(no subject)

[skygiants]

happydork gave me her copy of Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature on the strict condition that I love and cherish it, which I promised earnestly to do!

While I'm not sure I'm ready to propose marriage - it was already a grown-up, published book before I was born, after all, and sadly sometimes that generation gap does make challenges for a committed relationship - I have definitely come away from our time together with a very earnest respect for what it's trying to do and will be keeping it by me in the spirit of friendship!

Reading the Romance is basically an academic work of reader-response criticism on the subject of romance novels that turned itself, sort of by accident, into a feminist discussion of the romance novel industry and the role of romances in the lives of her interviewees, a group of extremely avid suburban readers. The author, Janice Radway, is clearly sort of dubious about the creation and marketing of romance novels - and to be fair, the methods of many romance novel publishers really are sort of shady - but she is trying really hard to be respectful to the women she interviews, to allow them their own voices, and not to suggest that they're stupid or ignorant for finding their joy in romance novel reading.

Which is good, because really it's the voices of the women themselves that make this a text still worth reading. (Well, that and the history of the romance novel publishing industry, which is fascinating! Uh, if you are interested in publishing, at least.) Like I said, Radway's 1984 analysis comes and goes in terms of continued relevancy - I am really sorry, but I cannot take Freudian literary theory seriously anymore in any way at all, and once we got to the bit about how romance novels compensate for the lost mother I had to bury my face in my hands a bit - and her overall analysis for Why People Read Romances (basically, "it allows for a vicarious sense of being emotionally nurtured that women just don't get in our culture where they're supposed to nurture everybody!") cannot be said, even if you accept it, to be necessarily relevant to any romance readers other than the one group she visited in 1984. The community of romance readers is much, much more diverse than that -- and also, thanks to the Internet, much more of a community than it was in 1984 as well, which changes the relationship of romance readers to their romances quite a lot. I loved learning about those women, though, and every single one of their stories was interesting, so I'm grateful to Janice Radway for bringing me that.

But then, as you guys know, I haven't read all that many pure romances myself, and when I do, it's usually the wacky kind and because I'm looking for some light screwball comedy. For those of you who do read romances regularly - have you read this book? What are your thoughts? Even if you haven't, actually, I would like to know your thoughts, although obviously I'm condensing the argument quite a lot!

Comments

[sandrylene]

Can I briefly steal and read the book next weekend, then let you know how I feel about it? ;)

(Not sure I count as a typical romance novel reader either? I try not to read any of them populated with women who don't have agency, which probably rules out a large section of the genre.)

[skygiants]

DONE! :D It is yours for the borrowing, as long as you eventually give it back (I did promise Katy to take good care of it, after all.)

[cursor_mundi]

Heee, I adore Reading the Romance, it's just so solid and methodical that despite its age -- and remember, she collected the data in 1978 and 1979 -- you can see exactly where the issues do and do not line up for modern audiences. What I really enjoyed were the tables of results that questioned readers about particular tropes (including the dread "women with no agency / rape / non-con / however else we term it") and how they responded to those matters, and I have to say -- the ladies of late 1970s (perhaps early 1980s, I think there were followup surveys) Ohio and other states (Kansas, too?) were remarkably articulate about why they did not enjoy those tropes, or why they did and under what conditions.

In fact, SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.com seems, to me, to be operating largely under outlines that Radway laid out...that site is the culmination of the reading and recommending community that Dot created with her newsletters and recommendations sheets.

But yeah, I hear you about the Freudian material. I rather like Radway's 1991 introduction, which addresses a lot of those concerns, and talks about where she would have changed her approaches. Which edition did you have? *is nosy*

[skygiants]

I did in fact have the issue with the 1991 introduction, which I forgot to mention! I wanted to go back and reread the intro after finishing the book to see what she was talking about, but, um, I forgot. I should do that at some point!

I really, really liked the tables also - it was so interesting to see what people did and did not like, and how that was and wasn't reflected in the books that were being published!

The awesome thing that SBTB allows that didn't seem to be happening in the 1970s/1980s is that readers get a chance to talk to each other as well as to the central figure. Radway talks about how surprised she was that the women didn't seem to have really thought of themselves as a community until she started bringing them together for survey groups, and I was a bit surprised too. But with the internet there are loads of awesome other readers right there!

[cursor_mundi]

Yes, the discussions on SBTB are really great -- and not something that was possible back in the '70s or '80s, or even the '90s when Radway wrote the new intro. Mind you, I think there are a lot of women out there who are still in the situations that Radway describes, because they don't have internet or can't work the computer, or simply because they never thought of themselves as a community because a lot of bookstores (and casual judgy people on the street) treat romances as something you need to cover up. Book covers for standard-size romance novels are very popular, still, and I find that so very sad. No other genre is condemned across the board like the romance novel. :(

[skygiants]

That's definitely true as well. I've thought a lot about how difficult it is for girl-geeks to form communities without the internet, because, I think, it's so much less socially acceptable for teen girls to have geeky interests that there's something of that same stigma, but it really is even harder for romance readers. :( It's a real shame.

[happydork]

Isn't it wonderful? I'm so glad you liked it, even with the age difference. (And, yeah, you know how some couples totally make it work with an age difference, to the extent that you only even notice it when some joke about pop songs from their childhood comes up? I don't think you and this book are in that category.) But, yes, so much awesome!

[skygiants]

I am so glad you gave it to me - thank you again! :) As you can see I am already planning on sharing the wealth. (Yeah, alas, I would have to agree! I mean, admittedly I've made it work for a happy and passionate relationship with many works of fiction with as large an age difference or greater, but I think that is mostly because they lie to me. >.>)

[surexit]

EURGH FREUDIAN LITERARY THEORY.

This is a topic I would like to have thoughts on! But it's 10.30pm. Can I possibly have thoughts tomorrow? If there are any thoughts to have - my brain might be empty.

[skygiants]

YOU CAN CERTAINLY HAVE THOUGHTS TOMORROW. I am typing this while on the run between classes so I will not have thoughts until then either anyway! \o/

[surexit]

OH GOD I HAVE NO THOUGHTS.

Except that people shouldn't be so shitty about romances, and that the world would be a nicer place if things which were mainly liked by women were not quite so heavily looked down on.