What is an issue is that a great many readers who call themselves reviewers choose not to analyze the technical at all, either because they don’t have the skills and don’t want to wade into those waters in the first place or because they simply choose not to taint their reading experience one way or another with those concerns. Does that benefit the genre overall? Frankly, I would think that if they’ve made that choice, consciously or even unconsciously, they don’t care one way or another. And that’s okay because contrary to popular belief not everything is about gaining respect for the genre. A lot of it is just about enjoying what one reads.

I understand the desire of some readers not to engage with Romance analytically. The friend got me reading the genre — an academic, mind you — isn’t interested in reviewing and formally critiquing Romance, even though she’s by nature a very analytical thinker. So I get it. What bothers me is the implication that we shouldn’t be looking at the genre closely because it can’t withstand the attention. Because if that’s the case, then the reviewers aren’t the problem, lol.

As far as the question of what constitutes a review, I prefer to read and write reviews that address more than whether a book was “romantic” to the reader. Because that level of subjectivity just doesn’t give me enough information about the book to help me make any kind of connection with the book or the reviewer, or to make a decision about whether I want to read the book. And as far as discussion goes, it makes it hard to have any lengthy exchanges about a book when you stick only to that level. That doesn’t mean that I think books that only focus on the emotional issues of a book aren’t reviews; it just means that for me, they’re not critique, which for me is part of what I enjoy about reading and reviewing. And by critique I don’t mean criticizing the book; I am referring to the process of applying some analysis to the book, even if it’s simply at the level of whether and *how* the book did or didn’t work for the reader. I don’t need the formal analytical terms to find a review analytical. Analysis, to me, is a process, a talking about the *hows* and *whys* of the book’s impact on the reader. It’s saying, “I found the characters to be unsympathetic because . . . ” rather than “these characters were jerks period.” In other words, it’s not the forwarding of conclusions without some clue as to how they were arrived at. And I think that lots of analysis occurs on this level in casual genre talk, more, perhaps, than in some reviews (especially in many of the comments that are called reviews on Amazon).

The heroines never need to look like me, it’s certainly more fun if they don’t act like me. I get to experience and feel vicariously through the book for a short while.

I hadn’t thought seriously about what it would be like to see myself projected into a Romance novel, but I think it would freak me out. Of course, I’ve never really understood why people would want to watch themselves on film having sex, either, fwiw.

Jessica: LOL!!

Laura: thanks for the source.

Perhaps that’s the real crux: The idea that women shouldn’t read graphic sex. They certainly shouldn’t write graphic sex. Women shouldn’t be titillated by the how fabulous the hero is in the sack, they shouldn’t enjoy escaping into a fantasy world(whether they ‘become’ the characters or simply are along for the ride), they shouldn’t ‘waste’ time on ‘fluff’. And they most definitely shouldn’t want, desire, or enjoy doing any of the aforementioned.

Unfortunately, I think as many women as men believe this. Whatever patriarchal roots these views have, women, IMO, have internalized them to the point that we now claim them as our own and pass them down to our daughters and young girls as a whole as they grow into young women. IMO if women were truly comfortable with our sexuality, the genre of Romance would look much different than it does now. In some ways I think the genre allows women to express and feel what they don’t feel free to in RL, but in other ways I think it perpetuates double standards and constrained values. Which I why I like being aware of these issues as I read, so that I can continue to measure my own attitudes against the books. I just don’t think that attitudes will change substantially without our paying attention to them.

Yep, be a Madonna in public and a whore behind closed doors.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the AMC series “Mad Men,” but it takes place in the 60s, and there is one scene in which a young woman is seeing a gyn for a birth control pills prescription. The doctor sternly tells her that she is not to “abuse” the medication, or he will pull her off it, insisting that he’s not there to “judge” her, but continually warning her not to become a “strumpet” and therefore unmarriageable. Even though she needs the prescription in the first place because on her job (as a secretary at a big ad agency), the men expect certain benefits. So she is expected to be available, but must not appear loose. In some ways we’ve made progress (e.g. fundamental right to contraception for unmarried women codified by the Supreme Court), but in others we’re still in that double bind (e.g. expected to be available but not “slutty”).

Perhaps that’s the real crux: The idea that women shouldn’t read graphic sex. They certainly shouldn’t write graphic sex. Women shouldn’t be titillated by the how fabulous the hero is in the sack, they shouldn’t enjoy escaping into a fantasy world(whether they ‘become’ the characters or simply are along for the ride), they shouldn’t ‘waste’ time on ‘fluff’. And they most definitely shouldn’t want, desire, or enjoy doing any of the aforementioned.

Yep, be a Madonna in public and a whore behind closed doors.

It’s not just men. I doubt thriller writers spend much time answering to a backlash from their graphic scenes of women being brutally raped and murdered (and it’s almost always women being murdered, isn’t it). But write a book with consenting sex between adults and it’s reduced to the classification of porn and everyone’s scratching their heads trying to analyze what cheap thrill women could possibly be getting by reading such trash.

What does that say about the state of our society?

It says that in the more than half a century I’ve been reading romance, things haven’t changed. I want to say too that the ‘book with consenting sex…’ part should be clarified. A book with consenting sex written by a WOMAN – sans a few that are considered ‘literary classics’ – are called ‘porn with plot’, ‘porn for women’, ‘bodice rippers’, et al. Some men write pornography for magazines and adult only book stores – but they don’t have backlash either. And some men put quite a bit of graphic sex in their books – but they don’t get shelved in Romance and they certainly aren’t taken to task or disdained, generally speaking, for doing so.

Perhaps that’s the real crux: The idea that women shouldn’t read graphic sex. They certainly shouldn’t write graphic sex. Women shouldn’t be titillated by the how fabulous the hero is in the sack, they shouldn’t enjoy escaping into a fantasy world(whether they ‘become’ the characters or simply are along for the ride), they shouldn’t ‘waste’ time on ‘fluff’. And they most definitely shouldn’t want, desire, or enjoy doing any of the aforementioned.

These ideas are archaic and antiquated, but for all my years, they are the comments I get from snobbish friends or coworkers over and over again. How can I read romance novels, they’re trash, they’re junk, they give women an unrealistic view of life (not sure what women this comment is talking about because I never once thought I’d have orgasm after orgasm when I started having sex), or even better romance books are degrading to women (HA! Feminism is great, but that line is bullshit). For all mankind’s advancements, most of this planet still takes the view that women should and shouldn’t do certain things. It’s sad, but that’s how it goes.

Maybe by the time my granddaughters are my age, it’ll be different.

Folklorist Max Luthi says that fairy tales are “unreal but not untrue” because they deal with the greatest themes in literature and life, and much of genre fiction, grounded in myth, legend, and tale, retells those primal stories for adults. Fairy tales, Luthi says, promise the reader a just universe, and so do the genres.

in another essay Crusie quotes from him and gives a source:

As Luthi has pointed out, “Fairy tales are unreal, but they are not untrue: they reflect the essential development and conditions of man’s existence” (70). [...]

Luthi, Max. Once Upon a Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales. NY: Indiana UP, 1970.

Unreal but not untrue.

I think I’ve found my future tattoo…

I do not place myself as any character in the story. After some long thought, I’ve decided I read as I have termed an “emotional vampire” (but not a sex vampire, please). I like heroines I wished I was friends with and heroes I find attractive. But moreso, I love to experience their emotions with them. Feel the highs and lows, the sexual tension. Like I’m a tiny little bug riding along on their shoulders.

The heroines never need to look like me, it’s certainly more fun if they don’t act like me. I get to experience and feel vicariously through the book for a short while. So if I’ve had a bad day at the office, I can go and read about somebody having a very good day. Which brightens my day.
Okay, this is officially rambling and not making sense. Sorry.

Definitely. Which is one of the reasons, I think, that some readers can have such a strong positive reaction to some books, while others have a very negative reaction. It often seems much more than an issue of taste to me, because even books that meet the same superficial criteria can evoke very different reader responses. Ultimately, I think readers make an emotional connection to certain books that occurs instead of or in addition to whatever their aesthetic response/evaluation might be. It took me a long time, in fact, to keep from flinching when I read reviews that seemed to rely solely on how well the reader connected to the characters and the romance (the emotional truth, as you put it). I’ve become more willing to embrace the importance of that connection in any Romance novel evaluation, but I still personally prefer reviews that address both the emotional and aesthetic/technical aspects of a book.

Interesting.

You do realize, Robin, that that very last sentence in a nutshell is why I decided not to review a long time ago in a galaxy far away. Okay, well it wasn’t that extreme, more different website, different decade, but it was definitely after first running up against the odd review mindset online and realizing that, um, quite a few things didn’t actually add up.

Yes, I am a devoted romance reader and I enjoy the emotional aspect of romances more than any other genre. I will defend that side of them to my dying day and sometimes I think it will come down to that. ;) I am also, however, a fairly logical and organized tech-geek and appreciate the technical side of things as well even if I am not truly a writer or, more specifically, an academic in the field of literature. I saw the contradiction right off of what was being called “reviews” around the web then and now and consciously made the decision to let it go . . . as long as they didn’t try to pin them on me or force me into that mold.

That ain’t as easy as it looks.

But even back then, there were two camps. Those that thought the reviews should be more about the technical aspects of the books and those that thought the reviews should be a more emotional response to the books. I’m not sure I would go so far as to say it’s because we identify too strongly with the characters or not, however, that we can’t analyze the technical aspect. The truth is that some of us can. And do. On a fairly regular basis. How in-depth remains to be analyzed. That isn’t the issue here, though.

What is an issue is that a great many readers who call themselves reviewers choose not to analyze the technical at all, either because they don’t have the skills and don’t want to wade into those waters in the first place or because they simply choose not to taint their reading experience one way or another with those concerns. Does that benefit the genre overall? Frankly, I would think that if they’ve made that choice, consciously or even unconsciously, they don’t care one way or another. And that’s okay because contrary to popular belief not everything is about gaining respect for the genre. A lot of it is just about enjoying what one reads.

To me, the emotional connection you’re talking here about isn’t so much about individual characters in the books, regardless of how powerfully written, as it is the entire package. When I talk about emotional realism, there’s no way it’s about a single character within a story because that character has to be interacting against at least one other character to generate some kind of emotion. Don’t they? Unless we’re going for some type of Crusoe story and even then, he has his memories for us to share or it’s going to get boring fast, emotionally at least.

The emotions we respond to are never about just one character and those emotions are what we identify with in the first place regardless of whether it’s romance or not. It just so happens that it’s in romance where the emotions are the most intense and on the surface so of course they’re going to be the most noticeable and picked upon. That’s one big reason why I can never buy into the placeholder idea, will never accept the ridiculous concept of inserting ourselves into one character whilst at the same time identifying with a stronger one. It just defies the entire logic of what storytelling is about to begin with. If we’re already identifying with the story itself, the author has already done their job. They’ve sucked us in. We are there. Why would we be psychologically floundering around for an anchor to hold us to reality?

Unless of course we’re considered to be poor unstable creatures who need one.

And there’s the rub.

Ain’t going there, people. Do any of you really want to?

Is it like the comment made about fairytales, that they could be “unreal, but not untrue”? In other words, the events/characters may seem unreal/not very true to life, but there is nonetheless some emotional truth embedded in the story? I think that might well be true for many romances.

Definitely. Which is one of the reasons, I think, that some readers can have such a strong positive reaction to some books, while others have a very negative reaction. It often seems much more than an issue of taste to me, because even books that meet the same superficial criteria can evoke very different reader responses. Ultimately, I think readers make an emotional connection to certain books that occurs instead of or in addition to whatever their aesthetic response/evaluation might be. It took me a long time, in fact, to keep from flinching when I read reviews that seemed to rely solely on how well the reader connected to the characters and the romance (the emotional truth, as you put it). I’ve become more willing to embrace the importance of that connection in any Romance novel evaluation, but I still personally prefer reviews that address both the emotional and aesthetic/technical aspects of a book.

As for the way love is represented in Romance, however, I do think it is idealized, which is not the same thing as fantasy (although perhaps the terms are conflated by some who seem them as equivalent) — that whether or not enduring love is possible in real life, the Romance genre’s representation of enduring love is coded in a certain way that marks it as distinct from “real life.” That it may give readers a real life emotional boost would be the affective component of the genre, although not necessarily as a mirror. IMO, love in genre Romance may be representations in nature, symbolic even, yet it may inspire real life faith in the power of love, if that makes sense.

Is it like the comment made about fairytales, that they could be “unreal, but not untrue”? In other words, the events/characters may seem unreal/not very true to life, but there is nonetheless some emotional truth embedded in the story? I think that might well be true for many romances.

From a psychology POV, I think self-insertion could probably be considered role-playing, something psychologists tell us is a healthy thing

I kept thinking about that old Jungian chestnut “you are every part of your dream” when I was reading the Kinsale essay, and I think that tends to fit within the role playing paradigm, as well. Entertainment or not, I do think it builds empathy, at least, and is, perhaps, a way of exercising the imagination, and perhaps even of more complex problem solving kills. I wonder what the occupational breakdown is of people who regularly do role playing.

I’m just playing devil’s advocate, as I don’t think we should discount “self-insertion”–that is, for some readers some of the time. Not for all readers all the time, and not exclusively for romance.

Absolutely. I certainly don’t read every book the same way, even if there are some baseline similarities and habits I have. Actually, I think most people read in different modes, perhaps without even realizing it. Which is part of what frustrates me about the generalization that Romance is a genre in which readers view the characters as fantasy surrogates. First of all, I have problems with how the word fantasy is often applied to the genre, and also I have issues with the surrogacy concept.

That raises the question of whether “love everlasting” is a fantasy.

Well, in that sentence I was actually focused on what I see to be a stereotypical view of Romance as fantasy, and since the core fantasy element for many readers is the HEA, I think that there probably is a strong bias against the notion of enduring love.

As for the way love is represented in Romance, however, I do think it is idealized, which is not the same thing as fantasy (although perhaps the terms are conflated by some who seem them as equivalent) — that whether or not enduring love is possible in real life, the Romance genre’s representation of enduring love is coded in a certain way that marks it as distinct from “real life.” That it may give readers a real life emotional boost would be the affective component of the genre, although not necessarily as a mirror. IMO, love in genre Romance may be representations in nature, symbolic even, yet it may inspire real life faith in the power of love, if that makes sense.

To be perfectly honest, I find that the representation of enduring love in a good deal of Romance to be pretty anemic — more idealized telling rather than nuanced showing. That some of the characters are not mere stand-ins but are more like interchangable, generic dolls, and the realization of their happiness to be a bit fantastical in its production and representation. So in some Romance there is for me a fantasy element to the love relationship, even though I would not represent the genre itself as fantasy. And in a RL environment where the divorce rate is so high, and where no matter how happy one’s relationship might be, there are couples all around, long-standing couples, breaking up and divorcing, it may be that more and more people really do see enduring love as a somewhat fantastic happening. Although that wouldn’t necessarily make a genre that portrays enduring love as fantasy; I think that kind of analysis would have to take place from book to book.

I’m always, even while reading excellent books that have me enthralled, reacting to the characters’ actions and thoughts with my own reactions, kind of like watching a movie.

In terms of the relationship between reader and Romance heroine, I think you’re getting close to that whole placeholder notion — that the reader might be enraptured, but is constantly measuring the character’s actions and choices.

I still say that can shift, though, within any story, romance or not.

I agree, and I bet if we all started paying more attention to the way we read, we’d notice a lot of shifting in our consciousness, sympathies, identification etc. But most of us don’t, because part of the experiential magic of reading is the automatic occurrence of these things.

If I enter a fantasy of being in the story that I am reading (sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t) I find I generally fantasize that I am another character interacting with all the characters (I used to write fan fiction before I realized I sucked at it)

Fan fiction was playing around the corners of my brain as I was writing this piece, because I kept thinking that there was a connection I could expand on if I really thought about it. In some ways, it seems fan fiction is the representation of exactly this kind of character identification/surrogacy — another level or two of perspective shifting, manipulated from the outside, that is. I’m wondering what fan fiction writers and readers would say about this issue.

…well I don’t know about you, but I, PERSONALLY, am MUCH more interesting than any romance-novel heroine out there!

Three dimensions is a good start, isn’t it?! I wonder, sometimes how many RL men would even find Romance heroines desirable, let alone marriageable.

But I think you’re right that this borders on one of those cautionary lectures about how reading matter should be of an “Improving Nature” for the fair sex.

Which is itself sort of fascinating, because those moral arguments about what women read are aimed at having women replicate certain values as portrayed in “model” literature. So perhaps that’s why the anxiety is there on the other side — the presumption is already that women’s minds are malleable, I guess. Which may be the root of the problem, lol.

she gets tripped up in a series of ongoing academic discussions on identity, feminism, and theories of reading.

I’m inclined to believe it’s like calculus. It just is. A book entertains us. *grin*

From a psychology POV, I think self-insertion could probably be considered role-playing, something psychologists tell us is a healthy thing. They also say fantasizing is good for us as well. It would be interesting to see a survey done from that aspect with regard to self-insertion and the results. For the best accuracy one would need to survey a completely random population.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that more people insert themselves into a romance character’s place than those who don’t. Putting oneself into the place of any book character is not that much different from people who belong to organizations like SCA, Star Trek fans who role play, etc.

Reading is entertainment, and even nonfiction can be entertaining (Devil in the White City is a good example). I wonder how much self-insertion is clearly evident to the reader and how much of it subconscious. When I pick up a book, I don’t intentionally mean to self-insert, but I recall moments when I have done so and it’s been an unconscious effort vs. deliberate. I don’t consider myself boring, in fact, I’m very complex (just like most people).

Personally, I don’t think it’s how romance readers view themselves (boring, interesting, name your poison)as to whether they self-insert or not. My intuition tells me it’s simply because they find it entertaining to do so. It’s just one more part of the reading experience. It’s fun.

You couldn’t pay me enough to put up with some of the crap – and some of the heroes — that happen in Romance.

As someone who lives with a moody broody bad boy, I fervently agree.

All art is about the emotional experience.

Exactly. I read romance for the same reason I eat chocolate: the anticipatory pleasure at the beginning, the emotional high in the middle & the sweet satisfaction at the end. But I’m never… okay, rarely confused about the role of dessert in real life.

What annoys me is that no one makes these assumptions about any other genre of fiction.

Oops. And I’m feeding right back into the stereotypes with the chocolate thing. But I think you’re right that this borders on one of those cautionary lectures about how reading matter should be of an “Improving Nature” for the fair sex.

Maybe it’s because I’m 3-dimensional???

(I would like their lives, money, and great men though sometimes.)

Personally I dont think identifying or self insertion(snicker) is a bad thing, its just gotten a bad connotation because its (gasp) romance… You think James Bond fans (guys mostly) don’t think about being in his place while reading those books? BS… I think a lot of people who won’t admit it, DO place themselves in the books they read. Otherwise there would be no fanfiction writers out there, or people who write books that were inspired by other books, or write for series books like the star trek series…

But because this is romance, some people are afraid to say it, because people will accuse them of having masturbatory fantasies or something… hokeyyy… whatever.. as my kid would say…

I don’t mind first person pov in Romance, but I think it puts a greater burden on the author to find different ways to reveal the perspective and inner life of other characters, especially the other partner. But there’s something about the intimacy forged with a first person narrator that appeals to me, and I think it can actually be quite powerful within a romantic context, if, that is, the author has the skill and commitment to making the relationship transparent in the ways that count.

Only if the writing truly is focused on the developing relationship and not overly focused on the individual narrator. Then it becomes too much like a personal journal and way too narcissistic for my tastes, which is why I do not read chick lit and am very picky about which plots I will read done in 1st. Or by which authors. I got way too much of that in the older books when I first started reading romances to want to go backwards, thank you very much. ;p

That’s not to say there’s not a time and place for the form, just that I choose when I want to read it and usually it’s not in my romances. :D

OTOH, I can’t even remember the title – but it was one of Jo Beverley’s medievals – I distinctly remember one done in very limited third person heroine for at least the first half of the book that I very much enjoyed because of the “surprise” element. I say surprise because it wasn’t so much a mystery as the hero had a secret he was keeping until after they were married. They got married about halfway through, she found out and then we started getting his POV, too. It was – different.

I think the point I’m getting at is that I think I tend to notice more when the limited POVs work well for specific reasons than I do when I don’t like them for decidedly lackluster ones. Then I just don’t like the books and may or may not chalk it up to the POV.

But, yes, it can all play a part in whom we “identify” with in the story. I still say that can shift, though, within any story, romance or not. Case in point, in the one I just mentioned, the shift in POV definitely made for an extremely logical and emotional change in sympathies that swings back and forth between the two protagonists as the relationship progresses. And I have no doubt at all that Ms. Beverley being the writer she is meant it to happen exactly that way. Or at least hoped it would be that way for the reader.

I don’t know if I’m making any sense, but this is interesting!

That raises the question of whether “love everlasting” is a fantasy. I wonder if a lot of the cynicism/criticism of the genre comes from people who don’t believe in “love everlasting,” or even “love that lasts until two people die” and so do see it as a “fantasy.” No doubt there are some romance readers who think that too. And of course, if it’s a fantasy then it would have to be lived vicariously, because it wouldn’t be possible for any real person to live it for themselves. However, for those of us who do believe that enduring love is possible, it (a) isn’t a “fantasy” and (b) many of us may be living it in our daily lives.

That said, as Deborah Brent observed,

I live in the real world where bad things happen. People get sick and die. Children have illnesses that limit their lives and learning disabilities make school a place of torture. Not to mention what goes on in the WORLD outside of my life.

Even if one believes in enduring love, it’s pretty difficult/impossible to avoid the realities that Deborah mentions. My response to that is a bit different to Deborah’s though. She says that

I read to escape. [...] I want escape for a little while. That’s it. No big philosophical discussion on do I want to “insert” myself into the story. I want to be entertained. If I want deeper meaning out of my reading there are a libraries filled with books that can uplift my soul. That is not the job of a romance novel.

I wouldn’t say that I read romance to “escape”, but I do read it at least partly in order to be reminded of the positive aspects of “real life.” I know that I can depend on a romance to remind me that, along with all the bad things that happen in life, there are also good, happy things. For me, that’s something that does “uplift my soul.” I think it’s the job of a romance novel to end with “an emotionally-satisfying and optimistic ending” (RWA) which will remind me that enduring love does exist in this world and that it’s as much a reality as the bad stuff that can leave me feeling emotionally drained and pessimistic.