Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Romantic Art Vs. "cheesy" Romances

Rate this topic


BurgessLau

Recommended Posts

(Moderator's note: This was split from another thread.)

I understand why Rand liked Romanticism. It was because people live by ideals and principles.

But why do most romantic books have to be so cheesy.

What do you mean by "cheesy"?

Edited by softwareNerd
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why do you have to put important philosophical issues into the garment of cheesy romance novels?

I understand why Rand liked Romanticism. It was because people live by ideals and principles.

But why do most romantic books have to be so cheesy.

I mean, it's like those romance novels you can buy a dime a dozen about some doctor or pirate conquering the heart of a woman.

The sentence below my statement may not have been enough.

What I mean by cheesy is 'way too romatic', that is: romantic to a degree that it becomes ridiculous.

A friend of mine's girlfriend borrowed him one of these 'cheesy' romance novels you can buy for some cents at every corner. These books are filled with unfulfilled female fantasies about "ultimate human heroes" (or at least some sort of alpha males) saving their lifes and giving them the kind of emotional fulfillment they lack in real life. This particular book was about a woman going back in time and meeting the pirate she read so much about and falls in love with him. Now she can go back to this real world, but she is in love with the pirate and is torn between the two worlds, blah blah blah ...

Isn't it a shame to put a groundbreaking philosophy into a book of the structure of these cheap pirate-books.

My problem is: The philosophy (Objectivism) is great and romance novels are complete garbage not worth reading (or even printing). Why combine these two to create some sick intellectual Frankenstein-monster half genius half idiot?

I hope I have made my point a little clearer.

Again, in a visual way:

Me

|

V

:lol: ---------------------> :nerd: + :yarr::wub:

:lol: I just love these emoticons. Finally I could use the pirate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My understanding of Ayn Rand's "The Romantic Manifesto" is that "Romantic" writing is not "Romance" writing. Indeed one can have a "Romantic" novel that contains no romance (in the personal relationship sense) at all. When Ayn Rand uses the term "Romantic" she means art that depicts man as a volitonal being.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mean "bodice rippers" aka "repressed chick pornography", I think? (please pardon me if that was overly crude: it IS accurate)

Nine tenths of those novels have nothing whatsoever to do with Romantic Realism; esthetically, they are not part of the Romantic writing school at all. They are about on par with action movies in content and purpose. Personally, I tend to avoid the entire genre. I prefer fantasy and science fiction, myself.

Oh, and the men in most trashy romance novels are NOT heroes unless your idea of a heroic man is one that can swing a sword while dangling from a chandelier, and has occasion to do so quite often. Acrobatic, I'll grant you, but otherwise not especially useful. Oh, and keep in mind he's probably a thief, killer, and/or rapist. Even the people I know of that WRITE these books don't take them seriously: it's often (but not always) somewhat of a booby prize for a writer that's not making quite enough money in a serious genre. Quite often they make use of a nom de plume.

*shrugs* even women that read tabloids read books, I suppose.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mean "bodice rippers" aka "repressed chick pornography", I think? (please pardon me if that was overly crude: it IS accurate)

I once read that these books represent one half of a all the books published.

That means the other books are fiction, nonfiction, science, literature, science-fiction, philosophy, the Bible, ...

The article I read also stated that these books are to women what porn magazines are to men, which would explain the high percentage in books. :D

Oh, and the men in most trashy romance novels are NOT heroes unless your idea of a heroic man is one that can swing a sword while dangling from a chandelier, and has occasion to do so quite often. Acrobatic, I'll grant you, but otherwise not especially useful. Oh, and keep in mind he's probably a thief, killer, and/or rapist.

I already said that:

These books are filled with unfulfilled female fantasies about "ultimate human heroes" (or at least some sort of alpha males) saving their lifes and giving them the kind of emotional fulfillment they lack in real life.

The reason I said "ultimate human heroes" was because that seems to be the kind of man that creates the most attraction in the women who buy all these books. It referred to these women's point of view, not mine.

Hey, I made fun of the pirate. :P:lol:

Now I wonder why some women are attracted to rapists. To me it seemed to be the worst thing one could ever do to a woman.

Hmmm... maybe I should actually read one of these books completely to actually know more about it.

I just skimmed one book. Could be that it's not enough.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now I wonder why some women are attracted to rapists. To me it seemed to be the worst thing one could ever do to a woman.

There was an interesting short story I read in high school titled "Rape Fantasies". It was about a group of women sitting around telling eachother these romantisized dreams of being "raped." I assume those stories are similar to what can be found in some of these romance novels (never read a word of one, so I don't know). One of the charaters points out that their stories are not rape but sex with a stranger and "rape is when you don't want to."

Nice, found a link:

http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-me...d1191-des-.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mean "bodice rippers" aka "repressed chick pornography", ...

Now I wonder why some women are attracted to rapists.

They do not really want to be raped, of course. They just like to fantasize about being raped because they want sex but they do not want to take responsibility for choosing to engage in sex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They do not really want to be raped, of course. They just like to fantasize about being raped because they want sex but they do not want to take responsibility for choosing to engage in sex.

Good point. So this is a way to have sex while staying hysterical. Interesting. Never thought of that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have comments in defense of romance novels. First, the ones I have read (which were very few) were in fact instances of romantic-realism, the artistic style which Ayn Rand advocates in the aesthetics branch of her philosophy. Romance novels are merely one genre of fiction that fills a big need: Being told stories as a form of recreation -- that is, re-creating ourselves as a whole after dealing with a sometimes fragmented world. Stories bring all the elements of life together in one viewing -- as it could be and should be. Other genres of novels that can, sometimes, serve the same function are science fiction, westerns, and murder mysteries ("tea-cozy" or police-procedural).

The issue of whether all, most, or some romance novels are well written is a different issue. Competence and school of literature are separate points. And, of course, romance novels, as a genre, are usually popular fiction rather than serious fiction, but that too is another issue.

Don't ask me which romance novels I have read. I don't remember the titles or much of anything about the plots. Yes, that is how well written they were. But I don't denigrate those who write them (if they can't do any better, and if they love their work, as some of them do) or those who read them for the best of reasons, to experience a compatible sense of life, a sense of excitement and daring.

Romance novels are not my kind of literature, but I can understand why some authors write and many readers read them. For the same basic reason I read some of Patricia Cornwell's terribly grim police-procedural novels (Dr. Kay Scarpetta series): to briefly live in a world of passionate valuers who are winners too, at least in some measure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have comments in defense of romance novels.

I must mention here the fact that Ayn Rand was against what she called "love stories", i.e. stories which are centered around two people falling in love, not around existential action such as the collapse of the world, a search for a criminal, etc. She said (in her lertters, I think) that the source work for her adaptation "Love Letters" was the "silliest thing imaginable", (or something to that effect) and that it was a lot of work for her to try to make the screenplay interesting.

This is what she would have thought of romance novels: they are generic "love stories". But it is not a simple classification: romance novels sometimes have sub-plots involving the take-over of a firm, or a quarrel between brothers. In my view, the extent to which these plots are central to the story, integrated to the love story, and increase in scale, is the extent to which they can be taken seriously and approach Romantic literature. For example, at the high end, there are the Alexandra Ripley novels, which are so similar to historical romances that the author was commissioned to write a sequel to "Gone With The Wind".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[...] Ayn Rand was against what she called "love stories", i.e. stories which are centered around two people falling in love, not around existential action such as the collapse of the world, a search for a criminal, etc.

Where did Ayn Rand say this?

She said (in her lertters, I think) that the source work for her adaptation "Love Letters" was the "silliest thing imaginable", (or something to that effect) and that it was a lot of work for her to try to make the screenplay interesting.
What she said in her August 21, 1945 letter (Letters of Ayn Rand, p. 230) was: "The truth about Love Letters, as I see it, is this: it is essentially a very silly and meaningless story -- by the mere fact that it revolves around so unnatural a thing as somebody's amnesia. No, it has no moral lesson to teach, nor any kind of lesson whatever. ... But it has one valuable point as a story -- a dramatic situation involving a conflict." [bold added for emphasis.]

So, at least in this instance, her rejection of the novel (whose story she rewrote for her screenplay) was not because it involved only a love story but because it revolved around a gimmick. There is more intriguing information later in the letter, but nothing that I could find about romance novels themselves.

This is what she would have thought of romance novels: they are generic "love stories".

I agree with your general conclusion. Romance novels (based on the tiny sample I have read and read about) are love stories first and foremost. That is why they are called "romance" novels.

I have no way of knowing what Ayn Rand "would have thought" about any subject. In her published comments (including her various journals and letters), she frequently surprises me -- and almost always to my benefit.

But it is not a simple classification: romance novels sometimes have sub-plots involving the take-over of a firm, or a quarrel between brothers. In my view, the extent to which these plots are central to the story, integrated to the love story, and increase in scale, is the extent to which they can be taken seriously and approach Romantic literature. For example, at the high end, there are the Alexandra Ripley novels [...]

[bold added for emphasis.]

I am confused. Romanticism versus naturalism is one classification. Serious versus popular is another classification. My understanding of romanticism is that its essential distinguishing characteristic is its premise of volition and the valuing that that entails: The romanticist writer tells a story of how things could be and should be. Whether that story is serious (having explicit ideational content) or popular (lacking such content) is another issue.

(For anyone new to Ayn Rand's esthetics, see Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto, pp. 95-96 [hb] for her discussion of "popular" fiction, that is, fiction aimed at a mass audience mainly for entertainment and for experiencing a sense of life, not for conveying explicit themes.)

Based on the few romance novels I have read or read about, I would say that they are popular fiction that meets Ayn Rand's psychological (not philosophical) qualification for romantic literature: "... it is experienced simply as the desire to make life interesting" (Rand, TRM, p. 95 [hb]). That is why I read popular fiction mainly. Most serious fiction is dreadfully dull.

Exactly where on Ayn Rand's scale of literary value a particular romance novel falls depends, as you indicate, on its own individual character. Any novel can be a mixed case, of course: partly romanticist and partly naturalist; partly serious and partly popular; and partly competent and partly not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First, I cannot find Ayn Rand's mention of her dislike of "love stories". Unfortunately, I don't have personal copies of "Journals" or "Letters" at hand, but when I do, I will post the reference here. (Can someone else post this information if they know it? Thanks.) And thanks, BurgessLau, for the correction about "Love Letters".

Also, I think that my phrase "what Ayn Rand would have thought" was somewhat unfortunate (since it is my business to say what *I* think), but harmless, in that it was quite clear that I was applying a viewpoint which I agree with (which is what I should have said).

[bold added for emphasis.]

I am confused. Romanticism versus naturalism is one classification. Serious versus popular is another classification.

When I said that romance novels could "approach Romantic literature", I was not referring to the distinction between Romanticism and Naturalism, but to the distinction between Romanticism and "romance novels". I mentioned that Romantic literature involves a plot and some level of integration. (There are many levels, distinguished from one another by the level of integration, as discussed by Ayn Rand in "What is Romanticism?" ). What I meant was that romance novels have little or no existential action to integrate the romances in them, so they just rely on bromides like "taut", "muscular", etc. They do so by their essence, since romance and sex are not primaries. Mystery novels, adventure novels, and science fiction novels can constitute genres, because they center around existential actions, such as the murder of a man or a a journey to the center of the earth. But a romance without existential action is disintegration.

The problem with romance novels is not that they are Naturalistic, but that they want to be Romantic, but do not know how to do it.

I agree that I was unclear in saying that romance novels could not be "taken seriously". I did not mean that they were popular as opposed to serious, but that they were meaningless, since they were disintegrated. They are second-handed, by relying on the reader to fill in the bromides.

Based on the few romance novels I have read or read about, I would say that they are popular fiction that meets Ayn Rand's psychological (not philosophical) qualification for romantic literature: "... it is experienced simply as the desire to make life interesting" (Rand, TRM, p. 95 [hb]). That is why I read popular fiction mainly. Most serious fiction is dreadfully dull.

For the reasons I mention above, I would not agree with this assessment. I read a lot of popular fiction (e.g. I always have my copy of the new "Harry Potter" within an hour of midnight the day it is released). But I have not read any romance novels (e.g. Harlequin romances) since I came to the U.S. I found them interesting only when I was starved for literature in the old country.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...