character-device, where each person would reflect and accent a particular part of Kallista’s personality; each member of the ilian is a character in his and her own right, and as such, the book stands alone well but also leaves the reader looking forward to the second and third books in the trilogy - you want to learn more about the others, and to see what happens to Kallista.

The bravery in crafting a polyamorous romance is not to be overlooked, either: mad props to Luna, Harlequin, and Dayton for publishing a romance that is multilayered, multidirectional, and multi-amorous. The concept of an ilian is more than just a group of swingers, or bi-curious folks all humping one another. The ilian is a family with many leaders, and while there are pairings between some members, there are also couplings that occur across and between the established pairs.

The anchor to the ilian, and the story, is Kallista, and she’s marvelous. Sometimes I wanted to smack her for being stubborn, and sometimes I wanted to jump into her shoes because rwor, there is some hot action for her and her iliasti, but mostly I wanted to follow her like Torchay and the rest of her crew to see what happened next.

There were some flaws to the story that I questioned as the story came to an end, not the least of which is the resolution of the “primary” romance between Kallista and Torchay and the answer to how and why some characters were marked by the goddess and why others were not. The resolution of her relationship hinged on Kallista’s inability to relinquish control, though, and it makes sense for her character to stand in her own way until she wakes up and adjusts her attitude.

To return to my earlier question: is this a romance? Yes - it’s multiple romances, and multiple plotlines, and multiple relationships, interwoven and interpartnered so it breaks some of the rules of traditional romance, but also highlights some of the important foundations: a good story of a well-written set of characters who confront identifiable and dangerous opposition to their commitment to one another makes for a fantastic read, and this hybrid of fantasy and romance treats the reader to a very creative, and very sensual exploration of what fantasy romance can be.