THE INDIGNITY OF A FAST IMAGING MIND WHEN READING ROMANCE NOVELS

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?

CRY OF FOUL WHEN ROMANCE NOVELS DON'T FOLLOW THE FORMULA

Some of us read romance books because we like to sublimate to have our bodies and minds feel good. 

There are  formulas for a romance novel.  One definition is: "A romance novel is a work of prose fiction that tells a story of the courtship and betrothal of one or more heroines.:"  Formula is a subset of genre.  Silhouette suggests 50,000 words.  Category romance, very contemporary, fast paced, fun,flirtatious, entertaining, upbeat and sexy.  For those who wish to understand the genre and not necessarily have a plot to read and relax, I suggest buying A Natural History of the Romance Novel by Pamela Regis (who wrote it in true academic style, quite readable with excellent organization)

Pride and Prejudice was one of the earlier ones that has remained read by many readers today.  'What if...' books and sequels have sprung up.  While many provide interesting and enjoyable reading, none of the more than 70 I have now read surpass Jane Austen.  Clearly, many authors are capitalizing on her coattails and many are most enjoyable reading.

Recently I have read a few that sneak in a plot, occasionally move it along in between the history book under which it should be filed..  Other authors have spent more time describing, to give us mental images no doubt, of food, furnishings, gardens and clothing.  My fantasy is that these are written by people who are unable to get to a point without wandering off and editorializing so that the listener or reader's head has wandered off as far in the opposite direction.

Each writer elicits different emotional reactions for the reader.  If I wanted the carnage and violence of the Gladiators, I would not choose to read a romance novel, yet some authors add all that to the 'action'.  The appeal seems to be to all tastes from the stereotypical frail, dependent female who is dutiful and without courage- to the independent female who stands up to oppressive, bossy males even though it against the custom of the historical time.  Since it is a novel, the author can take great liberties with the characters, clearly against all research as to how people behave, given their makeup and the situation.

However, I enjoy many genres and any book that has a happy ending which has traditionally been an accepted rule of the romance novel.  Recently I read one listed as such in which the hero and heroine had been happily married but he gets murdered near the ending, leaving her widowed, with twins less than two years old, who will have to be brought up without their father.  If one is looking to feel good, this is not a book to read; it did nothing to perk me up.  Too many modern women are single mothers (even while married)...it is not fun and not the story within which one wants to be wrapped when looking to be cheered.

HISTORY OF THE ROMANCE NOVEL

Someone, thoughtfully sent me a copy of The Natural History of the Romance Novel, having been interested enough to have read why I like them and read them now that I am a senior, never having had time to read them before. The author, is Pamela Regis, who writes in the preface that the romance novel is the 'most popular, least respected literary genre'. Her 'works cited' appendix makes clear that many people have wondered the same question...why are so many read and so few people (mostly women) ashamed to admit it?

The authors description of the book can be found at this site. While there are many authors whose books reach the NY Times best seller list, they rarely get reviewed.

Meanwhile, I will continue to read them until I pass through this phase of my life. Working at trying to keep my cortisol levels down has never been part of my daily routine. When they were up, there was not even a conscious thought as to what I was doing. Reading was limited to that which was professionally necessary and otherwise educational and informative. Now my luxury is to read only what I enjoy. The educational part is that I can enjoy feeling good and that reading romance novels gives me some control of the connection between what I read and what my body does about it.

THE PLOT FORMULA AND PLAGIARISM IN ROMANCE NOVELS

For some time now I have been relaxing with romance novels...something I would have considered a useless expenditure of time and trivial reading. Now in my senior years, I no longer have to cram professional readings as everyone writes the same stuff but in their own invented language. Even clinical sex manuals are pretty bland.

The plot in romance novels is predictable; they have happy endings; women prove themselves to have value in historic times when they were considered mere chattel; whatever other problems the women face about the men, they are always virile, and considerate lovers to the extremely passionate women.

The men patiently bring their women to sexual climax before reaching their own; premature ejaculation, never mentioned, remains just a medical term in some book, somewhere. The shared sexual experience between them spells a positive prediction for the implied 'and they lived happily ever after'.

Those who write the books must read one another's because they use the same euphemisms rather than anatomical terms. The word penis does not exist...that appendage is lovingly referred to as his 'arousal' and he is always well-endowed. Stroked, it is referred to as his shaft. Usually orgasm is referred to as 'fulfillment'. Those scenes end with the man 'pouring his seed into her'.

Many of the writers must share the same ill-informed mother, teaching them about the wedding night. The women are prepped for great pain, which inevitably happens, in the book. Apparently these writers never studied anatomy. The term hymen has not appeared in the approximately 150 books in the romance category I have read to date. Instead, now named the 'maidenhead' instead of the insignificant tissue it is over the vaginal opening, the romance writers have moved it to the middle of the vaginal canal and cast it out of concrete, judging from the hammering, plunging through which is required to qualify as the woman being 'taken' made 'his' and all those other joining, mating concepts.

ROMANCE NOVELS

Most women who choose to read romance novels are either doing it out of limited physical options or are totally falling for images on those pages. The women are always passionate in their responses because the men stir them up so that they are left panting and 'boneless' at the first kiss (which wouldn't exactly calm the sexual harassment cops today). The men are usually well endowed and I've never found a premature ejaculator nor the name Viagra in any of the too-many-books-to-mention that I have read in my dotage.

Men can hold back from their 'release' until the women have reached their peak (and passed it) several times. They delicately hold the throbbing woman until her shudders quiet, bring her to peak again and again, and when they are convinced she is sated, allow their own 'arousal' to take them to their 'release'. That is delightful pornography in text, allowing those who read the descriptions to form their own mental images. There are no dirty bare feet or long, greasy hair styles to spoil that image as there were in the first edition of the Joy of Sex. Regardless of the written description, all the men look handsome and virile to the reader though, if they were all to draw what they picture, I daresay they would look very different in each drawing.

The bar may not be the only thing raised by sexual expectations, but it is raised higher than that set by most of the couples I have treated in my many years as a therapist. When these books, great for sublimation and fantasy, are read it must make the average man and woman seem pretty dull by comparison, left to wonder how to get what they are clearly missing. The male version, more visual pornography, sets up totally different images...usually lacking the tenderness given the female by the male in the romance novel and more likely to expect activity most women find noxious rather than pleasurable. When partners' expectations are totally disparate, one hardly expects to see the relationship endure...and many of those I have seen definitely did not make it, especially if a man finds an extra-marital partner that slides willingly under the bar. Or, if a woman finds a man with more tasteful appetites and gentler goals.

Some of the writers, especially the most prolific ones, seem to have a sex scene template with four or five variations. It is easy to identify with these couplings, which certainly beat watching the news on TV in today's world, though the likelihood of ever in life experiencing what the written word describes is quite limited.

Nevertheless, the fact that romantic novels are such a booming industry suggests that they work for lots of people. Otherwise lonely lives who don't get the same consolation from pets, keep the book industry (new and used) busy even in our lowered economy.

George Gobel, at 50's comedian used to say, "Money does buy happiness. Stop on your way home and buy a fifth." I say, "Money does buy happiness (aka sublimation). Read a romance novel."