One of my pleasures, as age creeps up, is reading 'feel good' books, ergo romance novels. By definition, they must have a happy ending. However, authors often assume the reader needs no details to relate to the characters or events. I can't turn today's head off, while reading a story set in Scotland in 1375. Taking my descriptions from the author, pictures form in my head. The heroine has escaped her captors just before the birth of her baby. She is kept safe by an enemy and insured of her babe's survival only with a promise that she will spend one night with him sometime. She agrees, feeling no choice, to save the life of her then unborn child since is going into labor. The child is born, hidden in a secret room with her pursuers a thin wall away, assisted only by a somewhat dimwitted, male servant as she labors unable to make a cry. She leaves two days later with baby and servant to walk back to the father of her child, more than a day's walk away..My mind turns to basics. She has neither sanitary pads nor disposable diapers nor change of clothing. Good grief, what must they look and smell like. Nothing is mentioned about having been able to bring food or water, yet she continues to breast feed her healthy child. They are rescued by servants of the father within yards of the house and she survives several days of fever.
For today's delicate readers, little is spoken of bad odors and some authors even talk about cleaning teeth before bedtime and washing up. Women are chattel but our heroines would make our 21st C feminists look meek. All heroes are strong, muscled, and good looking (not too difficult to picture) but they eat and drink the most horrible diet one could imagine. It is small wonder the lifespan was short though the books never get to that.. Sanitation and sewerage disposal is never mentioned, other than to state historically that London smelled bad and was not a healthy place to breathe. Only the bad guys get VD, never the hero though he is hardly chaste.
I guess I can expect no less in a romance novel (now clearly understanding the term romanticized) but I sure wish I could turn parts of my head off. Years ago I wondered what mountain climbers did who were on the side of the mountain for days. I learned that they are catheterized but for the hard stuff, used a plastic bag that got dropped to the ground below. Factually satisfied, it sure did add a dimension to the experience I was little prepared for at the time. Life is not pretty. I read for entertainment yet my head contradicts when I criticize the authors for making a nice story, not a reality tale in full detail. Will I ever be able to read without filling in the ugly blanks provided by my curiously detailed mind?
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