An Open Letter to A Romance Novel Hero: Resurrecting the Idea

Grey aka Robert Fordham
c/o Joanna Bourne
The Spymaster's Lady

Dear Robert,

Thanks for not being a dillweed. I apprecitate that. I don't know if you've noticed (you probably have. You are very observant.) but romance novel spies tend to be intensely retarded. By intensely retarded I mean, if they were actually spies they would be dead by now on account of failing to 1) comprehend human behavior 2) not noticing the holy fucking obvious and 3) generally acting like a 14 year old boy having a hissyfit, although that is probably quite insulting to 14 year old boys.

My point, Robert, is that you behaved like a spy. Early on you had some wacky ideas about Annique but you didn't let these notions override what your senses observed, as a good spy ought. You noted the behavior of this woman and then concluded (correctly) that she was not the sort to do the kind of killing you had initially thought she had. Moreover, you realized that as a French operative she was duty bound to try to escape and you didn't hold that against her. In fact, you admired her for that. I appreciate you Robert Grey Fordham. I appreciate the fact that you aren't an asshat. Well done, sir, well done!

This Is Not A Love Song

This is not a love song.

This is not a love song.

This is not a love song.

This is not a love song.

 

--- Public Image Limited 

 

 

Vice Avenged: A Moral Tale by Lolah Burford is not a romance. But it is also not not a romance. It is a curious little book somewhere between fable and fairy tale, romance and picaresque novel. Quite frankly, I am not entirely sure what to make of it.

At the Library Book Sale

The library book sale is a treasure trove of romance novels. I went to the library on Saturday and discovered several classic Catherine Coulters with their glorious be-Fabio-ed clinch covers, several Rebecca Brandewynes, an African-American contemporary category title from 1984 and like 400 Jennifer Blakes some in hard-back. The best part is that paperbacks are only 25 Cents and hardbacks are $1.00. I had to resist the temptation to purchase all of the above.

I'm going back next week to see what new stuff they have. Maybe I'll even start making a circuit of the all the local branches every weekend. I'll take my camera with me and record what I see for romance posterity.

Are We There Yet?

This series is exhausting me. What series you may ask? Does it matter? I don't read series anymore. I can't. I can't bear it. They make me feel like a nine year old on a cross-country car trip in which the car is a 1958 Edsel with no air conditioning and a 60 year old man at the wheel who refuses to stop for bathroom breaks or go over 40 miles an hour. In other words, all I want is out.

Let me clarify what I mean by a series. Here's what I don't mean: anything with an end, a destination, if you will, a clear narrative arc leading to a conclusion despite the number of volumes. Or anything in which each book is loosely connected to the last one, where the old characters appear or are related to new ones but aren't the main focus of the new story. Let's take a little quiz, shall we?

Harry Potter? Not a series because, and this is very important, it ENDS. That, my friends is the key difference. There is a finale, a closure, a cut off point for the story arc.

What about Jo Beverley's Company of Rogue books? Not a series because each book stands alone and you can read them out of order, some not at all, and never be left out of pertinent plot points. Characters from one book appear in other books, but it is like visiting old friends and you don't feel like you are being jerked around on a never-ending merry-a-go-round of drama, like an episode of "Days of Our Lives" in which ten years in real time only equals about 48 hours in soap opera time.

A Cheap Trick

While researching my PCA/ACA paper I came across a most interesting book entitled Endless Rapture by Helen Hazen. Now for those of you who don't know, romance scholarship has now been listed in waves (Thank you, Eric Selinger for confirming this at dinnerlast week) and this book falls into the first wave which also includes Radway and Modelski. Most of these, as everyone knows, tend to be more pejorative than not. Hazen, however, seems to be taking the opposite tack. The following is going to be my attempt to summarize her argument.

What is at issue is how rape is constructed in 1970's bodice rippers. These rapes vary but they are events that mainly transpire between the hero and the heroine. Hazen is attempting to answer the question "If rape is bad then why does it show up in romances?" Hazen believes that the two general responses to this matter of rape are misguided and wrong. The first response to the contradictory nature and problematic portrayl of rape in romance solves the matter by positing that the rape fantasy indicates women really do want to be dominated and raped. The other response is that of first wave feminism (although in the book she only refers to it as feminism) which simply denies the fantasy. Hazen theorizes that feminism and romance are coming at the same problem albeit from different ends and wants to identify the connection between the "pleasure" women get from reading about rape in romance and the anger that suffuses the women's movement when it comes to rape and sexual exploitation.

Haute Goth

I had a dream last night . . . of course, I'm sketchy on the details . . . but it seemed to be one in which I was a romance novel heroine in the Victorian period and some fella was proposing to me.  And, of course, though I can't remember the details I remember the overall atmosphere of the dream: disturbing and anxious are the two adjectives that come to mind.

It is very clear why I dreamt this: not only have I been mostly reading romance novels I have also been working on my paper for the upcoming PCA conference. My paper this year is on the Gothic so I've been reading a lot of literary theory about it. It's turned my mind to mush. This is not the first vaguely Gothic dream I've had since beginning this paper. I will not bore you, gentle readers, with tales of my dreams. There's nothing so dull as hearing someone else describe what their brain fired at them during the night. Rather what I'd like to discuss today has to do with a small observation I have been coming to all these weeks of reading about the Gothic.

An Open Letter to a Romance Novel Hero

Bastian Toussaint

c/oAnne Stuart

Black Ice

March 4, 2009

Dear Bastien,

But for the whole spy thing, you totally remind me of my ex-boyfriend. I am not exaggerating. You are him, down to the refusal to actually give a straight answer to even the most innocuous of questions. In fact, I have a deeply held suspcion that Anne Stuart may have actually based you on my ex-boyfriend. I have no proof of this because such evidence couldn't possibly exist. Yet, there you are . . .  or he is . . . or whatever, on the pages of a book. Dude, you even fuck like him. It's kind of scary, I'm not going to lie. Maybe Anne Stuart dated my ex-boyfriend or knew somebody who did. This is actually plausible since the ex is the living embodiement of the Duke of Slut. How he hasn't contracted syphillis is a wonder. Perhaps he, and you, too, has some sort of deviant immunity to sexually transmitted diseases. That would make sense as I'm pretty sure you are both Scorpios and as everyone knows, Scorpios are in league with Satan. It isn't a very good league. The Scorpios just exchanged their immortal souls for the superhuman ability to whore-it-up without any consequences and to succeed in their revenge plots against all would be detractors.