I spent the summer I turned sixteen in Austria.
The ostensible reason was to broaden my horizons by having me accompany the German Club on their summer trip to Central Europe for a month of language lessons, culture, and exposure to Old Europe. That I was a member of the Latin Club made it pretty clear that this wasn’t the whole or even the primary motive. My father had died very suddenly the year before, and I’ve wondered if the trip was a convenient way for Mum and me to grieve properly without becoming overly bonded to each other.
Regardless, I had a marvelous time. I roamed Salzburg’s Baroque glories on my rented bicycle, zipping through traffic with my purse strapped across my chest. I ate Mozartkugeln and Lindt chocolate and Sacher torte, and tasted Wiener schnitzel in Vienna itself. I saw the Vienna Woods and drank the new wine in Grinzing, bought a watch in Zurich, saw the Lion of Lucerne and Cellini’s salt cellar and Mozart’s own piano. A pigeon shat on my head outside the Hofburg Palace, and one dark night I packed my evening gown into my bike carrier and rode across the river to Schloss Mirabell to hear a chamber music concert in the palace Archbishop Wolf-Dietrich had built for his beautiful Jewish mistress, Salome Alt. I fell in a stream at the pleasure palace of Hellbrunn and ate fresh-grown yellow cherries and sang The Star Spangled Banner on a bus traveling the autobahn.
It was the most glorious summer of my young life.
There was only one serious flaw: I couldn’t find enough books to read. Oh, there were plenty of newsstands, and it was fairly easy to get copies of Time, Newsweek, and the International Tribune, but actual books were another matter. I’d brought a couple with me (most notably my battered copy of Star Trek: The New Voyages, Paramount’s first anthology of semi-authorized fanfiction) but even then I could blow through the average paperback in about three hours. Finding a copy of It Can’t Happen Here at a tobacco shop only helped for a couple of days.
As you can imagine, I was getting pretty desperate when I realized that my roommate had also brought a book with her. I didn’t know her well – she was from a high school near Cleveland and we had absolutely nothing in common except gender and age – and that didn’t really change by the end of the summer. She was a few months younger than I was but knew all the feminine arts of makeup and hairstyle and clothing that had completely eluded me, and somehow I wasn’t surprised when she started dating an older boy and spent as little time in our room as possible. I also wasn’t surprised that she didn’t seem to be making much progress on her book, even though it was much thicker than anything I’d brought with me.
One lovely summer day I had a few hours to kill and nothing to do. I’d completed my minimal German homework, run errands, and had all but memorized every piece of English language fiction and journalism in the house. I didn’t have a notebook so I couldn’t write, and I was just about to head downstairs to watch Bonanza dubbed into German with my host family when I spotted her book, neatly lying by the lamp next to her bed.
The book was a romance novel. Not only that, it was one of the brand-new, controversial, hot-and-sexy romances that featured far-ranging plots, a constantly battling hero and heroine, and sex.
Explicit sex. Lots of explicit sex. With lots of men, some of whom the heroine wasn’t married to. Some of it wasn’t even her idea, and one memorable scene seemed to involve something really, really, really filthy even though the author had suddenly developed a curious sense of modesty over just what the villain was doing that was so horrible. I hadn’t had so interesting, or educational, a time since the night I’d stayed up late at my aunt’s house and found myself watching Mandingo on the illegal HBO channel that her spare room TV picked up from the neighbor’s house.
That the book was So Bad It Was Good Goes without saying.
I’m not sure why, but I’ve never been all that fond of romance novels. I’ve read a few over the years, and like anyone else I enjoy a good love story along with my swashbuckler or fantasy or mystery. I’ve even read a few of the new male/male erotic romances directed at women, and if that makes me a pervert, well, I’ve been called worse.
Traditional romances, though, usually leave me cold. The sole exception has been the In Death series of futuristic mysteries by JD Robb, a pseudonym of romance writer Nora Roberts, and that’s almost certainly because this is the one series where Roberts is exploring what happens after two strong willed lovers settle down and discover that having their happily-ever-after is hard.
None of tonight’s selections is exactly traditional, at least not in the sense of following in the well-worn paths trod by other writers. The first founded the genre itself and set the stage for thousands of Harlequins to come, while the second is a fine early example of one of the most destructive tropes in fiction. The third -
The third has a very special meaning for me, as you’ll learn in good time.
Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded, by Samuel Richardson. Samuel Richardson’s 1740 novel can, with some justification, claim to be the very first romance novel in English. So many of the tropes we see in modern category romances are here, only fresh and new: an innocent young heroine; a dashing, somewhat dangerous man who threatens her person and her honor; an upper class setting; and a long, juicy look at the snobbery and licentiousness of the moneyed and propertied of Georgian Britain. All of this was told in the form of letters from one character to another that offer a rare look into the characters’ thoughts.
Pamela is the story of young, beautiful, innocent, virtuous Pamela Andrews, a fifteen year old servant girl who finds herself working for the handsome, mysterious Mr. B-----. Since Mr. B----- is a typically randy Georgian buck, he decides that nothing will do but for him to seduce this blushing young English rose. To his great surprise, Pamela absolutely refuses to be seduced, even when threatened with rape. Even more to his surprise, Mr. B---- finds himself falling in love with Pamela because of her virtue and refusal to become yet another conquest unless Mr. B----- puts a ring on it. Their eventual marriage is threatened by the local squirearchy's treatment of Pamela until she finally wins them over through her kindness, meekness, gentleness, inner nobility of spirit, etc., leading to the inevitable happy ending.
Unfortunately, Pamela is nowhere as entertaining as it sounds. What critic Richard Armour termed “eight swiftly moving volumes, if you throw them out a window” could qualify as a form of torture for English majors to this day, as Pamela writes letters that resemble nothing so much as etiquette manuals, Mr. B---- reads them, and so on and so on. Not even wondering what Mr. B----‘s surname was could keep me awake when I tried to read the book in college, and I finally gave up and bought the Cliff’s Notes after the sixth time I fell asleep on the first page.
For the curious, and the masochistic, here’s a little sample:
LETTER I
DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,
I have great trouble, and some comfort, to acquaint you with. The
trouble is, that my good lady died of the illness I mentioned to you,
and left us all much grieved for the loss of her; for she was a dear
good lady, and kind to all us her servants. Much I feared, that as I
was taken by her ladyship to wait upon her person, I should be quite
destitute again, and forced to return to you and my poor mother, who
have enough to do to maintain yourselves; and, as my lady's goodness
had put me to write and cast accounts, and made me a little expert at my
needle, and otherwise qualified above my degree, it was not every family
that could have found a place that your poor Pamela was fit for: but
God, whose graciousness to us we have so often experienced at a pinch,
put it into my good lady's heart, on her death-bed, just an hour before
she expired, to recommend to my young master all her servants, one by
one; and when it came to my turn to be recommended, (for I was sobbing
and crying at her pillow) she could only say, My dear son!--and so broke
off a little; and then recovering--Remember my poor Pamela--And these
were some of her last words! O how my eyes run--Don't wonder to see the
paper so blotted.
Despite what has to be characterized as prose approximately the weight of cast plutonium, Pamela was wildly popular among all social classes, to the point that Anglican divines inveighed against its supposed licentiousness. It was also widely parodied, and it’s no surprise to learn that Henry Fielding’s picaresque novel Joseph Andrews was at least partially intended as a role reversal starring Pamela’s brother Joseph and his attempts to fend off Mr. B-----‘s relative Lady Booby as she seeks to strip him of his virginity. Fielding also wrote a more scathing parody called Shamela, where Pamela is a manipulative little tart who attempts to manipulate kindly Squire Booby into marrying her by feigning virtue and meekness.
One wonders if Harlequin would be interested in a modern rewrite. Perhaps this time Mr. B----- will get a better surname than "Booby."
The Sheik, by Edith Maude Hull. The most popular film star of the 1920s was the dashing, exotic, dark-eyed Rudolf Valentino. With looks that could have come straight off an Art Moderne frieze, a piercing gaze, and charisma that burns right through the scene even today, Valentino was the first and greatest example of a Latin lover. His death in 1926 of acute peritonitis caused the sort of hysteria later associated with the demise of such legends as James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Kurt Cobain, and an estimated 100,000 mourners choked the streets of New York to honor his funeral cortege.
The film that made Valentino the idol of millions was, of course, The Sheik. Based on a potboiler composed by English author Edith Maude Hull while her husband served in the Great War, The Sheik told the story of Diana Mayo, a spirited Englishwoman who is abducted by a charismatic local sheik. The two eventually find love, of course, while setting hearts a-throb and film studio coffers a-ringing. So popular was The Sheik that Valentino was forced to make a sequel, Son of the Sheik, while young swains across America became known as sheiks and their girlfriends as shebas.
The film was racy for its time (the Sheik abducts Diana! Diana wears trousers! She prefers an Arab to a white man! He’s not really Arab!) but still relatively restrained when it comes to the actual relationship between the characters. The novel is a different animal, as is clear from Diana’s first encounter with Ahmed ben Hassan:
"Why have you brought me here?" she asked, fighting down the fear that was growing more terrible every moment.
He repeated her words with a slow smile. "Why have I brought you here? Bon Dieu! Are you not woman enough to know?"
She shrank back further, a wave of colour rushing into her face that receded immediately, leaving her whiter than she had been before. Her eyes fell under the kindling flame in his. "I don't know what you mean," she whispered faintly, with shaking lips.
"I think you do." He laughed softly, and his laugh frightened her more than anything he had said. He came towards her, and although she was swaying on her feet, desperately she tried to evade him, but with a quick movement he caught her in his arms.
Terror, agonising, soul-shaking terror such as she had never imagined, took hold of her. The flaming light of desire burning in his eyes turned her sick and faint. Her body throbbed with the consciousness of a knowledge that appalled her. She understood his purpose with a horror that made each separate nerve in her system shrink against the understanding that had come to her under the consuming fire of his ardent gaze, and in the fierce embrace that was drawing her shaking limbs closer and closer against the man's own pulsating body. She writhed in his arms as he crushed her to him in a sudden access of possessive passion. His head bent slowly down to her, his eyes burned deeper, and, held immovable, she endured the first kiss she had ever
received. And the touch of his scorching lips, the clasp of his arms, the close union with his warm, strong body robbed her of all strength, of all power of resistance.
With a great sob her eyes closed wearily, the hot mouth pressed on hers was like a narcotic, drugging her almost into insensibility. Numbly she felt him gather her high up into his arms, his lips still clinging closely, and carry her across the tent through curtains into an adjoining room. He laid her down on soft cushions. "Do not make me wait too long," he whispered, and left her.
I think we can all guess what happens next. Worse, instead of reacting like a normal woman, Diana proceeds to fall in love with the Sheik after he rapes her, to the point where she gives up a perfect opportunity to escape because she loves him so much.
Riight.
Not that she actually tells the Sheik that she loves him. Oh, no. In the fine tradition of romance heroines through the ages, Diana is convinced that the Sheik not only doesn’t love her, he would find her boring if she actually said she loved him, and cast her aside for a less yielding woman. And of course despite her love, she has no clue when the Sheik inevitably falls in love with her, leading to one of the most ridiculous climaxes in literary history:
[After being told that the Sheik is sending her back to England for her own good, Diana grabs a gun and lifts] the revolver to her temple resolutely.
There had been no sound to betray what was passing behind him, but the extra sense, the consciousness of imminent danger that was strong in the desert-bred man, sprang into active force within the Sheik. He turned like a flash and leaped across the space that separated them, catching her hand as she pressed the trigger, and the bullet sped harmlessly an inch above her head. With his face gone suddenly ghastly he wrenched the weapon from her and flung it far into the night.
For a moment they stared into each other's eyes in silence, then, with a moan, she slipped from his grasp and fell at his feet in an agony of terrible weeping. With a low exclamation he stooped and swept her up into his arms, holding her slender, shaking figure with tender strength, pressing her head against him, his cheek on her red-gold
curls.
"My God! child, don't cry so. I can bear anything but that," he cried brokenly.
But the terrible sobs went on, and fearfully he caught her closer, straining her to him convulsively, raining kisses on her shining hair.
"Diane, Diane," he whispered imploringly, falling back into the soft French that seemed so much more natural. "Mon amour, ma bien-aimee. Ne pleures pas, je t'en prie. Je t'aime, je t'adore. Tu resteras pres de moi, tout a moi."
She seemed only half-conscious, unable to check the emotion that, unloosed, overwhelmed her. She lay inert against him, racked with the long shuddering sobs that shook her. His firm mouth quivered as he looked down at his work. Gathering her up to his heart he carried her to the divan, and the weight of her soft slim body sent the blood racing madly through his veins. He laid her down, and dropped on his knees beside her, his arm wrapped round her, whispering words of passionate love.
That's correct. After being abducted, raped, and so on for most of the book, Diana tries to commit suicide rather than be separated from her oh-so-manly sheik. And he, rather than taking the gun and telling her to calm down because she's acting like an ass, snatches her up in his manly arms and whispers "words of passionate love."
I repeat: riight.
Worse, Diana's passion for the man who raped her set the stage for many, many, many "romantic" heroines who fall madly in love with the bold, dashing, manly man who tears her away from friends and family, forcibly takes her virginity, and then treats her like trash until he nearly loses her, after which he's supposed to be a faithful, tender husband and lover.
And people complain about Edward and Bella being unhealthy role models.
Dark Fires, by Rosemary Rogers. Despite the heated eroticism of The Sheik and its descendants, explicit sexual encounters simply did not occur in romance novels. The heroines, whether in short category romances or longer hardcover novels, were either innocent virgins or virtuous widows. Oh, there was sex in popular fiction - just look at Peyton Place - but the main characters in romance novels never actually did more than kiss on stage.
All that changed with Kathleen Woodiwiss's 1972 novel The Flame and the Flower. Not only did Heather and Brandon, the leads, have sex, they had a shotgun wedding early in the book when Heather became pregnant after their first, less than consensual encounter. Said encounter takes place on stage, not between chapters, and is hot, spicy, and violent in the way of an erotic rape fantasy. It's as if Margaret Mitchell actually described, explicitly and in detail, just what Rhett and Scarlett did after he carried her up the stairs in that memorable scene in Gone With The Wind.
Woodiwiss's book, which had been rejected by numerous publishers, was a smash hit. It was reprinted 40 times in the first six years after publication and is still available in print and e-book format today, selling approximately 5 million copies. Woodiwiss went on to write eleven more novels before her death in 2007 and is widely credited with founding the romance genre as it exists today, with strong willed heroines and explicit sex.
In her time, before the rest of the romance genre adjusted to allow the characters to indulge their burning passions and smoldering lusts, Woodiwiss had only one serious rival as the Queen of Sensuous Romance: Rosemary Rogers. And if anything, Rogers had an even greater impact than Woodiwiss, if only because she wrote much more quickly and was able to transition to writing hot-and-spicy books set in modern times.
Rogers, who reportedly rewrote her first novel two dozen times before submitting it to a publisher, was raised in Sri Lanka by wealthy Dutch-Portuguese parents. She married, in succession, a Ceylonese rugby star, an African-American businessman from St. Louis, and a white American poet. Her international background and then-exotic marital history gave the globe-spanning adventures of Ginny Brandon and Steve Morgan, the leads in 1974's Sweet Savage Love, a bit more realism than had been seen in previous romances. Romance aficionados recognized this, and not only did Sweet Savage Love hit the bestseller list, Rogers had to write several sequels as well as her other books.
That doesn't make Rogers a good writer, Steve and Ginny convincing characters, or either Sweet Savage Love or its first sequel, Dark Fires, decent books. I should know. Dark Fires was the book my roommate owned and I read on the sly during that memorable interlude in Salzburg so many years ago.
I hadn't read Sweet Savage Love - I'm not sure I'd even heard of it since Mum's taste ran more to mysteries and I was heavily into SF and fantasy - but that didn't stop me from picking up Dark Fires and starting to read.
And read. And read. Ginny's abduction by her family, who are determined to rescue her from Steve's clutches despite their marriage since he'd earlier raped her stepmother (!)...his refusal to believe her story when they're reunited...her family forcing her to get an annulment and then marrying her off to a cold, evil Russian who whisks her away to St. Petersburg and has "painful, unnatural," probably anal sex with her since he seems to be an Evil Gay Foreigner...Ginny's flight back to Steve for a reunion that leaves her carrying twins in what has to be the smallest pregnant belly on record...Steve's affair with a Louisiana businesswoman named Pearl (?), in a town named "Baroque"...Steve and Ginny's eventual reunion, Pearl's comeuppance and marriage to a supposedly meek local who admits his love for her only after someone (Steve?) breaks her nose during a fight....
It was awful. Just awful. And I could no more put it down than I could stop glomming those delicious home-grown yellow cherries my host family kept leaving in a little ceramic bowl outside my door in the evening. If I'd been stuck in Germany much longer I might well have bought my own copy, and Sweet Savage Love, Dark Fires, and God only knows what else that would have turned Mum positively green when she unpacked my suitcase.
It's been years since I read Dark Fires, or anything else by Rosemary Rogers. I could be entirely wrong about her work, and missing out on a writer who makes Neil Gaiman look like Ned Buntline, Jr. Steve and Ginny could be the greatest lovers in literary history, and only my own snobbery is keeping me from hours of enjoyment that will enrich my life and restore my spirit.
Or my teenager self could have been right: Dark Fires would have been far better off as gun cotton.
So, gentle readers - do any of you read romances? Do you belong to Romance Novel Addicts Anonymous? Keep your Silhouette Suspense collection in a locked, fireproof safe under the bed that is to be destroyed unopened in the event of your sudden death? Or am I wrong about romance novels? Come share your favorites on this steamy Saturday night!
Sun May 29, 2011 at 5:58 AM PT: Thanks for all the recs. I've downloaded a couple of samples and will check them out.
Mon May 30, 2011 at 8:34 AM PT: Cross posted at Firefly Dreaming