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

Sarah: Yes, he’s farted a butterfly and a gull is about to pluck out her velvet chains, but the real point of order on this cover is that her hair has absorbed the dye from her dress to the point where the poor chit has seafoam green hair. Now THAT is color coordination.

Candy: How very forward-looking of her to dye her hair the same color her skin would be after a raging bout of yellow fever fought concurrently with seasickness. It’s the ultimate in color-coordination.

Sarah:Discarded titles for this book include Trannysong, Crossdressingsong and Gee that bow doesn’t look gay in the least song.

Candy: Oh, hey, the woman with the hair like an unwound Q-tip shows up again! Good for her. Last time we saw her, she was rockin’ the casbah on Silver Angel--a cover so good, it gets to be snarked twice.

Sarah: This is one of my favorite old-skool covers. I can’t even remember if I’ve read the book. But wow, the majesty of that My Little Pony-esque “Grandma exploded!” hair is just the cap on the trifecta of awesome when joined with the purple eyeshadow and the megamullet.

Candy: Oh yes. The mane of hair is every bit as mesmerizing as it ever has been. The more I look at it, the more I think it’s moving. The question is: what’s it trying to do? My best guess is that it’s still instinctively trying to break holes in the polar ice in search of baby seals for a tasty little snack, even though it’s thousands of miles away from any frozen precipitation.

But wait, there’s more! Excerpt the second, from page 20:

The broad literary spectrum ranges from the silliest kind of romance or comic book adventure to the works of such major literary figures as Herman Melville and Jane Austen. Some critics try to draw the line and create criteria for what they call true literature, as opposed to mere entertainment or downright junk. Drawing a precise line is always a bit arbitrary, and not really necessary. What we have is a continuum from the very trivial to the very important. Since the range is very wide, some of the material between these extremes can prove quite interesting without actually being worldshaking. What good fiction, poetry, or drama does for us is leave us with the feeling that our experience has been expanded vicariously and that perhaps we know something afterward that we did not know before. In other words, good literature has an impact that, in some way, changes the reader. Trivial literary entertainments such as thrills and romances and television dramas, however, cannot be dismissed with contempt. They have a role to play in the lives of many people, and many of the writers involved find such work a pleasant and profitable form of employment, though significance in such works is clearly minimal. Their aim is to thrill, chill, and titillate. Frank Lloyd Wright once described television as “chewing gum for the eyes.” It’s an excellent description of that medium and might also apply to most of our light literature. Chewing gum gives you a lot of action but no nourishment. Great literature, on the other hand, is full of emotional, spiritual, and intellectual nourishment.

I love the dancing tango of “Have I insulted you? Have I? No, how about now? How about now?” that DeMaria is playing here with that added dollop of piquant elitism. It’s not necessary to draw a line between the erudite and the junk (but romances are junk) and even romance has a role to play in the lives of their readers (ignominious fools though they are). Jesus fucknuts, what kind of self-absorbed superiority fix is this guy on in the quest to teach creative writing? Thrill, chill, and titillate in the absence of emotional, spiritual, and intellectual nourishment? MY ASS, SIR.

I bet he giggled when he typed “titillate,” too.

What an outrageous pity that this boneheaded statement is being used to instruct a venue of creative encouragement. Discouragement is more like it. Pass me a romance. Preferably a hardback. So I can aim it at his groin.