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

Honorable mentions go to Cheyenne McCray, for her set of entries:

Taking it Public (I get off on being watched)
You’re Doing it Wrong (It goes in the other way)
Balcony Love (since we can’t have Sex on the Beach)
The Mummy Princess (try getting out of this dress)
Tie Me Up (and then tie me down)

Pardon Me. (Do you have any Grey Poupon?)

Ms Manna, for “Sorry, honey.  Not in my box.”

Andie G for She had a trick hip and liked an audience.

Together, they shared a magical, bend-y love that knew no bounds in their GILDED CAGE.

Galadriel for Even after squeezing the sandworm into the dress and clapping a wig on its head, Paul Atreides wasn’t sure the illusion quite hid its undulating form. Still, if dressing it up and taking it out was what was required, then so be it. After all, the spice must flow.

And Evabaruk for: It was only five minutes into his new burlesque ventriloquism act, that the audience turned their backs on Rory.

Special mention to Yvette Davis for making me say, “OMG! EW! HA!” out loud to my monitor with, “Meanwhile, out in the lobby, Romeo and Juliet discovered the secret ingredient that makes butter-flavored movie popcorn so slippery ... yet salty.”

Congratulations, and thanks for playing! 

Jane: I read Cavendish first, just for the fun of it and ultimately liked Cavendish better because I thought Amelia was slightly more interesting and thought Thomas’ dilemma better written (having a dukedom potentially torn from you had to be really horrible).

Jack’s life in Wyndham seems fairly satisfactory and even his past drama wasn’t wrought enough in the beginning to make me really root for him.  I thought Grace was toothless.

There’s a definite difficulty level in writing two stories that overlap the same time period and include the same scenes.  I thought that while this was innovative, reading the stories back to back showed some problems such as the repetition of significant chunks of dialogue.  I would have liked to seen a lot less of the overlapping dialogue and other ways of retelling the same story whether it was using some other characters or what not.

You?

Sarah: Ultimately I liked Wyndham better, but I thought the inner monologue of Jack the more interesting of the two men. That said, his attempts to subvert tension with unflappable humor and Thomas’ dilemma of having his dukedom ripped from him and his question as to what that leaves him with, and who ultimately he is, were equally fascinating. Grace was often toothless, but also as much a victim of circumstance as Jack, so their ability to relate to one another I found enticing to read about. And when Grace stood up for herself, such as the rare private moments where she teased Thomas, or made rather cutting jokes with her friends, her character was sparkling good fun.

What bothered me, as a result, was Thomas’ sudden realization of the degree to which Grace’s life sucks, because no one has put a limit on Evil Granny’s behavior.  While he was the duke, he could have done more - he admits it and he is ashamed of himself, but by the time the story rolls around, years of the status quo have made his admission a bit too small. Thomas holds Grace’s happiness in his hands to a much greater degree than he seems to realize - even as he treats her with extreme censure for not telling him about Jack’s existence.

I didn’t think the repeated dialogue was a problem, though. For one thing, the books aren’t going to be released simultaneously, so certain points that hinge the narratives together, like all parties present at the same scene, told from two different - or four different - perspectives didn’t bother me. But what I did want was more of the newer parts of the story when I read Cavendish after Wyndham. Granted I was reading them back to back as you were, so I knew what was happening and thus I wanted more of the newer perspective of Amelia or Thomas immediately following or during a matching scene that occurred in both books. So I found the ending of Cavendish very delicious, and was so curious what happened with Amelia and Thomas. The additional scenes in Cavendish revealed a very satisfying happy ending, which was doubly satisfying due to the fact that it was new, whereas the story told twice and read one after another was not as new by the time I was done. Wyndham‘s jump-forward into the merry rosy future bothered me because after all that neat-o innovation with romance storytelling, it was a very pedantic extra reinforcement of the happy ending.

Jane: I thought Jack being the happy go lucky guy with the smooth tongue was a great contrast with Thomas, but I felt that it wasn’t a contrast that was sharp enough unless you read both books.  I totally agree with Jack and Grace being victims of their circumstances, but the romance between the two of them (and between Thomas and Amelia) was tepid. 

I see your point about Thomas and I bet my preference is due to reading his book first and thus “bonding” with him in some sense. I thought the evil granny was wayyyyy more evil in book 1 than book 2.  In fact, the only evil-ness that I saw were the two scenes bossing Grace around.  I was really shocked when I read Wyndham as to how truly mean and degrading she was and did not understand AT ALL why Thomas hadn’t put his foot down.  I wished his evolution from being a self absorbed prig would have been more gradual.

I actually never totally bought into Thomas’ love for Amelia and I wondered if Amelia’s feelings weren’t just an extended crush on someone she thought she should have a crush on.  These women lacked grativas for me. 

The stories were very centered on Thomas and Jack and I think it would have benefited both stories to see a slower and deeper evolution of their co dependency.  I thought a co-dukeship would have been wonderful and I agree with you that the baby filled epilogue (that had no real purpose) was missing the point.

Sarah: Grace and Jack had a very limited time of exposure to one another, contrasted with a lifetime of forced encounters for Thomas and Amelia, who knew of each other their whole lives. I had to make a bit of a jump mentally to buy their whirlwind of a “OMG I want to be with you for EVAH” but because I liked Grace (and totally and deeply empathized with her being in an unpleasant position out of necessity and lack of acceptable alternatives) and I liked Jack, I was willing to do it. But then I question lately how much I as a reader overwrite - or underwrite - a romance I am rooting for, adding details and accessories to the relationship that the writer may not specifically include. I bet a whole shiny button that I have that tendency, but I don’t think I did it here. With four perspectives on the same story, there was plenty to chew on.

I am tickled that we have the same experience - I like Wyndham better than Cavendish because I read it first. However, I wasn’t feeling Wyndham‘s angst as much as Cavendish’s.

Jane: But then I question lately how much I as a reader overwrite - or underwrite - a romance I am rooting for, adding details and accessories to the relationship that the writer may not specifically include.

I totally do that, particularly when I am recommending a book that I think others won’t like.  I work extra hard to find reasons to support it.  But I think it’s somewhat of response to generating a defense.  I.e., how are you to justify liking a book if you can’t provide examples.  Is there something wrong with inference?  And perhaps that is the difference between liking and not liking a book.

Or it could be that our personal “bonds” with the characters turn those inferences positively or negatively.  Both these books are adequate and they get props for being overlapping, but both books suffered in detail so I would give them the same grade - C+ or B-

Sarah: As far as inference and supporting characters we like with details in our minds not written in the text, I am rather indulgent about it and thus second guess myself constantly on that basis. For example, as pertains to these books, I’ve worked in jobs that were in companies so small they fell below any regulation of labor or employee conduct, and that lack of oversight left me and other coworkers unprotected and subject to ridiculous expectations and abuse from management – often literally. That experience made me relate to Grace and access those feelings of being so very stuck and trying to make the best of it, and thus I rooted doubly hard for her, especially the upstairs/downstairs self-doubt that in the end Amelia told her was silly. And it was, really. I love how there’s this expectation of horrific holy shit stormfire gossip if a gently bred lady of no title marries a great big title, and that’s reason enough to stand in one’s own way toward happiness, but courtesans! Marrying their protectors! Oh, it’s So Romantic and utterly no one would ever snub their children, of course not! What?! The?! Fuck?!!.

What I liked about Grace’s predicament in Wyndham was that she was perfectly acceptable in her conduct and her family history except that she’d been working as a lady’s companion. Her knowledge of the “below stairs” culture and the working life suddenly made her “unacceptable” for some very flimsy reasons. I could easily support and believe their happy ending was possible with minimal exclusion from society - whereas other books that feature reformed hos marrying titled dudes left me thinking, “No way, dude.”

The other thing I liked about Grace was her restraint and her poise. I’ve been in Grace’s shoes in the distant past, and found myself managing my temper and never standing up for myself until it was time to declare that enough was long past enough. So because I read into Grace’s experience my own experience, I liked her a whole pile of Swarovski-crystal-encrusted a lot.

But if I think back on her dispassionately, I loved her more when she was with Thomas, and how she gently needled him, and I wish their friendship would have been more developed - because it’s a brave thing to have the hero befriend another woman who doesn’t turn out to be a villainess, but merely someone who’s in love with someone else. That’s a rather courageous decision to create in terms of heroine and heroine’s new friend creation (and leaves me wondering what will happen to Elizabeth). So big ups to Quinn on that score.

Gradewise, the combined books merit a B-. Wyndham I give a B, and Cavendish I’d give a C, so the average for both would be B-.

In this corner: Suzanne Vega discussing the remixes and interpolations of her song Tom’s Diner (duh duhduh duh, duh duhduh duh, duh duh duhduh na duhduh na...) and how she’s embraced them, even released compilations of various artists’ versions of the same song:

15 years later, “Tom’s Album” continues to sell. People think it is a bootleg and sidle up to me whispering, “Have you seen this? Someone put this together.”

“Yes. That someone was me.”

However, it was a logistical nightmare to administrate. I had to go back to all the people who had taken the song without permission, and ask their permission . . . to use their version of my song!

While still a defender of copyright protection - Vega met with the original remixers of the song, DNA, and arranged for a flat fee agreement after DNA had remixed the song in 1990 and sold it out of a corner store - her perspective is interesting, particularly in the context of isolation in which she wrote the song itself. (Also, the part about Vega’s role in the invention of the mp3 is freaking fascinating.)

And in this corner, we have Annie Proulx, who is pissed as hell about fanfic regarding her characters in Brokeback Mountain, particularly when they send her the product of their fanfic labors. Her response is rant-tastic, because she’s horrified that readers would rewrite her story with a happy ending, stating that:

There are countless people out there who think the story is open range to explore their fantasies and to correct what they see as an unbearably disappointing story....

Most of these ‘fix-it’ tales have the character Ennis finding a husky boyfriend and living happily ever after, or discovering the character Jack is not really dead after all, or having the two men’s children meet and marry, etc., etc. Nearly all of these remedial writers are men, and most of them begin, ‘I’m not gay but….’ They do not understand the original story, they know nothing of copyright infringement—i.e., that the characters Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are my intellectual property....

Proulx then states that she thinks that the fanfic rewrites are motivated by the male writers’ feeling that they can write the story better than she, a woman, could. I don’t know about that, as it seems like a huge leap of guesswork to assume the motivations of a fanfic writer, but her perspective as to the ownership of the characters and the ending of their story is different from Vega’s eager collecting of variations, covers, and remixes of her song. I’d love to hear a debate with the two of them discussing intellectual property, and how fans interact with their artistic creations.

What do you think? Would you be irritated with someone taking your characters and writing fanfic about them? Do you think someone who seizes your characters and rewrites the ending is “exploring their fantasies” in a manner which you find objectionable? Or would you collect them for your own amusement? Where do you fall on the Vega/Proulx continuum?

Thanks to Karen and December for the links.