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DEAR ABBY said something about romance novels that prompted several well-known authors to write to her. This article makes me shake my head.
Is reading about finding a partner with whom to share your life that bad? No, no, no, it's the institution of marriage, right? To want to marry is bad. No, no, no, it's the need for a man, the need to live with a partner. No, no, no, it's love, isn't it? Love = Hahaha, that's not real life, that's fantasy.
I don't know about you, but for me, the plots (far off places, exotic jobs, etc.) might be fantasy, but the emotions aren't. Call me crazy roofer, but I happen to believe there is such a thing as real love.
Yet, many non-readers of ANY BOOKS, including Dear Abby advisors, have these entrenched notions that reading romance novels is just feeding our delusions. There is this concept that reading "good" books makes you better than others and that reading "naughty and bad" books makes you a stupid person. If reading Plato makes a person wise about politics, how the hell do we get those guys in office right now who can't figure out right from wrong? Gah.
There are a lot of people walking around like our contortionist in the picture. Every Platonic concept is just as idealized as our concept of love and justice, if you ask me! :-)
But let's get to the true rant: It's Friday. I have visitors. I have to vacuum! Horrors. My S.O. always call my home my nest. Bah. My home is not a museum, 'kay? If you pay to see my artifacts, maybe I'll dust and arrange and put away, instead of ignore and pile up and kick away, heh heh.
At least my front garden looks really nice.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Mini Rant
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4 comments:
I'd much rather go to home that was comfortable and lived in versus a museum, I'm not big into culture, LOL. As for the article, at least she admitted she didn't know what she was talking about cause she was soooo busy with all of her mail. My quibble is the person representing the other side doesn't write romance, Kate Douglas writes erotica (and I didn't like what she wrote) so she doesn't do a good job of representing the bodice ripper genre. Good for the authors to write in though!
It's always the perception from those who don't read the genre that gets me, you know? I don't go around saying, "Oh, mystery books, they'll really make your children macabre and murderous!" or "Oh, fantasies are just fairy tales with aliens, and really, people who read them fantasizes too much." Dear Abby gives advice about romance all the time and yet they (the two women who are the advisors now) shows how narrowly they define their world.
You know what a big frustration to me is when it comes to reading romance? The stereotype that we (as women AND readers) are unhappy with our own romantic lives, therefore try to live vicariously through what we don't understand is fiction. That's such a load of CRAP. And it is annoying and frustrating.
I'm perfectly happy with my perfectly normal marriage and my perfectly normal life. Just because romance in my life constitutes a glass of wine and a ten minute conversation with my husband after the kids go to bed, doesn't mean that I'm unhappy. What I am is someone who loves reading romance because it is fiction and it takes me away from what is a normally hectic day.
*stepping off soapbox*
Sorry about that rant. I just get so frustrated!
Hi Casee,
Rant away ;-). I know how you feel. Fortunately for me, the people I'm around with, even though they aren't readers per se--construction people, regular working people--have always been so encouraging and happy for me. I think it's the "intellectuals" who aren't comfortable with it because they look down on the "normal" working people. That's my opinion anyway ;-). I bet my professors in college would be horrified that their favorite Malaysian student from the philosophy program is writing romance, heh.
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