Pride and Prejudice and Pedantry

Composing a response to an article that both dismisses an entire genre and denigrates the readers of it with thoughtless bloating is no small feat. If you're just joining us, Mr. Alan Elsner checked out a sampling of romance novels from his local library, chosen with the subtle discernment of buckshot in a windstorm. He elected to read them, one suspects, after being asked one too many times as to whether his novel "Romance Language" was, in fact, a romance. The selection of books he read were so abhorrent, he wrote up a summary of the entire romance genre, accusing it of "sucking all the oxygen out of the room," leaving none for books such as his that feature a "real love story involving real people grappling with real dilemmas." Elsner determined that romance is devoid of any value while he simultaneously elevated his own status among women on the internet with the following statement:

I have nothing against such escapist fiction in principle. And I guess that women have as much right to enjoy pornography packaged to their liking as men. But I simply don't find these books romantic.

In response, I refer to that book he holds in such high regard, "Pride and Prejudice", by Jane Austen:

"You have insulted me in every possible method. You can now have nothing farther to say."

A shabby, patched-up survey of books with no curation involved, let alone curiosity, does not an expert make. I invoke Smart Bitch Law #1: Thou shalt not diss the reading material of another person merely to elevate one's own. By doing so, thou art passing the buck, and verily thou art being a douchebag.

As I pointed out on my own site, to judge romance on the basis of a casual and apparently limited sample is as ludicrous as dismissing HuffPo's entire book section based on the one article. And the truth is, I'm a squeeing fangirl of many of HuffPo's writers, particularly Joanne Rendell who covers romance and women's reading with sharpened panache.

But putting aside the sexist dismissal of women and comparisons to pornography, there is one matter that needs additional clarity: that which Mr. Elsner read most likely wasn't romance.

Books that rest the conflict of the relationship upon sexual congress are not romance, though they are often marketed as such. It is frustrating for readers that books which bear as much resemblance to a romance as I do to Fabio are labeled and sold as romance novels because these books are not what discerning readers of popular romance prefer. But romance novels sell and these mislabeled books are swept along in the profitable tide.

Romance is not ruffly pornography dressed in appealing fashion and dropped into well-worn time periods so that the plebeian readership can get its collective thrills at concupiscent descriptions. Romance, to put it bluntly, is not just sex. If it were, I wouldn't read it. Moreover, there wouldn't be online communities like mine, comprised of smart romance readers who are devoted to the genre.

What is most frustrating for all of us is that there are many readers like Mr. Elsner, who see romance wherever a handful of books are sold and find themselves curious. There are better ways to evaluate a genre than to read a few books chosen without advice or direction, proclaim it all trash, and move on. I know of very few PhDs who acquired their degrees through this method. That's a lazy way to evaluate anything, a method that speaks more of the desire for validation on the part of the reader than of that reader's intellectual curiosity.

Yet romance is judged time and again based on limited, ridiculous criteria such as these, and that judgment is taken seriously. Meanwhile those of us with experience and enthusiastic understanding of the genre are forced to defend it, even as we ourselves are searching through a relentless release of books that are not all romances but are labeled as such in the hopes that our voracious reading will lead to a sale, even under false pretenses. It is impossible to read it all, just as it is impossible for it all to be of excellent, flawless quality.

It is possible, however, to ask for advice and recommendations. So, in the spirit of the happy ending for which romance is rightfully famous, I offer the following reading list and invite anyone who has dismissed the romance genre to rethink any hastily-drawn and inaccurate conclusions. These are some of the best romances written, and I and many of the readers of my site recommend them to you:

"Lord of Scoundrels" by Loretta Chase
"Bet Me" by Jennifer Crusie
"Bitten" by Kelley Armstrong
"Cry Wolf" by Patricia Briggs
"Smooth Talking Stranger" by Lisa Kleypas
"Sea Swept" by Nora Roberts
"The Sharing Knife" by Lois McMaster Bujold

 

Follow Sarah Wendell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SmartBitches

Comments

[athenap]

01:54 PM on 12/10/2009

Way to go, Sarah. Excellent and thought-pr­ovoking rebuttal.

It's sad that there's such an institutio­nal implicatio­n that women have to be guided into reading what they "ought" to be reading by some (male) who knows better. I would have also taken exception to Elsner's quote about romance novels setting "unreasona­ble expectatio­ns about...se­x."

I'm into zombie flicks like crazy...do­es that automatica­lly give me unreasonab­le expectatio­ns about the tastiness of human brains?

[romwriter]

04:58 PM on 12/09/2009

Excellent defender of the genre, Sarah, as you always are.

Best wishes,
Adele Ashworth

[banksofmillbrook]

01:34 PM on 12/09/2009

Taste in art--liter­ary and otherwise-­-is by nature subjective­. I think exploring and discussing the variables of context--t­hose things that make up an individual­'s preference­s--is fascinatin­g. And I think discussion­s of what makes some works "great" and some works not so great are fascinatin­g too. Those are engaging, informativ­e discussion­s. What's incredibly boring is when folks like Mr. Elsner discount entire genres of art without exploring them thoroughly­. And it's also boring when, like Mr. Elsner, you insinuate your own taste is more "tasteful" simply because you don't like what you've seen/read/­listened to etc.

Really. It's so fuddy-dudd­y-ish and narrow to take that kind of view. It's like if someone who ordinarily listens to a classical/­jazz/oldie­s/country station decides to see what's up with pop music, tunes in to a top 40 station, listens to five songs and then says, "Pop music is formulaic and all about sex...and even though they're popular and millions love them and find meaning in these songs, I simply don't find these songs to be 'real' music because they follow the convention­s of the current recording industry. Further, they damage the entire industry because they follow said convention­s." If you don't like those songs, fine. You are free not to like them and not ever change your station. But don't expect pop music lovers to respect, abide or even listen to your very limited opinions.

[gulopartisan]

12:34 PM on 12/09/2009

Romance novels, like fiction in other genres, illustrate­s Sturgeon's Law: "95% of everything is crap." Judging "mystery fiction" by reading a random selection that happens to miss Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Carol O'Connell, and Dennis Lehane might result in a pretty negative assessment­, but judging the genre ONLY based on their work is also distorted. Likewise randomly sampling SciFi without hitting Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson, Theodore Sturgeon, Gene Wolfe and C. J. Cherryh, or judging westerns without reading Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Fred Manfred, or Ivan Doig. I'm sure there are "good" romance novels; the trick is finding them.

[jjasper]

12:29 PM on 12/09/2009

Bravo Sarah. I note that Ensler dings romance for being formulaic. Has he read much Shakespear­e? That's formulaic for the time as well.

I also note that he thinks romance readers get unrealisti­c ideas about sex and romance from books. I watch action movies. Do I therefore think that a few months martial arts training can have me taking on an army of ninjas?

[GraceNotes]

11:05 AM on 12/09/2009

I have recently discovered that Harlequin is reprinting some of the old Georgette Heyer novels. Heyer, born in 1902, is credited with having created the Regency romance and having read a few I enjoyed, especially "Venetia," I can now recommend them to people coming into the library where I work.
The reprints are attractive­, with beautiful cover art, and done in the larger format paperbacks­, so they are not too expensive.

[Chickenqueen]

02:41 AM on 12/09/2009

Brava! Brava! Excellent rebuttal. More thoughtful and better written than the original Elsner post.

[c-tom]

01:32 AM on 12/09/2009

If you're talking about the genre as defined by the big bookstores­, Armstrong and Briggs are both found in the Science Fiction/Fa­ntasy section. Maybe most of the best romance is to be found outside the romance section. In the fantasy sub-genre, I'd also recommend Sparkle Hayter's Naked Brunch as readable.

[AQ Fredrichs]

01:14 AM on 12/09/2009

Attempt number 3.

Congrats on a well written article.

[JCWilder]

11:19 PM on 12/08/2009

Sarah, Well said.

What Elsner said is the same old song and dance romance readers have heard since the invention of the printed word. It's easy to postulate on something you know nothing about when your audience knows even less than you do. Society, in general, has a long murky history of denigratin­g many things that women enjoy.

I can only wonder what he thinks about Clive Cussler's work.

J.C. Wilder, romance author and proud of it

[Holly Gault]

10:58 PM on 12/08/2009

MAragon -- you said: "I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was defeated by the sheer abundance of choice and then in the efforts of trimming it down for examples to study."

He could have asked. There are knowledgea­ble people (why there is a website called Smart Bitches, Trashy Novels, even) who could have given him pointers on some good romances.

[MAragon]

10:40 PM on 12/10/2009

You know something - even if I asked an expert, it's highly unlikely they could recommend something that I could stomach. That may be the issue at the heart of his essay in the end - maybe the genre just doesn't suit him. A very well read friend of mine got me to read a romance novel last year, but only because it was in many ways a spoof of the genre its author so dearly loved. It made me laugh and if it hadn't I would have despised it as much as Charlotte Bronte and her sisters held their time's literary convention­s - especially as regarded female protagonis­ts.

[Sarah Wendell]

09:46 PM on 12/08/2009

Thanks for the kudos, y'all. There are SO many books I could include in a list of must-reads - and twice as many folks to disagree with me on that list.

[spwagner]

10:25 AM on 12/09/2009

Sarah,
I'm appalled at what men consider romance. When books like The Horse Whisperer, Nights in Rodanthe, and Bridges of Madison County are Misreprese­nted at Romance, everyone suffers. Readers of romance have expectatio­ns and men don't understand the 'contract with the reader'. spw

[MAragon]

09:22 PM on 12/08/2009

First, a list from the gentleman might have been helpful. Second, it isn't always easy separating the dreck from the good stuff especially when the cover art can be pretty formulaic thanks to a lack of corporate imaginatio­n. And third, I get his point - sorry - but I have picked up random 'romance' novels in the past - and what he described was what I encountere­d. Pretty formulaic stuff. I think the key is FINDING THE TRULY DECENT WORKS and as there is a lot out there, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was defeated by the sheer abundance of choice and then in the efforts of trimming it down for examples to study. I tend to avoid the genre anymore.

[Gwynnyd]

08:17 PM on 12/08/2009

For all that Mills & Boone/Harl­equin is a powerhouse in the field, there are lots of “romance” novels that are not formulaic, and even in the “category” section most are not plot-less drivel or thinly disguised she-porn. The perception still seems to be, if it is well written and I like it, it can’t be “romance” because all “romance” is trash.

If romance is defined by the HEA, would Pride and Prejudice have been a book more worthy to be called “literatur­e” if Darcy never got together with Elizabeth and she ended up a bitter and impoverish­ed old maid, because, god-forbid­, a happy ending would make it a “romance” and we can’t have any of that trash cluttering up the classics?

The only thing that a “romance” genre novel has to have is a couple and a happy ending - or at least the expectatio­n of a happily ever after for the people involved. How they get there is up to the author. Following Clarke’s Law, 90% of it is still crud, but then, you know, 90% of everything is crud. To point to the bottom 10% (like the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Awards - would anyone assert the nominees for that award define “literatur­e”?) and say “that poorly-wri­tten she-porn over there defines “romance”, therefore I will dismiss the better 90% that can be included in the genre” is ridiculous and pretentiou­s at best.

[c-tom]

01:22 AM on 12/09/2009

That's Sturgeon's Law.

[StaciaKane]

05:42 PM on 12/08/2009

Thanks for a great post, Sarah, and for doing something Mr. Elsner failed to do: providing us with titles.

I personally found it distressin­g that he did not do so, thus denying us the opportunit­y to evaluate his "research" for ourselves and determine whether or not his descriptio­ns of the books he read are accurate, or indeed--as you pointed out--wheth­er or not they're even labeled/so­ld as "romance."

We are all entitled to our own opinions, of course, but it hardly seemed sporting of him to provide no evidence of his claims.

[Sarah Wendell]

09:43 PM on 12/08/2009

You know the hardest part was figuring out which titles to mention. As soon as it was sent in I thought of, like, fifty-four million more. I remain curious what titles Mr. Elsner read, because it would reveal much about his conclusion­s.