(no subject)
Mar. 28th, 2006 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
algToday I transferred from the L to the W to go one stop up to 23rd St. and the Flatiron building. I had originally wanted to walk, and then ended up reading a book and becoming engrossed, so train it was.
When I looked up again, I was in Queens.
Here is something I love about my office: When I say, shamefacedly, "Sorry I'm an hour late to work... I was reading The Essential Bordertown and when I looked up, I was in Queens," people beam at me.
And now, the book I read last night when my internet did not work properly: What Love Means to You People by NancyKay Shapiro.
I am not sure how to talk about this book. It does a lot of things that I personally do not like. However, I have a feeling it will hit kinks (and I mean kinks) for a lot of you on my flist.
I don't know the author and I don't know her intentions with the book and I have never read her blog. I say this because I am now going to say a lot of things about her novel, and I want to make sure that you all know that these are my reactions to the text, rather than to her own meta on the text, or anyone else's meta on the text. (I don't actually know anyone else who has read this, either, because although it's published by SMP, I don't know its editor.)
Frankly, from the cover copy, I was sort of expecting either a gay romance, or a pulp novel turned on its head and fucked inside out. I got neither of those things. I wanted to like the book a lot -- I am a huge fan of queer literature and (as some/most of you know) I am (along with Paul Stevens and Liz Gorinsky and some others) trying to figure out ways to publish more books with queer protagonists here at Tor/Forge.
I personally do not like flashbacks, nor do I like flashbacks within flashbacks. I do not like large bits of text in italics. I do not like dialogue that all sounds the same. I do not like authors interrupting characters to discuss her own thoughts or observations within a scene -- particularly when the author's "voice" is nearly the same as the character's, although the language is different (for example, I have never met one single person from Nebraska who would call anyone's tone "stroppy" or say that anyone is "in a strop" -- even them who read a lot; perhaps I am not frequenting the correct backwater towns?).
However, here are things I do like, and my reasons for picking the book up: I like gay romance novels. A lot. I like the very idea of gay romance novels -- there are, in fact, young, queer girls and boys who want to read romance novels about people like themselves, and can. And they do not always end in death and disaster (anymore, or so I am told). I like older men (well, I do), and I have always been a sucker for a romance about an older person with a younger person, no matter what the sex/gender pairing. I like angst. I like love. I like books about people facing their pasts.
And, oh oh oh, how I love books about men having mid-life crises. Isn't that silly? But there's something about it that's always spoke to me. Trappings aside, a mid-life crisis seems a lot like teenage angst, and then later, the restlessness of one's twenties, and life in general, never knowing if you're making the right decision to make yourself happy, but knowing that where you are is stifling -- but maybe once you're gone, you'll miss it desperately, and --
Well, yes, it's always appealed to me.
This novel took a lot of cliches and tropes from romance novels and from pulp novels. There is an older, broad-shouldered, very rich man in New York City whose partner is recently dead. There is a young, skinny, nubile artist-type from Nebraska, running away from his past. There are the well-meaning, caring, older gay friends (think: fairy gayfathers) in a Brownstone. There is angst. There is passion. There is romance. There are lots of bits about New York City and the streets and the museums and the art (and I am more than a little bit a sucker for books with a lot of New York in them!).
(Sidebar: My very favorite book with New York in it is either The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, or The Stone War by Madeleine Robins. They should be required reading for everyone.)
The novel even has a somewhat happy ending! Although I really did feel like nothing was resolved, and, frankly, I get enough of that in real life. That also bothered me because most of the book had a tinge, a film, of unreality to it. As I said, I don't know what the author was intending (and you will often hear Anna-as-reader proclaim that the auctorial intention means shit anyway*) but, to me, if one is trying to write a realistic book, one tries to make everything as real as possible -- and if one is writing a fantastical book, one tries to make things as real as possible so that the fantastical seems fantastical or ordinary, depending on the effects you're looking for, and if one is writing a romance novel in which reality is supposed to be consumed by, well, a romantical notion of how the world could or should be... then one should do that, and give us some closure at the end, for the love of Viggo.
Without closure, I find myself adrift at the end (of all books I read). Even if there is just a stopping point, rather than an ending point, I want to be satisfied with where these characters have stopped, even or especiallyif (cf. Casablanca) I am not particularly happy with the decisions the characters have made.
Savvy?
Back to the novel: The prose can be florid, purple, lurid. (Am I being redundant? These all imply slightly different things in my head.)
My biggest issue was characterization, which I am totally going to skip over, because different characterization works for different people, and my problems with that were totally individual.
My second biggest issue was, about halfway through a scene that had flashbacks within a flashback, and was about a gangbang rape.
(I have my own issues with gangbang rapes in backwater towns, and I know it happens more than we'd all like to admit, but...).
I don't know what the author was intending (is there an acronym for that yet?) but! But I have read a lot of fiction in which rape is sexualized -- not just in romance novels, but in other genre as well, including fan fiction (where it is, a lot of the time, not only its own genre, but also included or includes the subgenre of "if I fuck you after you've been raped, then you'll be okay!"**). And. The rape scene(s) in this book read like jerk-off fic. The language used was the language of sexualized rape. Or -- I mean, a lot of times rape is sexual, it's about power, power is very sexual, although not in a pretty way that we like to think about. But the language of sexualized rape is a flowery language of erotica/romantica/porn, whatever you'd like to call it.
And although we the reader know the character is traumatized by this (but we never get a flashback of how he gets over this trauma, and a lot of it is with him and never goes away, throughout the book, even at the end), the scene is supposed to, maybe, both shock us and titillate? Make us appalled and turn us on?
It just made me put down the book and go open a bottle of wine. And then drink the whole thing.
(I am not saying things like, "If the author had ever been raped, she would have..." I am saying, "This did not seem right to my eyes, though you may feel differently.")
In conclusion, this was not the worst book I have ever read, nor was it my favorite, but I know that some of you will like it -- and you do not have to tell me! Or anyone! Order it from Amazon or order it from B&N or order it from Powell's and read it for yourself.
PS, when the characters were described in the text, I immediately thought of David Boreanaz-as-Angel, and Vincent Kartheiser-as-Connor. That kind of made me squirm a little, too. Your mileage may vary!
Okay, phew. I am not sure if that is all I have to say about this book, but I think I am finished for the moment.
When I looked up again, I was in Queens.
Here is something I love about my office: When I say, shamefacedly, "Sorry I'm an hour late to work... I was reading The Essential Bordertown and when I looked up, I was in Queens," people beam at me.
And now, the book I read last night when my internet did not work properly: What Love Means to You People by NancyKay Shapiro.
I am not sure how to talk about this book. It does a lot of things that I personally do not like. However, I have a feeling it will hit kinks (and I mean kinks) for a lot of you on my flist.
I don't know the author and I don't know her intentions with the book and I have never read her blog. I say this because I am now going to say a lot of things about her novel, and I want to make sure that you all know that these are my reactions to the text, rather than to her own meta on the text, or anyone else's meta on the text. (I don't actually know anyone else who has read this, either, because although it's published by SMP, I don't know its editor.)
Frankly, from the cover copy, I was sort of expecting either a gay romance, or a pulp novel turned on its head and fucked inside out. I got neither of those things. I wanted to like the book a lot -- I am a huge fan of queer literature and (as some/most of you know) I am (along with Paul Stevens and Liz Gorinsky and some others) trying to figure out ways to publish more books with queer protagonists here at Tor/Forge.
I personally do not like flashbacks, nor do I like flashbacks within flashbacks. I do not like large bits of text in italics. I do not like dialogue that all sounds the same. I do not like authors interrupting characters to discuss her own thoughts or observations within a scene -- particularly when the author's "voice" is nearly the same as the character's, although the language is different (for example, I have never met one single person from Nebraska who would call anyone's tone "stroppy" or say that anyone is "in a strop" -- even them who read a lot; perhaps I am not frequenting the correct backwater towns?).
However, here are things I do like, and my reasons for picking the book up: I like gay romance novels. A lot. I like the very idea of gay romance novels -- there are, in fact, young, queer girls and boys who want to read romance novels about people like themselves, and can. And they do not always end in death and disaster (anymore, or so I am told). I like older men (well, I do), and I have always been a sucker for a romance about an older person with a younger person, no matter what the sex/gender pairing. I like angst. I like love. I like books about people facing their pasts.
And, oh oh oh, how I love books about men having mid-life crises. Isn't that silly? But there's something about it that's always spoke to me. Trappings aside, a mid-life crisis seems a lot like teenage angst, and then later, the restlessness of one's twenties, and life in general, never knowing if you're making the right decision to make yourself happy, but knowing that where you are is stifling -- but maybe once you're gone, you'll miss it desperately, and --
Well, yes, it's always appealed to me.
This novel took a lot of cliches and tropes from romance novels and from pulp novels. There is an older, broad-shouldered, very rich man in New York City whose partner is recently dead. There is a young, skinny, nubile artist-type from Nebraska, running away from his past. There are the well-meaning, caring, older gay friends (think: fairy gayfathers) in a Brownstone. There is angst. There is passion. There is romance. There are lots of bits about New York City and the streets and the museums and the art (and I am more than a little bit a sucker for books with a lot of New York in them!).
(Sidebar: My very favorite book with New York in it is either The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, or The Stone War by Madeleine Robins. They should be required reading for everyone.)
The novel even has a somewhat happy ending! Although I really did feel like nothing was resolved, and, frankly, I get enough of that in real life. That also bothered me because most of the book had a tinge, a film, of unreality to it. As I said, I don't know what the author was intending (and you will often hear Anna-as-reader proclaim that the auctorial intention means shit anyway*) but, to me, if one is trying to write a realistic book, one tries to make everything as real as possible -- and if one is writing a fantastical book, one tries to make things as real as possible so that the fantastical seems fantastical or ordinary, depending on the effects you're looking for, and if one is writing a romance novel in which reality is supposed to be consumed by, well, a romantical notion of how the world could or should be... then one should do that, and give us some closure at the end, for the love of Viggo.
Without closure, I find myself adrift at the end (of all books I read). Even if there is just a stopping point, rather than an ending point, I want to be satisfied with where these characters have stopped, even or especiallyif (cf. Casablanca) I am not particularly happy with the decisions the characters have made.
Savvy?
Back to the novel: The prose can be florid, purple, lurid. (Am I being redundant? These all imply slightly different things in my head.)
My biggest issue was characterization, which I am totally going to skip over, because different characterization works for different people, and my problems with that were totally individual.
My second biggest issue was, about halfway through a scene that had flashbacks within a flashback, and was about a gangbang rape.
(I have my own issues with gangbang rapes in backwater towns, and I know it happens more than we'd all like to admit, but...).
I don't know what the author was intending (is there an acronym for that yet?) but! But I have read a lot of fiction in which rape is sexualized -- not just in romance novels, but in other genre as well, including fan fiction (where it is, a lot of the time, not only its own genre, but also included or includes the subgenre of "if I fuck you after you've been raped, then you'll be okay!"**). And. The rape scene(s) in this book read like jerk-off fic. The language used was the language of sexualized rape. Or -- I mean, a lot of times rape is sexual, it's about power, power is very sexual, although not in a pretty way that we like to think about. But the language of sexualized rape is a flowery language of erotica/romantica/porn, whatever you'd like to call it.
And although we the reader know the character is traumatized by this (but we never get a flashback of how he gets over this trauma, and a lot of it is with him and never goes away, throughout the book, even at the end), the scene is supposed to, maybe, both shock us and titillate? Make us appalled and turn us on?
It just made me put down the book and go open a bottle of wine. And then drink the whole thing.
(I am not saying things like, "If the author had ever been raped, she would have..." I am saying, "This did not seem right to my eyes, though you may feel differently.")
In conclusion, this was not the worst book I have ever read, nor was it my favorite, but I know that some of you will like it -- and you do not have to tell me! Or anyone! Order it from Amazon or order it from B&N or order it from Powell's and read it for yourself.
PS, when the characters were described in the text, I immediately thought of David Boreanaz-as-Angel, and Vincent Kartheiser-as-Connor. That kind of made me squirm a little, too. Your mileage may vary!
* When I say that auctorial intent means shit anyway, what I mean is that most of the time, the reader is creating in his or her own head the world that the author is describing, and it will almost never be the same. Someone I was reading on el-jay the other day, when I was trolling for interesting things to read so that I wouldn't have to do my work (and if you recognize this, please please give me the link, for it was smart), said that, and I am totally paraphrasing… the author's job is to create about 50% of the world, and the reader will fill in the other 50% with their own interpretations of things, etc. -- and therefore the author's particular job is to create a 50% that will help the reader fill in the right other half, to get at least a vague sense of the correct vision in the author's head.
ETN: It was Elizabeth Bear, here, and the quote, that I am taking out of context (slightly) and using without permission is, "A story is indeed fifty percent what's on the page and fifty percent what's in the reader's head, but we play games to get the reader bringing as much of the right fifty percent as possible."
Even with amazing and wonderful authors, this does not always work. You say "tay-uk" and I say "tahhk" and the word is spelled "taak" and even with your pronunciation guide, I still say "tahhk". Savvy?
** I AM NOT JUDGING. I like stuff that you don't like too. I don't have a forced sex kink. Forced sex kinks do not mean that people want to be raped in their real lives. I understand this. You understand this. Together we are understanding of this. Kink in literature and fantasy is not the same thing as real world desire. Except for some people it is, but those aren't the people we are talking about. Right? Right.
Okay, phew. I am not sure if that is all I have to say about this book, but I think I am finished for the moment.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 07:30 pm (UTC)I like the very idea of gay romance novels -- there are, in fact, young, queer girls and boys who want to read romance novels about people like themselves, and can.
I was so delighted to come across a whole selection of gay YA romance--all by the same author, but still--at my local B&N, and to discover that they often had reasonably realistically happy endings. I'm just sad that there weren't more books like this.
Your analysis of the other book is interesting. I won't read it--can't handle rape scenes anymore--but I'd be interested to see what others have to say on the subject.
if one is trying to write a realistic book, one tries to make everything as real as possible -- and if one is writing a fantastical book, one tries to make things as real as possible so that the fantastical seems fantastical or ordinary, depending on the effects you're looking for, and if one is writing a romance novel in which reality is supposed to be consumed by, well, a romantical notion of how the world could or should be... then one should do that, and give us some closure at the end, for the love of Viggo.
Amen to that. I've been doing a lot of thinking about where the line between "realism" and everything else is, particularly as I find "realistic" novels generally depressing, but can't access fantastical or romantic stories--whether as novels or poems or fic--if there isn't some grounding in realism, which for me exists in the realm of character. But I'm intrigued by where that line is for others. What makes a novel "realistic" for Jane but not for Bob?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 09:54 pm (UTC)I think now you're getting into sociology and psychology! I think readers need different things from text -- and so, just like with anything else, you'll find some texts that seem to have an almost universal appeal because people can fill in the blanks in the ways they want to (or because the blanks are filled in in ways that appeal to them)... and some texts only appeal to a niche market, because the blanks/unblank bits don't have the same sort of "universal" resonance.
Does that make sense?