Why a Reluctant Romance Reader?

Romance novels aren't for everyone.

They were certainly for my 10th grade English teacher. She was lending paperbacks to a classmate when I decided to give one a try. I think I read two that year: one involved pirates, I'm almost certain. The second had the respectable daughter of a petty nobleman who was accidentally raped in a stable ("Is this part of kissing, too?") by the new groom who was actually a prince in disguise, and couldn't understand why her father was overjoyed to hand her over to someone lower than her.

I wasn't easily hooked.

Harlequins and romance novels were cheap and tawdry, and I was devoted to real literature. The next year might have been when I read The Mists of Avalon about 6 times. So it wasn't the sex or seduction that I didn't like. Far from it. Also a sub-genre, and a popular one at that, but fantasy seems to have more legitimacy, somehow.

In college I sought out some erotica that felt more transgressive--the diary of Joe Orton, an abridged Marquis de Sade. Not "romance," though. That was sappy and formulaic.

In short, my idea of romance novels did not align with my intellectual aspirations.

I was also very cynical about love and marriage, and this was probably an important point. If you don't believe in a 'happily ever after,' if you reject not only that one person can change another, but that people can grow together, romance novels are bound to fall flat. No matter how much you like the naughty bits, that's not enough to sustain a romance reading habit, particularly for someone looking for philosophical substance, intellectual gratification, involved plot structure, and identification with complex characters. In other words, snobs and English majors--and I was both.

But some books are gateway drugs...

After getting my Ph.D., completely burned out on reading what I was "supposed to read," I discovered Diana Gabaldon. But her books really aren't romance. Are they? The jury is out. They weren't romance to me, because while I was ready for some pleasure reading, I wasn't ready to commit to a genre that seemed, well, trite. In the Outlander books, I found a lot of substance for literary analysis. I wrote a lot of blog posts. I even published an article on the implications of contraception in the books, which are more complex than you might think.

I am Catholic, which complicates some things.

In addition to that intellectual snobbery, there is some concern that reading about sex--particularly explicit descriptions of sex--is probably a sin. Or at the very least, it makes living a chaste life in and out of marriage more difficult.

On the other hand, there are certain affinities...

A Catholic perspective definitely informed my Outlander reading and analysis. The author self-identifies as Catholic, and while hardly orthodox, there are strong strains of Catholic tradition. Romance novels also--more often than not--affirm marriage and family. Having grown up, gotten married, had children, become Catholic, and decided that marriage could, in fact, work, and that children and families are worth affirming, a genre that did so gained some appeal.

This doesn't mean that there aren't romance- or romance-sub-genre-authors who deliberately subvert traditional marriage, family structures, heteronormativity, etc.--which means, look! romance is a literary genre that exists in discourse with structures of society, historical and contemporary ideas! So basically, romance does what literature is wont to do. And then you have Gabaldon's books, which comment rather directly on the romance genre itself. I almost wrote a conference paper on that topic, but I don't know that I knew what I didn't know about romance literature, and I might have made an ass of myself. Better to back out of that conference.

After Diana Gabaldon, or perhaps while I was waiting for the latest book, I discovered Gail Carriger, who does both: challenges heteronormativity, and also depicts a deeply loving, mostly functional, heterosexual marriage relationship including bumps along the way (pun intended for those who know the Parasol Protectorate series). With sex. And vampires. And werewolves. And amazing steam-powered machines.

Dear Reader, I wrote a romance novel once.

In November 2011, for NaNoWriMo, I tried my hand at writing a novel. It was a fairy tale. It was an exploration of faith. It was an exploration of relationships. It was based in a poem by Matthew Arnold. There were mermaids. And nuns. An almost-priest with a lecherous father. And sex. Also family and reconciliation. It isn't too bad, and I broke through the semi-shame of actually claiming I was writing a novel. Was it a romance novel? Very possibly. But you see that I clung to that intellectual frame of reference: must be based on "real" literature. Also, I just needed a premise. I'm not good at coming up with novel ideas, or I guess I'd be a novelist.

Finally, I was bored, and I decided I didn't care... much. Also, I had a Kindle.

Never underestimate the power of technology. As much as the black pit of job market despair influenced my reading choices, so did my ability to read without fear of judgment (or questions from  my family). There are certain "tells" when I'm reading a racy scene, but no one has noticed. I do have a daughter who wants to know if I'm reading something interesting, but she's not of a disposition to like sexy things. I would have at her age, but everyone is different. So I do shield the Kindle from the nosy young ladies in the household. But that's not the same as trying to find a physical space in which to squirrel them away!

I can't read just any romance novel.

And that will likely be my next post. What do I read? I started by searching, quite deliberately, for smart romance novels. Intellectual, even. Even so, there are some well-regarded authors whose works I just find hard to handle. Difficult to swallow? Over-the-top. Ummm... Not for me. But even so, I find that the "Romance" collection in my Kindle has far surpassed any other categorized genre at around 71 titles. Not all of the ones I have purchased are great, so there's that. But if I want to be selective, I have to purchase them. The ones available for free (or really cheap) tend to be the ones I find unreadable, though I can sometimes get good deals on good authors.

So I've started this blog.

I've read a lot of romance novels at this point, though they all share particular characteristics. I'm not a fan of certain sub-sub-genres, for example. Limited kilts. Few shape-shifters. And no contemporary. I'm not inclined to analyze the novels I read, but I do want a place to record observations. Maybe even categorize them according to my own criteria. Because, for one thing, I don't reread many, and the details blur. The details don't often blur for me when I read. But romance novels blur. And sometimes there are novels and moments worth remembering.

It will be important to know a few things:

• This blog will not be a criticism-free zone. I will post about novels I don't like much, and do so unapologetically.
• There will likely be spoilers. I like spoilers. I don't even necessarily register spoilers because they don't spoil things for me. If I want to read, I'll still read.
• I don't know all of the common terms and acronyms. I know that "sweet" means what's the point no sex. So I won't use them.
• I will devise my own criteria based on what I like.
• I don't really go in for screen adaptations, so no Bridgerton.
• I read the Bridgerton novels before they were cool, but I like other things by Julia Quinn better.
• I am an inclusive reader by nature, but I don't seek out romance novels specifically on that basis, so diversity may be limited. This is not intentional, just an accident of reading.
• I don't really have an agenda. I'm writing for fun.
• I like discussion, but I'm not particularly interested in debate. Comments are welcome, but will be moderated.

What else would you like to know?