Of Glamour and Genre Snobbery

I have a confession to make: despite my manifesto to book snobs a couple of weeks ago, there are a few genres I’ve traditionally been a total snob about.  Yes, I know.  Hypocrite.

Hush.  I’m trying to mea culpa here.

What genre is it that has earned my ire, you may be asking yourself.  Or, you may still be jumping up and down pointing or mooning me.

Romance.

*shudder*

Just thinking about it makes me itch.

Now, this prejudice may come, in part, from going on a search for The Once and Future King on the family bookshelf at age eleven; encountering a multitude of fake people standing front of rolling green backgrounds with heaving breasts and totally disproportionate packages, fans blowing back the tresses, and shirt fronts, of many a generic model; opening one of said; reading something about a throbbing member when I had only a vague idea of what a member was and what might induce it to throb; a lot of synonyms for the word moist and naked; shoving the thing back the shelf; and fled back to science fiction that, while still inappropriate, at least used medical terms for naughty bits (what, my father is an OBGYN, I wasn’t naive) and weren’t nearly as concerned with the level of secretions being swapped.

Oh, baby your thorn is soooo big…

And, it may come from the fact that I am, despite being a giant dork where sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, etc are concerned, if I’m reading something that deals with normal old folk, be they naughty stable boys or lonely princesses, I want it to be at least a little realistic.  You know how a lot of people think if they have sex while pregnant the guy’s penis will poke the baby?  This shit is why.  No one’s dick is that long, kids, no matter what Harlequin might tell you.  Also, while some dude (or lass) on a horse may ride in to save you, don’t wait for it.  Live your own life.  Be a self rescuing princess.

The preceding is why I don’t read romance novels.  Ever.

Thus, you can imagine, them, my nerd-rage when book 3 of Mary Robinette Kowal‘s Glamourist Histories, Without a Summer, was delivered into my ravenous hands with a “Romance” sticker on the spine.

image via maryrobinettekowal.com

Hold up, Carnegie Public Library: I’m reading this book and, therefore, it follows it cannot be classified as “romance.”  Because I don’t read romance.  Ever.

*Ahem*

Well…

Yeah, self-assessment time…

I’m a sucker for Jane Austen.  Have been since I read Pride and Prejudice.  In AP English.  They wouldn’t let me read a romance novel in AP English.  Right?  RIGHT?

Yeah, they totally had us read a romance novel in AP English.

There is no bodice ripping.  Any actual naughtiness is punished with shunning .  But men are men and women swoon.  There is a SCANDAL.  There is a fair bit of walking amid rolling green hills.  And, at the end, someone gets married to someone else, whether it’s the person they anticipated or not.

Everyone plays the piano instead of their partner’s nether regions, there are fancy dresses and weird hats, and the table turns during the meal.  And yes, Austen did include a sort of Shakespearian tendency toward the comedy of errors and was, mayhap, the precursor to Oscar Wilde’s comedies of manners.  But at heart, they’re good, ye olde fashioned love stories.

Well, shit.

Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories (of which volume 4, Valour and Vanity, was released a few weeks ago) have been described as Jane Austen with magic but her works are for more subtle than that: not only does she absolutely nail Jane Austen’s style, she infuses it with new life by her homage.  These stories are no mere rehash, as some reviews suggest; they are a broadening, a vision of what might have been based on what was.

And the magic… oh, the magic.  Several of the people I’ve recommended the books to have told me they were disappointed because they wanted more magic, bigger magic.  If one were took look back at Austen, however, one would have to admit Robinette Kowal’s glamours are exactly what Jane would have created had she thought to do something.  Household arts, making one’s features more attractive, flaunting one’s wealth, the defeat of Napoleon — these are exactly the things magic would have been used for in the Regency Period.  Swords and sorcerers would be silly.  And these novels are far from silly.

And romance novels are silly, right?

Right?

If MRK has borrowed from the tradition of Austen, and Austen, in fact, wrote Romance novels, then one is forced to acknowledge the romance as one of the main themes of The Glamourist Histories.

Which means not only am I reading romance novels, I’m devouring them.  I back to backed books 2 and 3; I would have started directly in on 4, but I’m waiting for it to come in to the library.  That’s right, I’m literally doing the “But mom, I don’t want to wait dance”  for a romance novel,

Judge genre not, lest ye genre be judged.

Or something.

Lesson learned, universe.  Lesson learned.

image via maryrobinettekowal.com

image via maryrobinettekowal.com

image via maryrobinettekowal.com

image via maryrobinettekowal.com