MV: Why should feminists read romance novels?

SW: It’s a 50-plus-year-old industry comprised mostly of women writers operating their own businesses and producing a genre about women’s self-actualization, pursuit of autonomy, and acquisition of sexual agency for an audience made mostly of women, who buy over $1.4 billion dollars worth of books a year. No, no, nothing feminist or even subversive about that.

If more people thought of it in these terms, maybe romance would cease being viewed as the most sexist, anti-feminist literary genre out there.  It’s not even close to being that; science fiction and fantasy, in my opinion, wins that one hands down – this is, after all, a genre where its acceptable for Harlan Ellison to grope a female author on stage and pass it off as a joke.

There’s also some interesting discussion of Mandy Van Deven’s use of ‘smut books’ to describe romance novels.  I kind of agree with people who don’t really like the use of that term, but in my case it doesn’t have anything to do with the ‘derogatory’ connotations of the word – I use smut myself to describe my own erotic/pornographic writing.  My problem with it is that it’s…not accurate.  For one, does any novel with explicit sex count as pornographic now?  If so, I have a long list of more ‘literary’ novels that I’ll now be referring to as smut.

And there’s a second problem with the use of the word – not all romance even fits into Mandy’s own definition.  There’s more than one subgenre where the sex is either nonexplicit or nonexistent.  Where do these books fit?

But all in all, a really awesome article, and I’m glad to be seeing coverage of romance in the feminist press, if only so that the next time the fact that I admit to reading Claudia Dain and Sherrilyn Kenyon, I can have links to send to feminist friends who roll their eyes and accuse me of being counterproductive to the cause.

Yeah.  It happens.

I’m not sure why this bugs me so much when I gloss over the Twenty Six Year Old Drop Dead Gorgeous Virgin thing, but there you go.

That’s what One Silent Night is though, and while I didn’t enjoy it as much as Sherrilyn Kenyon’s last several Dark Hunters novels, I did enjoy it, and I think it does work.  The reason for that is because instead of painting Stryker (and Zephyra) as pure evil, the way Satara was, Kenyon chooses instead to make them characters that are more complicated than that.  They aren’t exactly sweetness and light, but they have their own moral codes, and their motivations aren’t really that hard to buy into.  They got a really raw end of the deal, and they are fighting for their continued existance (and, you know, control of the world).

Having said all that, One Silent Night isn’t going to be the Dark-Hunter book I pick up to read again when I’m bored and waiting for the next book in the series.  The romance isn’t overly compelling; while I’ve always enjoyed Stryker, I couldn’t care less if he got back with his ex-wife.  I found some of the new characters compelling – Medea will prove interesting, I think, and while Jared currently seems to be Acheron 2.0, he has potential.  The new developments in Nick’s character will make good fodder in subsequent books, and his reconnection with Ash, while unwilling, should move the plot of the series along.  This is a bridge book, connecting the first part of the series to the second, so while the characters used to move the plot along, so to speak, aren’t as awesome as some of the others, I don’t really think that’s the main point.

Having said all that, I am hoping that Dream Warrior and Bad Moon Rising are stronger, character and romance wise.  I love the series, but really? I’m reading this for the pr0n.

Just a guess.

I had trepiditions about this one.  I love the Dark-Hunter series to little bits and pieces, and Acheron is one of my favorite characters, so  I was worried the book wouldn’t equal the hype.  Thankfully, I was wrong.  I liked the love interest, Tory, and Ash was amusingly awkward but without losing the Ash coolness that’s characterizes him throughout the rest of the series.  Some thoughts in numerical list form, because I’m way too lazy to write full paragraphs here:

1. Nick continues to make epically idiotic decisions.  EPICALLY.
2. I was amused to see that one of my personal predictions, that Styxx would impersonate Ash to save the girl, actually did come true, and in almost exactly the situation I envisioned.
3.  On that note, I really want a Styxx story.  He’s a classic irredeemable character who has been redeemed, and I love stories with heroes like that.
4. First read through I was concerned that Artemis was being overly demonized, but upon thinking about it…no.  It was about right.  I have some sympathy for her, because I think she is lonely, but she’s also innately selfish to a degree that would be psychotic in a human character, and she’s done way too much to Ash to be forgiven.
5. One of the things I was worried about was the tease we got in Devil May Cry – that Ash’s girl would hate him.  But I don’t think Tory did for long, and honestly? It was understandable.
6. I think I’ll find I’ll reread this one a lot, but mostly the second half.  The first half, about Ash’s mortal life is important to fully understand his issues – his major, major issues – but it’s painful enough that it’s difficult to read.  Especially when, if you’re like me, and you’re reading on the public transit system and tear up at the drop of the hat.

In any case, already rereading a day later and thoroughly enjoying it again.  Stryker’s book is next, in time for Christmas, and I can’t wait.

• Read Saiyuki 8 and 9
• Re-read The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, which is my absolute favorite Julia Quinn romance novel
• Re-read Reckless, by Amanda Quick
• Re-read both Dark Fire and Dark Melody by Christine Feehan.  The Carpathian novels are all written like crap, and yet I keep reading them
• Cooking Light magazine (well, it’s what I’m planning to read tonight)

Yeah, there’s a lot of re-reading.  I do spend a lot of money on books – A LOT -  but I also live in a small apartment and am in need of more storage as it is, so I try to reread my books as much as I can tolerate it – and some, like Secret Diaries, I just like so much I can read them over and over again.

There’s a couple of books I’m thinking of buying for my train trips that just came out:  Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner and I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley.  Certain Girls is the sequel to Good in Bed, which was probably the first book in my brief chick lit phase.   I Was Told There’d Be Cake is a book of essays, which is not usually my thing (I am possibly the only person who has tried and failed to finish a David Sedaris book) but one of them is entitled “Bring-Your-Machete-To-Work Day.”  This may be an essay collection I can get into.

Methinks a trip to B&N before I get on the train is on order.  Perhaps I can continue to avoid reading this month’s issue of Cooking Light.

At first it was because the formatting frankly sucked (and still does for the most part) and because I couldn’t quite swallow the idea of reading an entire novel on my computer – never mind that, as an avid reader of fanfiction, I read extremely long stories on a regular basis on my computer screen. I used them in grad school a couple of times and once tried to read one of Cory Doctorow’s books that way, but didn’t get past the first 20 pages. In hindsight though, it may have been the book.

What’s gotten me into e-books, finally, is category romance novels. I’ve mentioned my addiction before but what I haven’t mentioned is the severe lack of book storage I have in my apartment. In short, I have one bookcase. And four boxes full of books, and several small piles sitting on the floor. We’re approaching crisis period, so clearly I needed to come up with a solution that would allow me to have my romance novels and not trip over them every morning when I got out of bed.

Clearly, I needed to try e-books again.

As with all things related to the computer, getting the software to work was the major hurdle. I don’t have a reader, so I was buying in pdf format. Which is fine, except that Adobe hasn’t updated their e-book software to work with the latest version of Mac OS X (abbreviated rant: Leopard has been out for six months and isn’t THAT serious a departure from the last version. Get with it.) so I had to pretend to be using 10.2, download an older version of Acrobat Reader, and use it with that one. Then I was in business, although its still wonky: it takes three times to successfully download a book. The first time I get a server error, the second time it crashes Acrobat, and the third time it finally works.

In any case, I currently have a collection of books on Acrobat Reader that include Australian diamond tycoons, six or seven sheiks, and overbearing Italians, and I’m not tripping over the books or providing any more of a hiding place for the cat then I already had.

Saiyuki and I go way back. I first watched the anime in college after a bunch of us discovered a site that sold entire subtitled series! For cheap! I picked up Saiyuki, Yami no Matsuei, and Fruits Basket this way for a fraction of the licensed cost. Furuba, Yami no Matsuei and the first season of Saiyuki were badly translated but at least decipherable; to this day I have no idea what the hell was going on in the second season of Saiyuki. It’s been out on dvd in the US for awhile now, and eventually I may shell out for it just to relieve my curiosity.

But anyway, the manga. It’s split into three titles thanks in part to Minekura changing publisher’s mid stream – the first 9 volumes were entitled Gensomaden Saiyuki, subsequent ones were titled Saiyuki Reload, and there are also three prequel volumes called Saiyuki Gaiden. I’ve been reading the Tokyopop version of Saiyuki and scanlations of Reload, and its as cool as I remember it.

Cho Hakkai and his relationship with Sha Gojyo is still my favorite, no surprise there. There are certain types of characters I will always like, and so many of my favorite characters fall into this category – and Hakkai is probably the archetype, even though Tezuka Shinobu from Here is Greenwood was the first I identified. He’s very polite and well-mannered, quiet, but that’s only the surface; underneath he’s ruthless. Like I said, all of my favorite characters have this – Shinobu, Yanagi Renji from Prince of Tennis, Kigai Yuuto from X – but Hakkai is the most extreme, and he’s the most complicated. He’s the kind of character that makes me want to write fanfiction.

As for Gojyo, on the surface he’s like a foil to Hakkai – flamboyant and womanizing – but he’s definitely got his own issues, and he and Hakkai lend each other strength. I can’t write about one without involving the other.

Anyway, I read the first two volumes of Gensomaden this morning, and have the next four on order from Barnes & Noble. I’m also about to get to the Hakkai/Gojyo sections of the Burial Arc in Reload (an arc entirely about the pasts of the main characters) so there will probably be more about Saiyuki in the future.

However. Could someone just kill Satara already? I mean, seriously. Not only does she have no redeeming qualities whatsoever (I can handle, and actually like, that in a villain) but she has no charisma. She’s annoying, rabid, and operates on the lowest common denominator. It’s an invitation to be whacked. Hell, I’d do it myself if she wasn’t, you know. Fictional.

I like evil characters. There are evil characters that are awesomely amoral and charismatic, and I love those. There are evil characters who are so creepy they give me daymares, and I’m cool with those. But then there’s evil that’s so annoying you want to bring the wrath of a giant flyswatter down on them, and Satara is firmly in the latter group.

Twenty minutes in Google later, I found it. Yes, I know the title is ridiculous.

Anyway, I ordered it in the Amazon Marketplace and it’ll be shipped by the 26th, so woo.