Friday News: India’s Romance writers, cover confusion, and “alt-right” Austen
Publishing NewsAmazon / celebrity likeness / India / Jane Austen / Nikita Singh / politics / Romance novel covers / Theodore Beale9 Comments
A romance novel in two weeks! – Forget the title of this article, because it distracts from the actual content, which is focused on Nikita Singh, who has written ten books (her first at age 19 while she was in pharmacy school) and is published by Penguin India. Singh is a Romance novelist and she talks about how the actual writing of her books is the final phase in a process that takes months. She also emphasizes the importance of strong female characters and female friendships, both of which are hallmarks of her work. Apparently Singh is now living in New York and working on her MFA. I notice that her most recent book, at least, is published by Harlequin.
[Nikita Singh] emphasised that women were not as gullible as romance fiction traditionally portrayed them, showing us why young, realistic voices like hers was the need of the hour for Indian literature. . .
Nikita spoke about the various ways in which romantic relationships in books often create stereotypes about women, and touched on the subject of strong female friendships – a relationship which is often ignored in favour of typical male female romantic relationships. – Times of India
When Beale announced pre-orders for The Corroding Empire, he made his mission very clear: He wanted his publishing house to do better than Tor Books and thought outperforming Scalzi with a near-identical book cover would twist the knife, adding “What would be more amusing than for The Corroding Empire to outsell and outrank The Collapsing Empire?” . . .
Beale previously announced a reprint that shortens the title to Corrosion, and changes the author’s name to Harry Seldon, parodying a character from Foundation. Right now, though, it’s still being sold with the original cover intact. Some of his followers have also responded by giving Scalzi’s book negative reviews on Amazon. We’ve reached out to Tor for a comment and will update when we hear back. – i09
Some right-wing writers use Austen as shorthand for defiance of the sexual revolution. Andrew Anglin, a white-supremacist blogger for The Daily Stormer, inserted Austen into a paean to the pop star Taylor Swift, whom he approvingly called “a secret Nazi.” As quoted in the Vice Media feminist channel Broadly, Anglin contrasted Swift with the singer Miley Cyrus and upheld her as an exemplar of Aryan virtue in a recording industry debased by multiculturalism. “It’s incredible really that she’s surrounded by these filthy, perverted Jews, and yet she remains capable of exuding 1950s purity, femininity, and innocence,” said Anglin. “She is the anti-Miley. While Miley is out having gang-bangs with colored gentlemen, she is at home with her cat reading Jane Austen.” Here Austen’s fiction serves as an escape portal from today’s Babylonian sexual excess to a vaguely delineated (1800s through 1950s) mythical era when women were wholesome and chaste. Anglin must not have read so far into Austen’s novels to encounter her sexually adventurous characters Lydia Bennet and Maria Bertram.
This view of Austen as an avatar of a superior bygone era is linked not only with fantasies of female retreat from the sexual whirl, but also with calls for white separatism. On the popular blog of the alt-right publisher Counter-Currents, the world of Austen’s novels is extolled as a prototype for the “racial dictatorship” of tomorrow. One commenter wrote, “If, after the ethnostate is created, we revert back to an Austen-like world, we males ought to endure severe sacrifices as well. … If traditional marriage à la P&P [Pride and Prejudice] is going to be imposed, again, in an ethnostate, we must behave like gentlemen.” – Chronicle of Higher Education
And unlike Depeche Mode, Jane Austen isn’t around to complain about being coopted by Nazis.
Beale’s book was back on Amazon yesterday ( per file 770) – maybe now things changed again.
Reading Scalzi’s book, having lots of fun ;-).
Sorry Robin – it is Friday morning , I misread your story. You already said it was back oy.
Yeah, I saw the tempest-in-a-teapot story about Beale’s latest going around this week. The Dr. Horrible GIF in the comments on the IO9 story is the best reaction I’ve seen to this yet. ;D
(Also, I feel a purchase of Mr. Scalzi’s book coming on!)
Angela Korra’ti I don’t want to say that I bought Mr. Scalzi’s book *only* due to Beale’s continuing to show off his obsession with Scalzi to the world to see. I follow his Twitter ( and his cats’ Twitter ;-)) and usually like what he has to say a lot , but I read one and a half book of his ( bounced off “Redshirts ” so very hard ) and had no desire to check out his backlist but this one sounded so much fun and right up my alley so I figured oh let me try . so far for the most part it is a lot of fun and I may even review it here.
@Sirius: Awesome. :)
I tend to find Scalzi more entertaining as a blogger than as an author–but I DID very much like Lock In. I’ve read a couple others of his that didn’t click with me so well (I have very little interest in milSF so haven’t bothered yet to read anything else in the Old Man’s War universe), though I have several of his shorter works on my reading queue as well. I kind of suspect I may find him more entertaining in short form.
@Angela Korra’ti (Angela Highland): I like his blog too, absolutely and appreciate his “Big idea” entries, found quite a few fun books that way. Oh I do enjoy military SFF a lot, but I will check “Lock in” out thank you.
@Sirius: My pleasure!
That Jane Austen is appalling! What small minds won’t concoct!