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Sometimes I think I was destined to be a romance reader the day I picked up my first Sweet Valley High and imagined myself a perfect size six blond, with blue-green eyes and a heart shaped face. Or perhaps before that, when I fell in love with Anne of Green Gables and Little Women and Emily of New Moon.
These stories created certain triggers that informed my developing tastes. Underpinning most of these tales (particularly the older ones) was a black and white morality. The importance of virtue and the value of self-sacrifice, of good triumphing over evil. Where Elizabeth was saintly, Jessica was selfish: Elizabeth routinely saved the day, Jessica’s life and her reputation. Interestingly, the protagonists were all writers, or aspiring writers, who clung strongly to this creative identity. Most of all, Anne, Emily and Jo got their guy. Though not conventionally beautiful or accomplished, something about them - be it spirit, passion, independence or their ‘otherness’ - attracted the love and admiration of men.
The idea of ‘goodness,’ the ‘good girl’ the ‘martyr’ is a big part of romance. Heroines are rarely bitchy, selfish or unkind. In fact, it seems to me that the virtue of a heroine is just as great a prerequisite for readers of romance as a Happy Ever After. This is particularly true in categories and often the case in historicals. It is in the new breed of romance - the hybrids like urban fantasy and erotic romance that heroines have greater freedom to be flawed, to flaunt their inner bitch.
Are romance novels morality tales? If so, is the appeal waning? Looking back, Elizabeth Wakefield seems an insufferable prig, and I can only shake my head at the more heavy handed moralising in Little Women. Jessica Wakefield and Amy March seem, for all their flaws, the more interesting and vivid characters in their respective books. I recently closed a book after fifty pages, unable to take another example of the heroine’s ‘inner light,’ her innate ability to win over grumpy servants, lecherous uncles and haughty aristocrats. I know, ten years ago, this book would have thrilled me. Now, I find myself bristling at these old fashioned ideas (it doesn’t help that virtue is linked, sometimes inextricably, with class, good breeding and even beauty).
What of younger readers? If I was brought up on the righteous moralising of one Elizabeth Wakefield, what of the millions of young girls growing up with Gossip Girl? In a recent article on the series, Janet Malcolm describes the ‘heartlessness of youth’ at the centre of this provocative and popular YA series. Here, the protagonists indulge in drinking, drugs, sex and, of course, gossip. It is difficult to reconcile the rampant consumerism, self-obsession and cold blooded ambition of these characters to those I read whilst growing up. I wonder what young girls, having grown up reading of the machination of Blair Waldorf would make of timid secretaries, virgin mistresses and virtuous widows. Will the romance market adapt to accommodate the very different expectations of its incoming readers?
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I haven’t read much YA fiction, but you’ve pinpointed the genesis of my love/hate relationship with “women’s fiction”.
I never read Sweet Valley High, but I had a different take on the other two. I loathed Little Women for what I saw as punishing independent, writerly rebel Jo (who didn’t get her guy–she couldn’t marry fun-loving, well-to-do Laurie but ended up playing den-mother for an older man’s school) and rewarding vapid, useless brat Amy. I enjoyed the first Anne of Green Gables book but disliked the later books in which Anne’s life was eclipsed by Gilbert’s, and she gave up her writing and dreaming and felt un-glamorous and dull.
My mother had loved Little Women as a child, but when it upset me she re-read it and we discussed it. She agreed that it was judgmental and unfair, and said perhaps it was time to retire that book from young people’s libraries. However, she wasn’t comfortable replacing those books with other potentially moralistic YA; instead she looked for adult books that I could enjoy.
Years later I started reading romance via Harlequin Presents, which (for the most part) I didn’t find nearly as moralistic. I re-read some of my favorite old Harlequins last year and I still don’t think they’re even close to as didactic as many Harlequin Presents are today–or as a lot of YA fiction.
Is there a connection? I have no idea; I know so little about “girls’” YA that I’m not even sure when SVH became popular or whether those books and romance have much shared readership. Perhaps today’s form of moralistic romance appeals to a generation who *did* grow up on YA, or who enjoyed Little Women and the Anne books. Or perhaps there’s no connection at all.
by RfP
on April 21st, 2008 at 8:28 pm
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RfP, you were a far more discerning reader than me at that age. Although I was grossly dissatisfied by Good Wives (I never got why Jo would ditch Laurie for that bearded old guy), it was much later that I questioned the underlying message. At least Anne gets to go to college and have a couple of boyfriends; poor Jo. After convincing her she’s writing trash, bearded old guy has her ‘playing den-mother,’ as you put it.
It’s nowhere near as bad as What Katy Did (which, again, I read with uncritical enjoyment). Here’s what Wiki says: “What makes Katy’s case so provocative is that Coolidge deliberately conflates the code of womanhood and the code of cheerful invalidism.” Sneaky.
Emily was better. In the end, she hooks up with an artist, and there is a strong indication that she intends to pursue her writing career.
The thing is, growing up in the late 80s and 90s, there was lots of SVHs and very little else. I can remember how thrilling and subversive it felt to read a Christopher Pike, where kids actually got drunk and had sex and didn’t preach about it.
I think it’s changing now. A teenager today, reading the Gossip Girl series will find nothing relatable in The Greek Tycoon’s Pregnant Mistress… I think. I’m not sure what kids are reading today, what their entrée is to romance. I just suspect (and hope) it’s a little different from mine.
by Meriam
on April 22nd, 2008 at 7:46 am
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I wonder if I had started reading the genre at a young age — would that change my views of it now?
I think Romance is a morally-focused genre, although not all Romances, IMO, are morality tales. However, the good v. evil, True Love, marriage and family focus does make it inevitable, IMO, that moral values would be strongly implicated. Although I wish the genre was more nuanced about morals and about ethics, which I think are often sidestepped for the lure of the moral debate.
And I can’t help recommending Charlotte Lamb’s category, Vampire Lover for a heroine who really subverts the martyr role in a fascinating way.
I don’t think that the morality-focus is changing, just that the contested territory is a big rockier.
by Robin
on April 22nd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
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I really must get my hands on this Vampire Lover. Ever since Sandra Schwab described it in such glowing and intriguing terms, I’ve been itching to read it.
Interesting that categories used to be more subversive in the past. It’s topsy-turvy.
btw, RfP, are you going to name some of your favourite older Presents?
by Meriam
on April 23rd, 2008 at 6:06 pm
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Meriam, it’s in no way a perfect book. In fact, once she turns things on their head the end of the book comes very quickly. But it’s just amazing, because this is not a heroine who sits around and waits for life to happen to her — she does some pretty ballsy (and manipulative!) stuff with no apology for it.
A friend of mine encouraged me to get some of Lamb’s backlist, and as I read through them, I’ll report on any intersting ones.
by Robin
on April 24th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
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“there was lots of SVHs and very little else”
I didn’t feel like that–maybe because my mother actively looked for adult books for me, and by my pre-teens she also allowed me to read anything in her bookcase. (We had a little discussion when I read The Thornbirds–that rocked her! But she didn’t change her policy.)
“you were a far more discerning reader than me at that age”
I was probably not discerning, just angry at what happened to my favorite character. And I might not have reacted that way if it hadn’t been so different from the rest of my reading. Which comes around again to the question of whether early readings can set up the expectation of a moralistic tone in fiction.
“I’m not sure what kids are reading today, what their entrée is to romance.”
I think SB Sarah has said that teen romances were her entrée too. Judging by their popularity, that may be common. However, I imagine people have made the leap from many genres–romance is omnipresent in literature. I know I’m not alone: a number of my friends have never read a SVH, and some of us found romance anyway. Shana Abe says she “went straight from Nancy Drew to Regencies”. As for me, as a teen I briefly read sci fi/fantasy, then moved down the genre fiction aisle to romance. I found category romance and sf/f similar: two different ways to create enormous intensity, often involving heroic, special main characters facing some kind of quest.
A teenager today, reading the Gossip Girl series will find nothing relatable in The Greek Tycoon’s Pregnant Mistress
I’m not so sure. I think those titles reflect something cultural that teens can pick up on without reading a word of SVH or Gossip Girls. On the other hand I didn’t find the bodice-rippers “relatable”, nor do I grok The Greek Tycoon’s Pregnant Mistress, so not all of us pick up those messages in the same ways.
by RfP
on April 26th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
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