cliterature

There is an “article” passing for news at the ‘Collegian Online’. The title is: Romance novels’…appeal? Excerpts are shown below in bold.

The first lines are: “Kilts. Men. Middle-aged women. Middle-aged women’s fascination with men in kilts. One of the great mysteries of life for a 20 year-old college student. I work at a library; part of my job is to check in books patrons return to the library.” One of the banalities of life for a middle-aged romance reader is that 20-year-old college students manage to be disdainfully ageist (multiple unnecessary mentions of “middle-aged” and “older” followed by chuckling at and deriding the aged women’s reading preferences) and so superior in tone at the same time. Oh, and while doing so they invariably display a pervasive inability to correctly use apostrophes and hyphens.

Later in the piece she continues: “Now the great question is why do women read romance novels so ardently? I have a sneaking suspicion romance novels are the female equivalent of certain types of magazines targeted toward men.” Well, duh. I mean they are often pretty good stories too, but of course the appeal of erotic romances is, um, the sex. (It is also the romance, unless the library is all out of erotica and spicy romance is the best these poor ladies can get in terms of written pornography.) This is not a secret. It is also not anything to be ashamed of. Give it a few decades and most women get over being embarrassed about enjoying erotic fiction.

“Romance novels still have salvageable plots…” Because sex is obviously hideous, and the plots need to be rescued from it like a swooning woman needs to be rescued by a half-naked man. “Oh, but since there are words involved instead of purely tawdry pictures, it is not as animalistic or cheap.” Because sex is animalistic, and women who have it are cheap?  Methinks the lady doth project too much.

“If I do not reach an understanding of the kilt bit though, I may develop an appreciation. Who knows what the future will have in store for me and my fellow 20 year-old women?” Perhaps she will, like generation before, grow into a woman who realises sex isn’t embarrassing, and sex and a plot can coexist comfortably in the same book.  Horror or horrors, she may grow up and become an erotic romance reader.

And perhaps someone at Saint Mary’s College will gently suggest a greater degree of respect for her elders and for the people she is being paid to assist at the library… and how to use punctuation correctly. (Hint: the apostrophe, or the question mark, not both).

In all honesty, poking fun at romance as a genre is unimaginative, mean-spirited and basically boring–but I had nothing better to do this afternoon than fisk the poor dear. The previous generation learned how to run with wolves, and if they want to read about fornicating with werewolves more power to them. No need for some condescending puppy of a student librarian to sneer at them about it–or at least not without expecting the same in return.

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