Friday News: Changing the perception of vets, great essay on reading, book translations across Europe, and literary rejections website
Publishing News"broken" hero / book rejections / global markets / Jane Austen / Military / reading / stereotypes / translation / veterans11 Comments
Coming Home to Damaging Stereotypes – Chris Marvin is tired of the “broken hero” stereotype of military veterans. Considering how common this stereotype is in Romance (both m/f and m/m), even if the hero isn’t always a vet, Marvin’s frustration with the way vets are often pitied and stigmatized is extremely relevant to the Romance community. His organization, Got Your 6, is focused on improving the accuracy and thoughtfulness of media portrayals of veterans, shifting the image away from the “damaged” loner to more nuanced, realistic portrayals.
Last week, his organization received a major boost from Michelle Obama and the actor Bradley Cooper. Both of them joined Mr. Marvin to announce plans to give a seal of approval called “6 Certified” to movies whose makers consult with veterans in production and then portray them in a fair and accurate light, as judged by a panel of producers and veterans.
“We believe the way veterans are portrayed on the screen is the way they will be thought of in the living room and the way they will be treated in the community,” Mr. Marvin said at the gathering of hundreds of producers, writers and veterans in Washington. “We need to make sure everyone sees them as assets and encourages them to continue to serve in the community.” –New York Times
Percentage of translated books among published books in Europe – A pretty interesting discussion of books in translation across Europe, including a user-created map and a great link to the Frankfurt Book Fair’s informative list of global book markets. Although the focus is on Europe, one striking point in the comments is the poor record the US has in translating works of fiction from other languages, which, of course, reinforces the Anglo-centric orientation of the US literary market –reddit
The History of “Loving” to Read – You may already have seen this really nice tribute to the emotional relationships readers develop with books, which is notable because it begins with Joshua Rothman’s recollection of an English class on Austen he took in college from a professor who identified herself as a “Janeite.” Anyway, it’s an absolutely lovely example of a male writer talking about reading, including the reading of Romance, in a respectful, insightful, non-douchey way. My only quibble is his comment on literary scholars not being able to express their love of books to their students, for fear of compromising the intellectual study of literature. Some of the best, most intellectually challenging and inspiring English profs I had were those who demonstrated an almost palpable passion for books and reading.
At the time, I found this off-putting. But—as Austen could tell you—first impressions are often simplistic. Soon enough, I learned that all sorts of people are obsessed with Austen. (The philosopher Gilbert Ryle, asked if he read novels, replied, “Yes—all six, every year.”) I also discovered that almost every truly famous writer has his or her own cult of personality. Austen’s cult has been rivalled by the cults of Dickens, Tolstoy, Eliot, Joyce, Hemingway, Lawrence, and Fitzgerald, among others. Today, readers worship Karl Ove Knausgaard or Elena Ferrante. Janeites may be the Trekkies of the literary world, but their passion is really just a more intensified version of ordinary bookishness.
If anything, the fervor of the Janeites puts into relief a fact almost too obvious to notice: the world of books is a romantic world. Romance structures literary life, and to be a reader is, often, to follow its choreography, from susceptibility and discovery (“I just saw it there in the bookstore!”) to infatuation, intimacy, identification, and obsession. We connect with books in an intellectual way, but the most valuable relationships we have with them are emotional; to say that you merely admire or respect a book is, on some level, to insult it. Feelings are so fundamental to literary life that it can be hard to imagine a way of relating to literature that doesn’t involve loving it. Without all those emotions, what would reading be? –The New Yorker
Literary Rejections – This appears to be a new site, and it seems to be geared toward authors looking to publish or feeling discouraged in the midst of the submission process. There are some links to literary agencies, interviews with agents and authors, and advice for how to handle rejection. But as a reader, my favorite page is the one with some of the actual rejections on it, because you can see the breadth of books rejected. Apparently Beatrix Potter actually had to self-publish The Tale of Peter Rabbit because of the number of rejections the book got. And then there are gems like this:
“I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.” Shunned by all the major publishers, the author goes to France and lands a deal with Olympia Press. The first 5000 copies quickly sell out. But the author Vladimir Nabokov now sees his novel, Lolita, published by all those that initially turned it down, with combined sales of 50 million. –Literary Rejections
As I read the article about loving to read, it struck me that I never really wanted to own copies of all my best loved books. Weirdly, much of my reading history and love of books is tied up in borrowing from my local library. I couldn’t afford many books growing up and I didn’t and haven’t developed the habit of buying them all, either in hardback or e-form. My last move was difficult enough with the “few” books I chose to bring along. I do worry sometimes that I may eventually wish I had invested in copies of all things Austen and others. Time will tell.
Slightly off-topic, but if you are interested in Beatrix Potter at all: the movie “Miss Potter” is a wonderful dramatization of Beatrix Potter’s life and how the books came to be. It is a really lovely movie, and I highly recommend it.
“give a seal of approval called “6 Certified” to movies whose makers consult with veterans in production and then portray them in a fair and accurate light, as judged by a panel of producers and veterans.”
Now if only Hollywood would do this for women, people of color, LBGT, disabled, and other minorities.
On the “Loving to read” piece, why is it that the only books mentioned as worthy of devotion and re-reading are by dead white authors? Yes, there’s one woman in the bunch, but what? Genre fiction doesn’t deserve or engender the same feelings?
Interesting article on veterans and the “broken hero” issue. I’ve encountered that myself.
I have been surprised that a handful of reviews of His Road Home commented that the hero Rey Cruz, an SF sergeant injured in Afghanistan, doesn’t mourn his injuries enough/isn’t upset enough/recovers too easily – as if he doesn’t fit a preordained narrative of what a veteran should feel in the reader’s mind. He has challenges, but he tackles them – no wallowing, some anger, but mostly just “now I have a new mission – recovery.”
Frankly, I worked really hard to research and depict his recovery and therapy – and other reviews have complimented me on the accuracy. It is one of the few stories I’ve read where the actual mechanics of therapy for double-limb loss, such as “shorty” prosthetics and peeing in a container – are actually woven into the story – and YET he doesn’t wallow or feel sad enough/isn’t broken enough.
I’m NOT saying this to criticize reviews – I’m grateful for ALL reviews and really am NOT bashing. I just think it speaks a lot to readers’ preset ideas and expectations of veterans as a “broken hero” and to the books that build up that expectation, I think often as a shortcut for conflict.
A very real problem in stories of veterans’ recovery is the actual real elapsed time healing takes, and how to deal with that time lapse and yet not destroy your pacing and the story’s flow. I had this challenge in First to Burn, and to a lesser extent in His Road Home. It takes months for bodies to heal from some injuries – sometimes even longer – and that real-life time requirement can just stop story momentum in its tracks. So in a friends-to-lovers story like His Road Home, I could cover that time via short scenes showing time passing and friendship growing. But in First to Burn I had to figure out why the heck the two characters, already involved, are apart so long. And that’s super-hard.
So maybe some of the desire to write ‘broken hero’ veterans is also because recovery takes time, and time is the opposite of story pacing in a lot of genre fiction?
Any other examples of books where a long time lapse for recovery is involved? Just curious.
My earlier comment got hung up in the filter?
Of course my comment pops up after I mention it’s not there! (shakes finger menacingly at internet!)
@Anna Richland: Okay, now I am really jonesing for His Road Home. Thank you.
Robin, I really enjoyed today’s selections of links. Thank you! I especially loved the history of loving reading.
@Anna Richland:
I haven’t read your book, but I often dislike “broken hero” stories, be they veterans or newly disabled people for making much too light of what happened to them. There is the expectation for disabled people to “get over it”, in the real world, but also to quite an extent in stories, whether romance or other genres. Both expectations complement each other, and are based on each other, and both negate the innermost situation of the disabled person. I’ve read few books where the actual psychological situation, the one apart from the outward bullshit, was well written.
@Drano:
I too often dislike ‘broken hero’ stories – they usually just don’t seem realistic. People are so rarely healed by the magic hoo-ah, and yet those heroes are! I much prefer a story where a character heals and has set backs and moves forward and back – b/c that seems natural and realistic. I think Elizabeth Hoyt often does this very well in her historicals.
As a writer though, I know it can be super-hard to write like that b/c of the demands of “story time” vs real life time – the modern style is paced very differently from real life – I mean, who really thinks an engagement after two weeks of knowing someone while escaping a killer is going to work out in real life? But that happens in books all the time.
With historicals I think a different style/pacing can let the healing process feel more natural or true to life, but it’s a balancing challenge with contemporary stories (and with suspense??? It has to be so packed, and that is exactly the opposite of realistic recovery, isn’t it?) Unfortunately, I think the wounded hero — whether a veteran or a civilian suffering from grief — is a trope that is too easy to take shortcuts. At least with secret baby and pretend engagement, we’re starting to see that people don’t believe/accept those as much unless there’s a solid reason that works with today’s communication and values.