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Finally, NOT a not-a-book-review!
I’m working on a project that involves Romancelandia, specifically, I have a thesis about how (a) prolific commercially successful author of romance consistently produces a lot of new product that her audience wants to consume. I think I can show pretty definitively a particular pattern of reuse at the setting / action sequence / character type / character relationship level (so, NOT reuse of sentences or paragraphs, and not just following a formula of girl goes to a place, meets a boy there, they have some interactions, they have some more interactions that are conflictual, they resolve, repeat for a couple weeks, separate, realize they miss each other, have an opportunity to reunite, commit to each other THE END). This is a pretty academic type project, and the first stage of any of those types of projects is a literature search. After getting JAK’s monograph, and Radway, and having already loved _Beyond Heaving Bosoms_, and poking around on JSTOR, I bought a copy of Kamble’s book. And wow, has this been a ride.
Kamble is not necessarily here to analyze what the author put into the book on purpose. She’s reading _through_ the book to interpret the contemporaneous trends influencing the authors and readers of popular romance fiction. Sometimes she does this through broad overview; sometimes this is done through close readings of specific books (I have no idea how she picked the books she used for close reading, altho I personally suspect that she’s a fan of Kenyon and Singh and that’s why she was using those series — but that’s only a theory. For all I know, everything was stuff she already had lying around, or none of it was.)
Chapter 1 is about the economic universe of genre romance, specifically, the Mills and Boon capitalist / jet-setting / wealthy hero and the scrappy, member of a family firm or working girl (yeah, not THAT kind of working girl) heroine, often whose livelihood is directly threatened by the person / company of the hero. According to Kamble, the hero represents the ownership class and the heroine represents the petite bourgeoisie / working class, and the conflict in their relationship is the class struggle. There’s a whole lot going on in this theory. It does not make a ton of sense. It _really_ does absolutely nothing to explain the appeal of the books, which was much more about creating in the reader a sense of hope that even tho they had zero prospects of meeting an eligible / desirable person to date / marry, perhaps they’d run across some fantasy rich guy who would sweep them away whether they were really down for that or not. And that fantasy not only provided them with something that a lovelorn reader might be hoping for but have no particular idea how to go out and find, but ALSO solve her many financial problems as well.
But, you know, whatever.
Chapter 2 is about the imperialistic tendencies of the British Empire, with soldier / spy / covert op / contractor / wtf heroes who may or may not have PTSD, and while generally completely on board with the mission, also want to have a family which is not precisely compatible with doing sketchy things in dodgy places around the world. This is not nearly so bonkers as the previous chapter, however, it too mostly fails to do much to explain the appeal of the books. A _lot_ of romances are read by women who are either themselves in the military, or married to someone in the military, and their lives are characterized by a lot of Not Being Together. Relationship arcs which share some of this territory while reliably incorporating some amount of tension followed up with an HEA are probably helpful to this particular group while simultaneously providing an exotic universe of possibilities for people who are not so directly connected to this group. Interpreting this as a critique of imperialism , especially went the countervailing force is something as relentlessly bougie as a trad nuclear family, doesn’t add a lot of insight. However, the actual analysis of specific books in terms of alignment with mission, PTSD and trauma, the draw of family life, and the risk of relapsing to the dangers of active service to the Empire is not bad.
Chapter 3 addresses the phenomenon over time of the hero of Romancelandia becoming MORE. Richer, taller, broader in the shoulder, narrower in the hip, more ripped, more definition in the abs, a better fighter, with more friends and dependent family, etc. The heroes up to this point have been characterized as Strong but Silent types, and somehow, this variant of Alphaman is considered to be Very Het. But now, the Even More Hero is apparently Even More Het. I’m not sure why either? I mean, there are assertions. In any event, the chapter charts the increasing awareness in the general public of the existence of LG and eventually B, and their desire for basic civil rights against the MOREness of the hero, as a way of proving the total HETness of the hero. The heroine need not worry about whether the hero is wasting her time and actually gay — the hero is DEFINITELY HET.
On the one hand, the analysis of the underlying phenomenon — the escalation of the Manly Manliness of the Hero — is relatively solid. On the other hand, reading this as a backlash / skittishness about whether or not the Hero is really Straight Enough or not seems more than a little sus to me. To my eyes, this trend is better explained by observing that the reading public had, over the decades, gotten better jobs and even had careers, and yet still they had been raised with the idea that if you marry and reproduce, then mom defers to dad. So any candidate dad has to be _worthy_ of deferring to, and the women who now had women and maybe even men reporting to them, and who were quite capable of solving difficult problems and accomplishing difficult things in the world of work were not really going to defer to some silent hunk of manhood who acted unilaterally and not always wisely. At a minimum, they were going to speak up for the unaddressed requirements and probably insist on some degree of consultation and collaboration. OTOH, they had had Enough in the world of work of having men take credit for all their hard work, so ideally they wanted someone they could relax and rely upon to take care of everything.
Chapter 4 tackles the issue of race. There is a pretty detailed analysis of a Kleypas’ novel, _Seduce Me at Sunrise_. Earlier in the book, there is a pretty interesting comparison of the original form and rewrite of a Kleypas novel that has its own enormous racial problems, so, you know, brace yourself. In this one, the Hero is presented as Rom, altho he ultimately turns out to not only have Irish ancestry, but to actually be the son of an Irish earl; the Heroine is not only White but one of those super frail, don’t touch her she might die _definitely_ she is too frail for sex and childbirth types. Kamble’s analysis of the evolution of the characters to meet White, protestant ideas of … whatever (cultivating the land, planning for improvements to the land, making babies even it if is risky for the mother …) is quite solid. I mean, the book being analyzed sounds repulsive, but I have no particular issue with the analysis of the racial theory embedded in the book (just issues with the racial theory!).
Chapter 4 also includes a discussion of Nalini Singh’s paranormal romance Psy/Changeling series, which, remarkably, I have never read. I honestly am pretty unconvinced by sentences like, “In the work of numerous authors like Sherrilyn Kenyon or Christine Feehan, the fact that one or both partners in the romantic pair might be a werewolf or some other beast suggests the allure of bestiality and by extension, an acknowledgement of the inherent polymorphous perversity of sexual desire.” I’ve read fantasy that seemed like an acknowledgement of the potentially polymorphous perversity of sexual desire, and the Mormon women don’t really produce anything quite that exciting. However, I _do_ agree with Kamble that the “carnivalesque tendency” of these novels does pave “the way for the genre’s transformation into a racially diverse form.” Altho I really think that Kamble is missing out on just how many One True Mate Shapeshifter universes are lightly coded Mormon fantasies of finding someone to marry that isn’t necessarily part of your religion, but then converting that person to your religion afterwards because you are Forever Bound or wtf. Yes, shapeshifter stuff sometimes is coding for race, but more often it is coding for marrying outside of a religious group which honestly, is a helluva lot less interesting.
In any event, I haven’t read Singh, so I don’t know exactly what she’s up to with Psy/Changeling pairings, but it is plausible that “Singh’s work calls attention to the paranormal romance sub-genre’s potential to support truly multicultural narratives.”. Sure, that’s believable. Kamble describes the arc of Singh’s writing career, beginning with white characters and often in New Zealand, and talking about this in the context of a global mass culture in which whiteness is an unchallenged cultural default. (Nice use here of “WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) countries”).
I sort of want to complain a little about Kamble’s discussion of internalization / assimilation of whiteness among non-whites / the desiring of whiteness vs. writing “choices” such as “only peripherally mentioning elements that bespeak her ethnic heritage” as being the result of editorial control. I have no idea what these manuscripts were like before the editors got hold of them, and I have no idea what constraints Singh had imposed on her by others. For all I know, every identifiably white / default / absence of non-default cultural wtf is the result of editors relentlessly removing all but that.
Here, specifically, is a sentence that I feel assumes a whole lot that is not shown: “To wit, Singh appears to practice whiteness as a writer not only due to a nonwhite immigrant impulse toward identifying as white when immerse in a predominantly Euro-American culture but also because she has been a recipient of the product of the romance industry, that is, of Hall’s “global mass culture,” a product shown to be inherently white.” See, maybe that wasn’t there until the editors told her to make it that way. I don’t really know, but it does seem like it might be a difference that makes a difference. JAK attributes to sales figures the necessity of an Alpha Hero and a virginal heroine, but honestly a lot of that was editorial fiat, and certainly, over time, the virginal heroine for sure has changed, altho the Alpha Hero, while changing, does retain an awful lot of Overwhelming Tendency to Take Charge of Everything.
In any event, I do agree that there is a lot more diversity to be found in paranormal romance than the whiter end of contemporary romance, and, for sure, Kamble’s observations about the tendency of more diverse romance often being isolated in subgenres.
Kamble wraps up with speculation about where popular romance fiction might be headed next. She sure as hell did not seem to anticipate the massive increase in popularity of BDSM, other-than-couple romance novels, or M/M romance fiction aimed at women. She does, however, spent a solid paragraph on F-pattern reading. (Shrug)
I’ve embedded my alternate proposals for the various components of her interpretation throughout my review, so I don’t know that there’s a lot more to sum up here at the end, other than to observe that this is one of a very few academic books interpreting popular romantic fiction. It is precious, and I am glad it exists and I am glad I was able to get it easily in e-book form and read it. I would also urge other people to read it, if they have any interest in academic perspectives on the genre. And then, maybe think about what you can do to encourage — or produce yourself! — more academic work interpreting popular romantic fiction.
I’m working on a project that involves Romancelandia, specifically, I have a thesis about how (a) prolific commercially successful author of romance consistently produces a lot of new product that her audience wants to consume. I think I can show pretty definitively a particular pattern of reuse at the setting / action sequence / character type / character relationship level (so, NOT reuse of sentences or paragraphs, and not just following a formula of girl goes to a place, meets a boy there, they have some interactions, they have some more interactions that are conflictual, they resolve, repeat for a couple weeks, separate, realize they miss each other, have an opportunity to reunite, commit to each other THE END). This is a pretty academic type project, and the first stage of any of those types of projects is a literature search. After getting JAK’s monograph, and Radway, and having already loved _Beyond Heaving Bosoms_, and poking around on JSTOR, I bought a copy of Kamble’s book. And wow, has this been a ride.
Kamble is not necessarily here to analyze what the author put into the book on purpose. She’s reading _through_ the book to interpret the contemporaneous trends influencing the authors and readers of popular romance fiction. Sometimes she does this through broad overview; sometimes this is done through close readings of specific books (I have no idea how she picked the books she used for close reading, altho I personally suspect that she’s a fan of Kenyon and Singh and that’s why she was using those series — but that’s only a theory. For all I know, everything was stuff she already had lying around, or none of it was.)
Chapter 1 is about the economic universe of genre romance, specifically, the Mills and Boon capitalist / jet-setting / wealthy hero and the scrappy, member of a family firm or working girl (yeah, not THAT kind of working girl) heroine, often whose livelihood is directly threatened by the person / company of the hero. According to Kamble, the hero represents the ownership class and the heroine represents the petite bourgeoisie / working class, and the conflict in their relationship is the class struggle. There’s a whole lot going on in this theory. It does not make a ton of sense. It _really_ does absolutely nothing to explain the appeal of the books, which was much more about creating in the reader a sense of hope that even tho they had zero prospects of meeting an eligible / desirable person to date / marry, perhaps they’d run across some fantasy rich guy who would sweep them away whether they were really down for that or not. And that fantasy not only provided them with something that a lovelorn reader might be hoping for but have no particular idea how to go out and find, but ALSO solve her many financial problems as well.
But, you know, whatever.
Chapter 2 is about the imperialistic tendencies of the British Empire, with soldier / spy / covert op / contractor / wtf heroes who may or may not have PTSD, and while generally completely on board with the mission, also want to have a family which is not precisely compatible with doing sketchy things in dodgy places around the world. This is not nearly so bonkers as the previous chapter, however, it too mostly fails to do much to explain the appeal of the books. A _lot_ of romances are read by women who are either themselves in the military, or married to someone in the military, and their lives are characterized by a lot of Not Being Together. Relationship arcs which share some of this territory while reliably incorporating some amount of tension followed up with an HEA are probably helpful to this particular group while simultaneously providing an exotic universe of possibilities for people who are not so directly connected to this group. Interpreting this as a critique of imperialism , especially went the countervailing force is something as relentlessly bougie as a trad nuclear family, doesn’t add a lot of insight. However, the actual analysis of specific books in terms of alignment with mission, PTSD and trauma, the draw of family life, and the risk of relapsing to the dangers of active service to the Empire is not bad.
Chapter 3 addresses the phenomenon over time of the hero of Romancelandia becoming MORE. Richer, taller, broader in the shoulder, narrower in the hip, more ripped, more definition in the abs, a better fighter, with more friends and dependent family, etc. The heroes up to this point have been characterized as Strong but Silent types, and somehow, this variant of Alphaman is considered to be Very Het. But now, the Even More Hero is apparently Even More Het. I’m not sure why either? I mean, there are assertions. In any event, the chapter charts the increasing awareness in the general public of the existence of LG and eventually B, and their desire for basic civil rights against the MOREness of the hero, as a way of proving the total HETness of the hero. The heroine need not worry about whether the hero is wasting her time and actually gay — the hero is DEFINITELY HET.
On the one hand, the analysis of the underlying phenomenon — the escalation of the Manly Manliness of the Hero — is relatively solid. On the other hand, reading this as a backlash / skittishness about whether or not the Hero is really Straight Enough or not seems more than a little sus to me. To my eyes, this trend is better explained by observing that the reading public had, over the decades, gotten better jobs and even had careers, and yet still they had been raised with the idea that if you marry and reproduce, then mom defers to dad. So any candidate dad has to be _worthy_ of deferring to, and the women who now had women and maybe even men reporting to them, and who were quite capable of solving difficult problems and accomplishing difficult things in the world of work were not really going to defer to some silent hunk of manhood who acted unilaterally and not always wisely. At a minimum, they were going to speak up for the unaddressed requirements and probably insist on some degree of consultation and collaboration. OTOH, they had had Enough in the world of work of having men take credit for all their hard work, so ideally they wanted someone they could relax and rely upon to take care of everything.
Chapter 4 tackles the issue of race. There is a pretty detailed analysis of a Kleypas’ novel, _Seduce Me at Sunrise_. Earlier in the book, there is a pretty interesting comparison of the original form and rewrite of a Kleypas novel that has its own enormous racial problems, so, you know, brace yourself. In this one, the Hero is presented as Rom, altho he ultimately turns out to not only have Irish ancestry, but to actually be the son of an Irish earl; the Heroine is not only White but one of those super frail, don’t touch her she might die _definitely_ she is too frail for sex and childbirth types. Kamble’s analysis of the evolution of the characters to meet White, protestant ideas of … whatever (cultivating the land, planning for improvements to the land, making babies even it if is risky for the mother …) is quite solid. I mean, the book being analyzed sounds repulsive, but I have no particular issue with the analysis of the racial theory embedded in the book (just issues with the racial theory!).
Chapter 4 also includes a discussion of Nalini Singh’s paranormal romance Psy/Changeling series, which, remarkably, I have never read. I honestly am pretty unconvinced by sentences like, “In the work of numerous authors like Sherrilyn Kenyon or Christine Feehan, the fact that one or both partners in the romantic pair might be a werewolf or some other beast suggests the allure of bestiality and by extension, an acknowledgement of the inherent polymorphous perversity of sexual desire.” I’ve read fantasy that seemed like an acknowledgement of the potentially polymorphous perversity of sexual desire, and the Mormon women don’t really produce anything quite that exciting. However, I _do_ agree with Kamble that the “carnivalesque tendency” of these novels does pave “the way for the genre’s transformation into a racially diverse form.” Altho I really think that Kamble is missing out on just how many One True Mate Shapeshifter universes are lightly coded Mormon fantasies of finding someone to marry that isn’t necessarily part of your religion, but then converting that person to your religion afterwards because you are Forever Bound or wtf. Yes, shapeshifter stuff sometimes is coding for race, but more often it is coding for marrying outside of a religious group which honestly, is a helluva lot less interesting.
In any event, I haven’t read Singh, so I don’t know exactly what she’s up to with Psy/Changeling pairings, but it is plausible that “Singh’s work calls attention to the paranormal romance sub-genre’s potential to support truly multicultural narratives.”. Sure, that’s believable. Kamble describes the arc of Singh’s writing career, beginning with white characters and often in New Zealand, and talking about this in the context of a global mass culture in which whiteness is an unchallenged cultural default. (Nice use here of “WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) countries”).
I sort of want to complain a little about Kamble’s discussion of internalization / assimilation of whiteness among non-whites / the desiring of whiteness vs. writing “choices” such as “only peripherally mentioning elements that bespeak her ethnic heritage” as being the result of editorial control. I have no idea what these manuscripts were like before the editors got hold of them, and I have no idea what constraints Singh had imposed on her by others. For all I know, every identifiably white / default / absence of non-default cultural wtf is the result of editors relentlessly removing all but that.
Here, specifically, is a sentence that I feel assumes a whole lot that is not shown: “To wit, Singh appears to practice whiteness as a writer not only due to a nonwhite immigrant impulse toward identifying as white when immerse in a predominantly Euro-American culture but also because she has been a recipient of the product of the romance industry, that is, of Hall’s “global mass culture,” a product shown to be inherently white.” See, maybe that wasn’t there until the editors told her to make it that way. I don’t really know, but it does seem like it might be a difference that makes a difference. JAK attributes to sales figures the necessity of an Alpha Hero and a virginal heroine, but honestly a lot of that was editorial fiat, and certainly, over time, the virginal heroine for sure has changed, altho the Alpha Hero, while changing, does retain an awful lot of Overwhelming Tendency to Take Charge of Everything.
In any event, I do agree that there is a lot more diversity to be found in paranormal romance than the whiter end of contemporary romance, and, for sure, Kamble’s observations about the tendency of more diverse romance often being isolated in subgenres.
Kamble wraps up with speculation about where popular romance fiction might be headed next. She sure as hell did not seem to anticipate the massive increase in popularity of BDSM, other-than-couple romance novels, or M/M romance fiction aimed at women. She does, however, spent a solid paragraph on F-pattern reading. (Shrug)
I’ve embedded my alternate proposals for the various components of her interpretation throughout my review, so I don’t know that there’s a lot more to sum up here at the end, other than to observe that this is one of a very few academic books interpreting popular romantic fiction. It is precious, and I am glad it exists and I am glad I was able to get it easily in e-book form and read it. I would also urge other people to read it, if they have any interest in academic perspectives on the genre. And then, maybe think about what you can do to encourage — or produce yourself! — more academic work interpreting popular romantic fiction.