Well, Now I Know I Don't Write Books

New knowledge of the day: You haven't been reading books. In fact, you have been reading stuff that are sort of like Soduku or Hustler Magazine.

While discussing/ranting about a particularly stupid and misogynist Washington Post article by a woman whose premise is "women really are dumb" (and she wasn't joking), a popular political blogger wrote:

"romance novels*...are not "books", as that word is normally used. They are either tools for relaxation or the female equivalent of porn. They should therefore be compared not to War and Peace, but to either Ultimate Sudoku or the Hustler centerfold."

Many of the following comments ignored this little nugget in their agreement with said blogger about her rant, till Gary Farber, who is made of teh Awesome:

"So I hate to stand up in the middle of a good rant.

But, well, although I've never worked on romance novels myself -- although I've worked on stuff with cross-over appeal for a variety of companies -- I spent years working as an editor for a company, Avon Books, whose bread and butter was romance novels, as well as freelancing for many years with my houses with romance lines.

I worked every day for years side-by-side with romance editors. We had offices and desks next to each other, just a couple of handfuls of editors. I learned a fair amount about the field, and its similarities and differences to other genre fiction over the years.

What Hilzoy said is, I regret to say, a load of class-based, ignorant, anti-genre, elitist, crap. It's the identical kind of crap dumped ono genre writers of every sort, be they mystery writers, sf or fantasy writers, children's books writers, romance book writers, or what have you.

In every genre, there's a lot of crap, there's a lot of mediocre stuff, there's some good stuff, there's some great stuff, and there's some occasionally brilliant stuff. That's as true of the genre of "literature," or "mainstream" fiction as it is of any flavor of fiction or nonfiction.

There are no firm boundaries or borders between genres, and there's no homogenity of quality whatever.

There are no divisions into "this genre is all worthy" and "this genre is such garbage that we can't even call what we put it in "books," let alone call the producers "writers."

[...] "Second, romance novels are not 'books', as that word is normally used. They are either tools for relaxation or the female equivalent of porn. They should therefore be compared not to War and Peace, but to either Ultimate Sudoku or the Hustler centerfold." And what does that make the writers, and the editors?
This is seriously offensive stuff, Hilzoy. How would you feel about someone writing a rant like this about philosophy professors, and their work?

Should I give you some phone numbers of romance novel writers and editors, so you can tell them you've carefully considered their careers, their decades of work, and their individual novels, and that you've evaluated them, distinguishing the quality of one writer and none novel from the next thoughtfully, and that this is your valuation and verdict on their work? Or should they just come by the blog, maybe after some links, to read your opinion of what they do?

I hope you'll consider rewriting this. I realize that I'm really seriously offended by it; wait until some of the actual romance folks see it, if you want a real unhappy reaction.

But it turns out that us folks who produce such horrible and worthless nonliterature are actually really people, who have weird delusions that their work isn't pseudo-porn trash to be pissed on by people who feel superior to it, and to its readers.
The upper end of the romance genre is Jane Austen. What's appealing is the stories, and the characters, and the writing. Want to pick on an individual work, or writer, as lousy? Fine. Go do it.

Want to trash an entire genre, and all its writers and readers?

This arouses unwelcome responses, including impulsive and rude imperative suggestions involving recommended actions, that I shall decline to make.
But they weren't terribly original suggestions, and thus I leave them to dwell in the reader's imagination.

Ironically -- but not -- War And Piece is stuffed with romance genre elements, by the way."

He couldn't have said it any better. And--you know it's bound to happen--as word got out in Romancelandia, linkages started way, way earlier today and we have Nora Roberts, Ann Aguirre, and other authors weighing in. Okay, I did too, but only one small post, so there, and was certainly in no way as eloquent as Mr. Farber, La Nora, and the others.

You can find the whole LONG-ASS THREAD HERE.

But you didn't know, did you, that those thousands of things in your bookcases are really NON-books and that they are porn. Tell me, do you think the romance books you buy aren't books but actually sort of Hustle Magazines for women?

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Speaking of Mr. Farber, since he mentioned he was an Avon junior editor, I clicked to his site. I'm always willing to help out a fellow human down on his luck and it seems Mr. Farber is having some truly bad times. I may be an out-of-work roofer, but at least I'm not living on desperation yet. So, if you would like to help out this man (you can read his story HERE after you scroll past his Paypal buttons, which can be a bit offputting to some readers, but scroll down anyway, and read what he has to say).

I don't personally know Mr. Farber and really can't vouch for him. The blogging community appears to know him well enough. However, after reading his plight, I'm compelled to show some compassion for someone whose current options are few. If every one of my readers donate a dollar or two, he should have a couple of months' rent taken care of while he works to straighten out his disability paperwork. I know how it feels to live on the verge of calm desperation. Besides, his awesome post at the initial site to which I linked is worth my couple of dollars! :-)

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