VaVeros

I don’t need to like the characters or the story to enjoy reading a romance novel

shallowreader 3 Comments

This post started its life as a comment over at the blog Something More but it morphed and took on a life of its own but is still tangentially related to @Liz_Mc2‘s piece.

When I was 15, my friend (who was 17) came to my home with her fiance (who was in his 30s) with wedding invites. It was an arranged marriage as her parents felt that their daughters must marry young otherwise they will stray from God’s path. I recall my dad asking my friend if she was going to continue her studies to which her fiance answered that she will not need to complete studying as her task will be to take care of their children and home and it was his job to provide for the family. He then said to my father “If women are equals to men then why is it the man who is on top in the marital bed”. She giggled while the rest of us were stunned. At 15 I knew that there was more than missionary yet this smarmy, arrogant man at 30 had not imagined a life beyond it,  but also felt missionary was a divine sign of man’s superiority to women and that he expected a wife that submitted to his patriarchal needs. At 15, I recognised that this man was controlling, possessive and dismissive of his wife-to-be’s capacity to think. However, she accepted and married him (and is still married to him) and is always smiling and happy when I see her and their many children.

They have a romance story which I don’t particularly like. But it is theirs. And there are many dysfunctional marriages and relationships that I see around me daily that creep me out – but it is their story.

And that is why I read romances. Romances, for the most part, are character driven. They are about the slow reveals of humanity, vulnerability, conflict, anger, humour, the struggle of deciding whether to compromise personal values in order to accept someone who may not have the same values as oneself. Romances are reflections of that most personal interpersonal decision – finding a life partner.

Some romances are wonderful and I truly believe that the couple will be happy together for a long time. And other romances are awful. Not awful as in poorly written – but awful in the portrayal of the abhorrent characters. I may not like who the main characters are, I may not like the way they came together or why they came together but I revel in their engaging story. As a reader, I have never felt the need to like the characters I read about. I need to gain some understanding of why people who think differently to me, whose values and ideas are polar to mine, function the way that they do and how they find themselves in the situation that they are in. I can believe their story is likely without liking their story.

And there are many romances that when I finish reading them I mentally create my own epilogue in which I calculate the date of the divorce and how that divorce came about (was it an SMS, was it an amicable separation, was it a covert project that involved fleeing to a women’s refuge after finally getting that beating he felt she deserved). There are other romances that upon finishing them I imagine a miserable life of two bitter and angry people, one submitting, the other over-bearing (let us not be gender biased here – I have often seen the male submitting to a horrid female). For some it is a long life filled with regret for staying within a relationship that only occasionally raised some hope and for others it is a life that they are happy within because it is in line with their life values (and it is my problem not theirs if it is not in line with my values). And there are just as many romances that upon finishing reading I imagine the joyous life the couple have together, travelling, working, building a home, creating a family, dancing, smiling and laughing together until they die.

As a reader, I relish being engaged by the characters in all these different romance stories but I don’t necessarily like them. I do not think that the relationships I am reading end with the Happily Ever After the author has provided me. The romance is just a snapshot in the life of these characters who live on in readers’ minds. The sign of an amazing romance novel is one in which the book gives me a structured beginning which then informs the rest of the story that grows in my mind.

Postscript: It is a good thing my friend’s fiance had never heard of the reverse cowgirl because who knows how he would have reasoned that it was a position of submission.

How I met my husband or Love at 327th sight

shallowreader 22 Comments

I studied at the University of Technology, Sydney at the Kuring-gai campus which was tedious to attend because it was, and remains, difficult to access if you didn’t drive. It is just 2 kms from Roseville Station in Northen Sydney to the campus which is fine when you are walking downhill at the beginning of the day. But when you are heading home after a long day with a laden bag and a crappy bus service, I would go out of my way to grab rides with any student that had a car rather than climb that everlasting hill. Along with other carless students, I would hover at the bottom of Eton Road hoping to catch a lift with a familiar face. I was always cautious and never hopped into a car with anyone I didn’t recognise and I never accepted a lift on my own.

One day, in 1991, one of my fellow carless, scam-a-lift friends waved me down in the Kuring-gai corridors and said she had found someone who could give us a lift. At the end of the day, I met up with my scam-a-lift friends who introduced me to their friend John. He was tallish, light brown cropped hair with a Tintin tuft and a sweet freckled face. I remember he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and, much to my horror, no shoes.

I really can’t stand the shoeless culture of Australia. It’s OK when you are at the beach, or at a pool but it is not OK when you are at work, at your local shops or at your place of education. That is right. I was an absolute shoe snob. If you didn’t shod your feet, I consider you to be uncouth, uncultured and frankly, below me. So when I met this shoeless guy, I remember shuddering but not being incensed enough to reject the lift (I wasn’t walking on his feet or anything).

Walking to the carpark, the two of us started chatting and it turned out he had just bought an EJ Holden. He had a cool sixties car. It was hydromatic! He showed off his doors (they opened), the location of the ashtray (neither of us smoked) and the bench seats for squeezing in as many paasengers as you can manage. I pointed out to him that all he needed to complete the picture was a leather jacket and long sideburns.

He turned to me and said “I can’t grow sideburns. My hair stops just above my ears”.

To which I replied “Why you and not me” and showed him my hair that grows to just above my jawline.

From that moment he remembered me as “That chick with the sideburns”.

Collective “Awwwwwwwwwww”. Romantic huh!

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Our second meeting was in the Kuring-gai foyer. Once again, I was scamming for a lift, once again he was offering lifts. Our conversation was memorable because I remember laughing and I remember him rattling off some stupid spiel pro-monarchy claptrap (he has been forgiven for this. Firstly, his Great-Great Aunt was the president of the Australian Royalist Society British Empire Association so it had been ingrained into him and secondly we have agreed that the monarchy is fine and fab in England but commit acts of treason against Australians which can only be negated by proclaiming ourselves a republic).

Subsequent meetings were regular. We were in a few classes together as we were studying for the same degree. He was always funny but I had no interest in this barefoot Aussie from the Northern Beaches. I liked my men shod, sporting sideburns and looking like a young Travolta. To add to this, he had a serious girlfriend who was also doing our course.

Years passed, we all graduated but as uni groups of friends do, we continued to go out together. When everyone would call around with a list of names of who was going out when you heard John was going to be there, you knew it was going to be a rockin’ fun night. He was always the funniest person in the room.

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In 1994, a series of odd and sad events led to the two of us spending a lot of time together. John’s Dad had just passed away and my Dad had been diagnosed with a brain tumour and was also dying.

Our first date didn’t even happen. We were supposed to go to see a comedy show but instead ended up visiting his sister who had just given birth.

For our second date he took me to Nando’s for some Portuguese chicken. My thought was “It can only go uphill from here”. And it did.

Upon discovering I couldn’t abide walking barefoot in public he compromised. Barefoot at the beach, shoes everywhere else. I discovered he kept his Mad Magazine collection by his bedside and he didn’t waiver when I gave him two Shakin’ Stevens albums for my birthday. He just added them In with his ultra-groovy The Orb, Beastie Boys, Yello, Prodigy and UFO. He loved that I would belt out Barry Manilow songs and said he would have come along to his concert if I had asked him too. He said this after having told me about copping some other guy’s sweat splatter while moshing to Nirvana live at Selina’s. He was ever so cool yet so unaffected by what others thought of him that he didn’t care that I wasn’t.

He was so laidback that he didn’t even propose to me. And I didn’t propose to him either. We were both wearing striped t-shirts. His eleven year old niece was visiting and she said to us ” You’re both wearing similar shirts. That means you should get married”. We laughed at her and he teased her “You’re only saying that because you want to be a flower girl”. She agreed. All her friends had been flower girls and she needed someone to choose her to be one.

Once she left John turned to me and said “You know, we can’t disappoint an eleven year old. She’ll never recover”. I laughed and agreed with him. We got married 10 months later. And his niece was a flower girl in a gorgeous dress that my wonderful sister-in-law made.

So how does this relate to romance when it is hardly a blow me away, swooning, heart pulsing story? Anna Cowan says

A couple in a romance have to challenge each other. They have to expect unreasonable things, and unsettle and push each other. Romance and love couldn’t happen without it.

Romance fiction is about two people looking past the surface of the person they meet. Romance fiction is about two people working past misconceptions and discovering the other person’s motivation is the same as theirs.

And John certainly challenged me. Outwardly, he dressed in that laconic beach Aussie style that I didn’t like. But dig a little deeper and here was a handsome man that owned his own tails and cravat and starches his own shirts.

He took me out to Nando’s. Dig a little deeper and you find a man particular about the weight and length of his cutlery and knows how to carve a turkey.

He was a promonarchist. Dig a little deeper and find a man respectful of his family’s history.

He delivered a nonplussed reason for needing to get married. Dig a little deeper and find the man who has brought me coffee to bed nearly every single day for more than 16 years.

He married the girl with the sideburns. Dig a little deeper and find a man who tells me everyday how much he loves me and thinks I am beautiful.

Romance is wonderful.

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When a romance has you reflecting on past events….

shallowreader 6 Comments

Occasionally, when I read a romance, its storyline sends me on a remembrance of times that have past me. Liz Fielding‘s A Suitable Groom did that for me today.

A Suitable Groom is a sweet romance about a woman who orchestrates a meeting with a man that she feels will be a great deflector from her single status at a family wedding. I do enjoy a “Fake relationship becomes Real” plot line even though I know of only one real life relationship that had this as a start. (A green card marriage which eventuated in love, a child and now 25 years together). But there was something in the retelling of this tale that had me remembering the awkwardness of receiving invites for “Vassiliki and friend” for formal dinners, birthdays and weddings. When these events were held close to my home, I was more than happy to turn up on my own, but when venues were over an hour away by car I preferred to take a friend along. This was in the days of no mobile phones and I found driving through National Parks in my old, unreliable car at midnight on my own to be particularly distasteful.

I had a trusty partner in an old school friend who was always happy to come along to snooty parties, eat great food, dance the night away and then laugh while I drove the two of us home. This was a dear friend whom I had known since I was in primary school but I had no romantic inclinations towards him, and I believed that he had none towards me.

One night, as I was dropping him off from one of my many parties, he asked me to park the car. This startled me. He was my friend. I did not want him confusing our platonic relationship but I parked in his dark, quiet street.

He turned to me and told me “I know why I am on this earth”.

I internally cringed and thought “Why can’t guys just stay friends. Why do they have to misread romance into every friendship”.

He took my hand in his, gazed into my eyes and said “I have been put on this earth to kill the anti-Christ”.

As he said these words, my thoughts turned to “Why can’t guys just crack onto me”.

My next thought was “Fuck! What if he thinks I am the anti-Christ and he wants to kill me and I’m on his dark, quiet street”.

Suffice to say, I wasn’t who he was searching for but he did give me a long description of how this revelation came to him. I gently pulled my hand away from his, made my excuses that I was running late and had to head home and left him with his ramblings. Sadly, this did hamper our friendship as I never asked him to partner me again. To my knowledge, he never killed an anti-Christ but he did become a heroin addict from which he has been recovering with methodone for many years.

Which brings me back to Liz Fielding’s A Suitable Groom. Such a lovely read. Filled with funny family dynamics and a spark between the hero and heroine from the first moment that they spoke. I especially liked the accidental marriage plans as this is how my own husband and I accidentally married (I kid you not). If only there were more “fake relationship, stand in escort to a wedding turns into romantic love” stories in real life. *sigh*

Supping With the Devil that is Romance Fiction

shallowreader 10 Comments

Last week I was part of a reader’s panel at the ALIA Biennial Discovery Conference. Neither the author or reader’s panels were official conference papers. Due to many requests from conference attendees I am posting my paper here on my blog. Please note that this is a heavily edited version of the original paper I had written in response to the Call for Papers and the topics of “The book that changed your life” and “Connecting with your communities”:

I read romances for the love, the escape, for the catch of breath below my diaphragm at the anticipation of that knowing glance and the sexual tension, I read romances for the beautifully retold love cliché, I read them for they are predominately women writing for women about women. I read romances for the sheer science fiction of improbability that is possible, for its absurdist nature and absolutely for the joyful resolution, the Happily Ever After.

Choosing the romance book that changed my life for this talk today was a difficult task as I have so many that I consider seminal. I chose Sara Craven’s Sup With the Devil.

Sup With the Devil was Craven’s 23rd novel. The protagonist, Courtney, was of a privileged background but had been living on the breadline for the last 3 years due to her family going bankrupt. Courtney is being coerced to marry the nephew of the man who bankrupted her family. She remembers her grandmother’s warning that:

when you sup with the devil you should only do so with a long spoon

The story has slow revelations, hidden passions, many misunderstandings And it has love. Not only a passionate love but also a love of friendship and trust that comes from an emergent courtship.

As a teen, I quickly read out the small romance collection at my local library. When I would ask for more the librarian would kindly guide me to “better” reading choices. This was in the 1980s which were focused on reader development/education rather than the current paradigm of reader advisory which is about matching a reader to a similar experience.  I was given Mary Wesley and Maeve Binchy. Lovely reads but they were nothing like the darkness of Charlotte Lamb, Anne Mather’s torridness and Carole Mortimer’s alphabrutes.

At university, when reading was being discussed, it was literary. I read across all fiction but discussing romances was considered only one step away from being illiterate. Fine if you weren’t smart enough to read anything else. I also started to explore academic papers on the romance reader which I did not agree with. What these papers did was anger me because everyone seemed to think that there must be a psychololgical reason to read romance. Romances meant I was subjugated. Romances meant I expected a male to rescue me. Romances meant that I was not a feminist. You read to learn and develop and the attitude was that you couldn’t possibly do that with romances.

As a reader, I gave up on accessing my books from my library early on. I bought all my romances from newsagencies, supermarkets, second hand bookstores, bookshops, markets, online and swapping books with friends. As a romance reader I am not unique in this behaviour.

There are impediments to borrowing from the library such as the cataloguing of paperbacks. Records are basic. The practice for many public libraries used to be a “Romance Fiction” title with barcodes attached for individual items. Basically, the romance is not searchable. The argument always goes along the lines of “we have budget constraints”, “these books are junk”, “the readers don’t remember them”.

Cataloguing of literary fiction, which sells less than a third of that of romance, is comprehensive yet romance is not catalogued to the same level.

This single catalogue record/many accessioned items impacts the reader experience of the library. The inability to search for items is not a positive library experience. I attended the Australian Romance Readers Convention in 2009. I was discussing public lending rights with an Australian Mills and Boon author. Her comment was “My books don’t get catalogued. As they are rarely searchable I don’t recieve PLN payments”. This writer has 16 books published in Australia and translated in over 10 languages worldwide. This decision to not catalogue does not only impact readers – it impacts authors and their impression of libraries.

Let’s look at the language librarians use:

Here are 2 large print Mills and Boon Christmas trees. Both libraries posted these on their social networks.

The first one is a romantic tree. Straightforward. Objective.

The second tree – “I know you romance readers will disagree with me but have u ever seen a better use for a mills and boon”. This statement that these books purpose as an aesthetic, decorative object is preferable to their content may be tongue in cheek and having a bit of fun but what message does it send to the recipient of that social media?

To the romance reader, it sends the message that their reading choices are inferior. To the non-romance reader it sends the message of librarian (authority figure) is disdainful of romance therefore romance must be inferior if said authority figure says so. As librarians, do not underestimate the authority that you command.

Another example, I was approached by a librarian who wanted romance recommendations for a display he was preparing. I suggested Jennifer Crusie was a good start and his comment was “Oh. But Crusie transcends the romance genre. Her writing is highly commendable”.

To transcend a genre is what happens when a reader discovers that the book they have just read and enjoyed is genre fiction but they don’t want to identify themselves as having read genre.

Romance is not alone in this. Margaret Atwood has transcended fantasy. Peter Temple has transcended crime. I dislike transcends. I prefer to use the phrase “these authors benchmark their genre”. Jennifer Crusie is a benchmark of romance. As librarians the language we use when discussing reading with our patrons and our colleagues needs to be objective. Patronising only results in less patronage.

On Legal Deposit in Australia and NSW:

The National Library of Australia has the most comprehensive romance collection in Australia as they catalogue all the titles they receive through legal deposit. The State Library of NSW fully catalogues all romances written by Australian authors which then become part of the Mitchell Library collection. Other titles by non-Australian authors are not catalogued thoughthey are stored in offsite storage and accessible if you know the publisher, the month and year that they were published. Fisher Library at Sydney University however has retained few of the romances deposited with them. They’ve retained authors such as Stephanie Laurens, Bronwyn Parry, Helene Young and Anna Campbell. However, Anna Jacobs or Anne Gracie, Sarah Mayberry and Kelly Hunter all of whom are celebrated and awarded both nationally and internationally as benchmark authors in the romance genre do not have a single title of theirs held at Fisher Library along with a number of other Australian women authors published in NSW that I could list let alone looking at bodies of work by specific international romance authors that a scholar may be interested in studying. But I was placated by the librarian I spoke to with“we have a great crime collection if you want to study genre”.

How does the romance reader perceive the library?

The Australian Romance Readers Association conducts an annual readers survey.

There are 2 library specific questions in this survey.

“Have you borrowed romance books from your local library this year”. 50% of respondents answered “Never”.

“Are new romance releases usually available from your local library” Only one quarter of the respondents said yes. The other quarter said no, and let’s not forget that half of the respondents never use the library.

I find this data concerning. This is a survey of engaged, committed readers. Readers who are part of a reading association, readers who follow book review sites, author websites, subscribe to newsletters, magazines and blogs so as to decide upon their next read. These are readers that engage with social media. If we are looking at the lower end of the scale these readers read 60 romances a year and this does not include their other reading interests. Yet, they don’t recognise the library playing a large, positive role in their reading experience. Half of them never use the library.

“To Sup with the devil you need a long spoon”

Libraries have treated romance readers as “the devil” for they maintain a distance from them. We see this in librarians trying to improve the readers choice, cataloguers not valuing the books the readers choose. All this is reflected in the romance readers survey responses that the library is not a provider for their reading needs.

It will be interesting to see what trends will emerge with ebook lending.  When I searched the libraries in Sydney that subscribed to Overdrive there were a substantial selection of romance titles available. That spoon is getting shorter. It is not all dire. There are libraries that know the value of the romance reader. They have strong romance collections, romance authors are on their standing author lists, speak at library events and run writing workshops. These libraries know that the big readers impact positively on their KPIs so they court the reader and romance readers love a courtship.

Towards the end of Sup with the Devil, Courtney is torn. She suspects her husband embezzled from her family but she likes him. She makes the decision that she was no longer going to hold him at bay for “to sup with the devil might hold an element of excitement”.

to sup with the devil might hold an element of excitement

This metaphor invites you to be a risk taker. Life is about using the short spoon when you are supping with the devil. And this is what libraries should be doing.

Look for the marginalised reader, look for the marginalised patron and support them and court them.  Discover those ideas that to others are distasteful, that are met with derision and make room for them in your libraries. Find your gamers, hobbyists, hackers and makers. Your homeless, your reenactors, geeks, crafsters and subversives. Look at your emerging communities and do not dismiss your established users. For Raymond Williams tells us that Culture is Ordinary. That “every human society has its own shape and its own purpose, its own meanings. Every human society expresses these, in institutions and in arts and learning”. These institutions are our libraries and libraries are our secular cathedrals and these secular cathedrals should be representing our ordinary culture. As this conference is about Discovery, I ask you to go out, discover the ordinary in our society and use the short spoon to sup with them.

© Vassiliki Veros and Shallowreader, 2012.

Reflections on Sydney Writers’ Festival 2012

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Over a week ago I attended a handful of sessions at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. The last time I had attended the festival was in 2009, as I was overseas in 2010 and moving out of my house in 2011. The Sydney Writers’ Festival is always an exploration of ideas and unknown writers for me. The festival rarely represents my personal reading interests but on a professional level, as a readers’ advisory librarian, every session is important, every session has relevance. Writing festivals reflect a segment of the reading publics’ interest and in the months that follow there will be a raised awareness of the authors that were in attendance and with it a higher demand for their books both in bookshops and libraries. With that in mind, it was lovely to bump into several librarian friends and colleagues over the 3 days I attended and I would love to think that there were many more librarians in attendance.

Audience

I find the writers’ festival appeals to a conservative audience. That is, tertiary educated and women. Please don’t misunderstand me here, I feel this is a wonderful group – I AM this group! It is imperative that this audience base is retained but I would like to have seen a little more experimentation with the events so as to appeal to, not only a broader readership, but a broader cross section of the greater Sydney community. Surely risk taking with writer events is not only the charge of emerging writer’s festivals and fringe festivals. The organisers might point to the hiphop poets but hiphop has been around for many decades so I don’t count that as experimental. Perhaps I would have noticed a broader audience if I had attended some of the Western Sydney events but I was only able to attend the city events this time.

The other thing I felt was the distinct difference between attending a readers’ convention and a writers’ festival. Here, I am comparing SWF to the Australian Romance Readers’ Convention. The differences may be more due to the volume of the individual events where there are about 200 people at ARRC compared to the thousands that attend SWF. However, I don’t really think this is the difference. At the SWF the writer is coveted. Most don’t walk and talk amongst the other attendees whereas the readers’ convention is about connecting reader to writer both at scheduled events and at social events where you get to meet each other. Perhaps it is Writers’ Festivals focus on the writer experience whereas readers’ conventions focus on developing the readers as fans. I think that this is a grey area which I am interested in exploring futher.

National Year of Reading

I found it very peculiar that in the National Year of Reading there was no mention or presence of the National Year of Reading campaign. I am happy to stand corrected on this point but from my own observations (and I cannot be omnipresent so I can only comment on the sessions I attended and the tweet stream I read) this didn’t cross the radar of the organisers nor the presenters of the sessions I attended. Richard Glover’s blurb makes mention of NYR, as do the CBCA events as they are NYR partners. I’m not completely naïve and I realise that it is a complex case of sponsorship, advertising, grants approval etc but to have a zero connect is like having a forestry convention during the National Year of the Tree with no crossover. SWF is on the National Year of Reading’s events calendar but I’d love to hear from others on this. Maybe I missed something. Is this unique to the Sydney Writer’s Festival or has the National Year of Reading been missing from all the other Writers’ Festivals around Australia.

Kids at the Festival

I think that kids programs at the festival is one area that is excellent. Every year seems to have the same consistent good programming. There is a broad representation of literary authors and mass market authors. I love this. It shows that you can have the benchmark literary authors alongside benchmark mass market and genre authors. Ranging from picture book authors to young adult authors reflecting the different age groups. Hopefully, the adult programming will start to shift and be more like the kids programming.

I took my son to hear Jeff Kinney speak. I was fortunate enough to have won tickets from @BookdOut on Twitter (thank you! once again).

Jeff Kinney is fab! Jeff Kinney writes books that appeal to children because he “gets” kids. He remembers details from being a kid. I found it quite interesting that he said that he kept being told that he “appeals to reluctant readers” and that he didn’t know what a reluctant reader was until it was explained to him that it was boys. Yet boys are not reluctant to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid because the writing appeals. My funny son, did say that Jeff Kinney was up there as a favourite but not his absolute favourite (this from a boy who sleeps with Diary of a Wimpy Kid books framing his bed).

What I did find peculiar in the kids program was the omission of Eoin Colfer from a standalone presentation or talk. Eoin Colfer has a huge readership in Australia. Many adults, along with kids, love his Artemis Fowl books as well as his Worst Boy books yet the only way you could get to hear him speak is if your school chose to take you to a Schools Day event that he presented to. I was very disappointed by this.

Beating the genre drum – Writers don’t get it but the critics did

There were several thought provoking comments during different sessions which were made during the writers’ festival that I will outline. The panels that I’m talking about had a varying degree of my presence from reading a tweetstream, to sitting outside a theatre and listening to a panel to actually attending two sessions.

I was following the tweetstream from Kathy Lette & Toni Jordan’s Girl Trouble session seemed to be more anti-chick lit than for chick lit. Lette showed her lack of understanding of the genre with comments about clitlit and Mills and Boon. There is a Storify of the tweets and the ensuing wider audience comments about these comments. I love that a tweeted comment could get so many people not in attendance discussing the talk. Such is the power of social media. I also understand that comments can be taken out of context and that this is the negative side of social media. I spoke with some friends who had attended this session and said that she was very funny and the comments were just flippant. But isn’t that always the case when someone is being derogatory about something that they feel is inferior to them? The flip comment is not necessarily the ignored comment. Perhaps authors should allow their work to stand on their own merits rather than trying to elevate their work through the discrediting of authors and publishers whose work I doubt they have read.

This was not a comment isolated to that session. As you do at the SWF, there are times you walk around and listen to panels being piped out into the forecourt. One session I listened to the closing 20 minutes of was Old Scrags and Other Sheilas.I have no idea which of the speakers was saying the following but when their book was described as “chick lit” the author – very respectfully and in no way flippant or denigrating – stated that her book was not chicklit which was a subgenre of romance as chick lit had plot points and specific requirements for the order of events that need to happen. She emphasised that her book was not chicklit because she played with these ideas and changed them around. She then proceeded to discuss how she loves the conventions of crime fiction and how different authors played with these conventions.

I respect that an author may not identify their work as a certain “type” and have no issue with the author rejecting the “Chicklit” label but to describe romance/chicklit genre negatively due to the rules that they follow yet in the same breath celebrate “crime conventions” seems obtuse to me. What is derided in one genre is celebrated in another? How could that author not have seen that formula=conventions. A bit of a “Duh” moment really.

Another session that I attended was “But is it a good read”. Stella Rimington’s controversial comment that the Booker prize judges panel were going to choose “a readable” book was the basis of this talk. Stella Rimington brought up that she possibly should have used the word more “accessible” rather than ‘readable’. Other panellists were Stephen Romei, Chip Rolley and Neil James from the Plain English Foundation. There were a wealth of statements such as

“We are all different readers”

“what is difficult for you will be a zip along for someone else”

“I love being challenged but not challenged and bored”

“A good read will always be noticed by the public whereas a difficult read needs the prize to be noticed by the public”.

The idea of privileging difficult reads was brought up. Somehow, society consider the difficult read to be the better read. This did bring me to think that perhaps this was a Christian ideal, harking back to the narrow, less travelled road. It also is reflective of St Augustine discussing the guilt he felt for his enjoyable, leisurely reading.

There was a lot of discussion around the readability of Ulysses. Many people in the audience admitted to owning it but not reading it. One of the questions/statements from an audience member was on having rejected reading Ulysseys but having loved the audiobook as it is a book of rhythms and quite dependent on the auditory experience. Stella Rimington immediately dismissed this idea “That is acting. That is not reading”. (As an aside – this seemed quite startling for me as I have always thought of audiobooks to be a reading experience. But upon further thought, audiobooks do not require any decoding. They are a natural experience.) So telling may not be reading but certainly a story, such as Joyce’s Ulysses, can be much more enjoyable in an auditory capacity.

I want to write that Stephen Romei’s positive comments on genre writing were pleasing to hear. Romei pointed out (in relation to the Booker Prize) that genre novels do not get chosen not because of the judges but because of the publishers. The judges already receive a vetted list before they decide on a longlist as each publisher can only enter two books. So it is the publishers who are the ones who are setting the agenda against genre here.

Another mention of genre was at Criticism and Witticism and the Pascall Foundation’s Critic of the Year award which was awarded to James Bradley who was described as a “polymath of genre” and that “Bradley argues for a wider sense of what literature can be”.

Wrap-up

I had an invigorating 3 days spent browsing the different sessions at the festival. Sydney had brought out its best weather for the event. There were a few other sessions I attended on memoirs, the environment, politics and war that I have not discussed here. In the end, I chose not to attend any Sunday events because I felt recharged and I spent a day at home reading with my family. My 3 year absence highlighted to me that organisers, moderators and critics are aware that there is a broader readership with which to engage but this is not yet evident in the programming. Perhaps, this will come around next year (she whispers optimistically).

The Passionate Winter – with free 5 years later epilogue by Moi channelling Jackie

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The Passionate WinterThe Passionate Winter by Carole Mortimer

This book is full of WTF situations yet it is trainwreck readable. It was published in 1978 and the book has not stood the test of time.

The hero, 37 year old Piers, is the father of the 18 year old heroine, Leigh’s boyfriend (also 18). They meet when the son, Gavin, is trying to trick her into bed with him and the dad diffuses the situation. She continues going out with the son as a “special friend” despite hot pashing sessions with the stalker dad who is freaked out by their age gap of a comfortable 19 years. Her parents are relaxed about him (go figure!) and have no issue with the age gap. Yet she continues to politely refer to him as ‘Mr Sinclair’ even 20 pages from the ending. He keeps refering to her as an adolescent, kid, young lady etc. The age gap was irksome but I kept reminding myself of pairings such as Celine Dion and Rene Angelil (26 years) and Catherine Zeta Jones with Michael Douglas (25 years) and that it isn’t unknown for such a large age difference. Also, it was the major issue for the two protagonists in this book and it was not lightly dismissed. The heroine keeps being told that she deserves a beating from both the hero and her father and she keeps slapping people. Horridness abounds and love is only realised by sexual attraction.

I did love the description of clothes throughout this book. Her dresses were superb (except her nurse’s smock), her velvet trousers and cream smocks, purple slacks and black turtle necks. Hero Piers alternates between formal dress clothes, black trousers with a white dress jacket,  to brilliant outfits

“He was dressed in close fitting black trousers and a black silk shirt unbuttoned almost to the low waistband of his trousers….Over these he wore a thick sheepskin jacket…”

Hawtness! There’s even a frilled neck shirt in one scene!

There is the usual Mills and Boon HEA but I kept imagining what life would be like for these two in 5 years time. Not pretty. So ‘not pretty’ that I couldn’t help myself and I wrote my own response to how I think life treated Piers and Leigh ….and Gavin (cue wobbly dream sequence waves)….

MOI

Leigh is 23 years old and feeling very much like her youthful age. However, she grimaced when she thought about her 42 year old husband who still wore his shirts open to the waist, he still tried to keep up with trends – he’d even started sporting Michael Jackson styled jackets. When it came down to it their age difference was abysmal. Lately, he had been hinting that they should have a child but all that she can think of is that he grated on her nerves.

She had finished studying two years earlier and she looked back at her decision to marry a man nearly as old as her father who was temperamental, a bully and occasionally still thought it was fine to threaten her with a beating. Her own friends had partied through their studying years and even though they tried to include her and pops-hubby neither of them really had fit in with each others group. Looking back at her decision to marry him she realised that she had only done so because she had been too scared to just go to bed with him. The lust would have been over and then she could have moved on. But innocent that she was at the time, life had been rose-coloured glasses.

And now she had to deal with the fact that last night she and Gavin had more than made out. Her stepson! Her stepson who had been the guy that she had been going out with when she had been blindsided by hunkahunka burning love. Uggh! What could he have been thinking. She was dumb and 18 but if at 23 she realised his pursuit of her was creepy weird why couldn’t he who had been 37 at the time just backed off. Whereas Gavin now was gorgeous, so much more mature that he had been 5 years ago and their interests were much the same. If anything, Piers, washed up racing car driver that he was, spent his nights tinkering with his car, had been fine for his young wife to go to discos with his son and her friends. “I trust you darling! You chose me over him.”

So much for trust, Leigh thought. Going the full way with Gavin had been stupid and risky but the two of them had been burning for each other for years. She would have to divorce Piers, she thought. But this time she was not going to marry his son. She knew the desire would go away and she would be left with an awful, awkward mess on her hands. She’ll have her affair and move on to someone else, eventually. She just hoped that she had not fallen pregnant last night with Gavin….or the night before when she had been with Piers….

Yep, I think I’m channeling Jackie Collins 😀

R*BY Award Finalists and the availability of the shortlist in Australian Libraries

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The Romance Writers of Australia Awards were announced today. These awards are voted on by readers and I was pleased to see so many of my favourite Australian Women Writers listed. As I am saving all my pennies to get my bookshelves built, I thought I’d borrow some of the titles through interlibrary loan so I searched through Trove (the National Australian Library’s database for the uninitiated) and I thought I would share the results with readers of this blog.

Short Sweet
Molly Cooper’s Dream Date – Barbara Hannay (18 public libraries/4 State or National)
How To Save a Marriage In a Million – Leonie Knight (1 public library/2 State/National)
Abby and The Bachelor Cop – Marion Lennox (19 public libraries)
Single Dad’s Triple Trouble – Fiona Lowe (16 public libraries/1 State/National/1 University)

Short Sexy
The Fearless Maverick – Robyn Grady (1 State/National/1 University)
The Man She Loves to Hate – Kelly Hunter (12 public libraries/1 State/National)
The Wedding Charade – Melanie Milburne (19 public libraries/1 State/National/1 University)
Her Not-So-Secret-Diary – Anne Oliver (7 public libraries/1 State/National/1 University)

Long Romance
Midnight’s Wild Passion – Anna Campbell (39 public libraries/2 Universities/3 State/National)
Boomerang Bride – Fiona Lowe (0 holdings – this seems very odd to me)
The Best Laid Plans – Sarah Mayberry (11 public libraries/1 university/National)
The Voyagers – Mardi McConnochie (53 public libraries/4 Sate/5 universities/National)

Romantic Elements
The Trader’s Wife – Anna Jacobs (52 public libraries/2 State/National/2 University)
The Shelly Beach Writers’ Group – June Loves (63 public libraries/3 State/3 Universities/National)
Busted In Bollywood – Nicola Marsh (0 – this seems very odd to me)
Shattered Sky – Helene Young (54 public libraries/4 universities/3 States/National)

I’m not sure how anyone else feels about this list but, with the exception of 5 of the titles, it doesn’t feel as though there are many loan choices. At first glance 15 might seem a lot but break that down by State and it doesn’t represent many holdings. I’m not sure how the authors themselves would feel about this. Is it a case of “Good – they’ll go out and buy my book instead” or “For heaven’s sake! Will librarians start buying up in romance! I want my books to be read by library borrowers who ultimately become buyers”.  Hopefully, now that libraries have a shortlist to select from, this list will look quite different by August when the awards are announced.

NOTE: I know that, in terms of ILL’s libraries do have other avenues to search for titles, but as a reader searching from home, I rarely explore these other options. If it isn’t listed by Trove I either don’t read it or I buy it. I also understand that Australian Librarians can’t all buy every single title that comes out – and perhaps this is where I sometimes get all nostalgic and bemoan that libraries no longer have schemes such as the wonderful Sydney Subject Specialisation Scheme – Fiction Reserve program in place. This scheme gave each library in the Sydney region a Dewey span and a Fiction letter span to specialise in – for example, one library I worked at had the span of authors with surnames Koc – Let (cheeky librarians). The loss of this program has resulted in everyone catering to the middle ground and some less well known, less read but still interesting books are not being purchased.

Cacophony in the library

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I’m going to start this post recounting a personal experience of mine from 2000. At the time I was 3 months pregnant with my second child and I was expecting a phone call from my obstetrician with some urgent blood results. I was in a meeting which was being held in a library (I was not working as a librarian at the time). My phone rang, I excused myself and went into an empty corner and answered it. Despite giving very quiet, monosyllabic responses to my obstetrician, the librarian approached me and quite loudly told me to turn my phone off and to leave the building to make phone calls. The officious librarian talked over me and was getting more and more agitated that I was not listening to her. Upon hanging up, I ignored her and made a mental note to NEVER be a librarian like that. So I want to point out from the outset that this is not about keeping a library in absolute silence. However, it is a post about libraries being quieter places and to recognise this as a positive attribute of our library spaces rather than a negative that turns libraryland into apologists. This positive attribute allows for reflective, calmer spaces that are conducive to thinking, creativity and innovation.

I like a quiet library. I like a library where you know there is a buzzed conversation but you cannot hear its detail. I like a library where the sound of fingers hitting keyboards and photocopiers printing is the norm. I like to hear the tutor leading the child through their maths homework using hushed tones, I like the parents quietly reading picture books to their pre-schoolers. And I like that occassionally this hushed space is converted to sounds electric but for an hour, for storytime, an author talk, a science presentation or a bookgroup meeting. I like running paper-plane flying competitions down the aisles of books during Open Days, I like craft-time for kids and adults (as long as I don’t have to lead it) and I like people feeling comfortable enough in the library that they use it for creativity, learning and for escape. This buzz, this muted white noise in a library is welcoming and expected.

But what I do not like is the library as a playground or a cafe. I cannot stand children playing chasings amongst the aisles of books both in childrens’ and adult sections. Aside from the grating noise, it is also compromising the safety of other library patrons. I do not want to see teens throwing a basketball over bays of books in a game of blind baskets and nor do I want to hear music being piped into the library in some weird super mall sense and I especially don’t want to have to stick my fingers in my ears to drown out the group sitting over 15 metres away. I know that this is not a popular stance to make, and that many libraries have cafes in them (I’m all for that as the cafe is then a designated talking space) and that kids should be made to feel welcome but I think libraries can do this without giving up what, for a large part of library patronage, is a place that they can come to that has relative quiet. For many people, going to the library is to escape from their already loud, busy, cluttered, over-stimulated spaces.

Now let me start, as Miss Piggy would say, with “Moi”. Up until I was 13 years old my parents ran our house as a boarding house. Until I was 8 we could have up to 20 people living in our house at a time. Predominately, these boarders were migrants, refugees and at one stage a bunch of illegal immigrants – sailors who had jumped ship in Sydney one night. We had Germans, Dutch, Italians, Indians, Greeks and Egyptians. Families, bachelors and even a Vietnam vet. As you could imagine, life was one big party. The shared living areas either had a television on or a radio or my dad’s trusty reel-to-reel (this was the 70s!) and there was always dancing. There were always kids living with us so we would all be playing games or making up plays and stories. Even when the majority of boarders left and we only had one other family living with us, we continued being visited by all our (ex-boarder) family friends. The one thing that we didn’t have was quiet in our home. Even 10 years after the last boarders moved out and my then boyfriend (now husband) would come over to visit his comment was “My God! Your house is like a sitcom. The doorbell is always ringing and you always have visitors”. Now as fun as a home like that may be, I relished quiet from a young age. And the only place to get it was the local library. I could spend my afternoons sitting in a corner not talking to anyone or talking quietly with the other kids and not having to compete for airspace. Even now, when I sit in my own home, I never turn on the TV or radio, I drive in silence and it is only me, my tinitis and the white noise of the urban world.

I am not alone in this need. Let me give you some examples of people I know though I have changed their names:

Nena

A Masters student living in a 2 bedroom flat with her host family. She shares her bedroom with 2 other girls. Her bed is her only private space. She studies at the library until closing time every day as her host family has an open door policy with many visitors. She arrives home one night when her host family advise her that they have taken on another boarder. When she points out the lack of space she is advised that they have rented out the other side of her bed and she was to top and tail with a stranger (but not to worry – it was another female). This student’s distress the next day was noticed by the staff and they helped her find emergency accommodation. The student found solace in the library, eventually worked in the industry and 20 years later is a highly effective information professional. The quiet of a library, she told me, was the quiet that she desperately need for study.

Dr John

Dr John’s parents ran a fish and chip shop. There a 6 children living in a 3 bedroom house above their shop. One room for the boys and another for the girls. They all have to work in the shop after school and if there was a busy moment you would be pulled from your room where you were doing homework to help out. For Dr John going to the library to study was his escape from a loving but busy, noisy house.

Sally

I met Sally earlier this year when I went to pick my son up from a friend’s place. She was discussing how she could no longer bear to take her kids to her council’s newly refurbished library because the books were tucked into nooks and crannies and the children’s area was designed for rough and tumble play. “I know where the playgrounds are, I know where playgroups in community centres meet. Not everything needs to be hyped yet my kids get hyped in the library. I just want to sit and read to them”.

Ben

Ben and his family had moved to his mother’s home during a renovation. He worked from home but found it impossible to concentrate as his mother cared for his 3 nieces during the day. Going to the library was a better (and cheaper) option than a noisy cafe. However, it took visiting 5 library branches before he found one that was not overwhelmingly noisy.

I believe that these library patrons are not a tiny minority. I believe that most people in the community expect a library to not be so loud that they need to use noise cancelling headphones when they use it. Nor do they expect the absolute silence required in cinemas and theatres. Certainly, many larger libraries are able to provide designated quiet areas and floors but smaller libraries will find this harder to manage particularly if they are open-plan.

However, I think it is imperative that library staff do no scoff, do not ignore and do not dismiss as unimportant the library patron who comes and asks if there are quiet spaces or for a staff member to intervene and ask someone making unreasonable noise to tone it down. The library patron with a need for a quiet is no less important than the needs of other library patrons that as librarians we are able to meet.

Repeat after me “I am the stereotype librarian and I am proud”

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In which I go on a rant which has been building up within me for 25 years. Some librarians may get their noses out of joint. But I don’t care. For mine has been out of joint for far too long……

People who discuss librarian stereotypes and overcoming them annoy me. It is a tired, bleating sound that has turned into a stereotype itself. There is nothing new about this move to “reject the stereotype”. When I started my LIS course in 1988 some fellow students were discussing that they <insert disdainful tone> “weren’t the typical librarian”  and the need to <disdainful tone again> “challenge stereotypes”. This attitude surprised me in 1988 and completely spins me out that it still exists a quarter of a century later. I worked hard throughout high school to ensure I got into a library information course and my aim was always to be a librarian for the ones that I had come into contact from a young age were all brilliant people. My list below shows a broad mix of personalities that were the librarians I cam into contact with prior to going to uni:

1. My first children’s librarian – tall, skinny, long hippy hair and hippy fashions. Always wore wedged clogs, allowed kids behind the desk to help and always chatted about books.

2. My second children’s librarian – Curly black hair, male, always smiling but didn’t know how to rec books like our first one. This was dissapointing to us kids (but he was still cool and let us hang out).

3. My high school librarian had gnarled arthritic hands and was the antithesis of my local librarians. She was dour but always knew how to help us with school asignments.

4. My first foray into the adult library librarian was a cool chick. She wore funky clothes, had a funky haircut and loved Mills and Boon.

5. The librarian that cool chick librarian worked alongside with was male and only spoke to people who had literary tastes in reading. As a teen, this did not rule me out as I read lots of literature both in English and in Greek. He relished this and was always very nice to me (but was standoffish to others).

6. Desk Set. Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and a bunch of bright fabulous librarians being threatened with being closed down as computers can do a librarians’ work (sound familiar? This movie is circa 1957 – Knowledge trumps data in this one).

What I’m trying to demonstrate above is that I came in contact with a broad variety of librarians and I am sure that if you were to make a list of those you came in contact with, you too will have a similarly broad list. So, to still be discussing librarian stereotypes nearly 25 years later shows a lack of understanding of the profession and that there are some people who may have their own personal image problem with their choice of career. (I did say I was going to get ranty). It is like begging for acceptance. Hand up in the air, waving to the cool kids and saying “Hey I’m hip even though those before me weren’t”.

In my opinion, the only librarian stereotype is a person who is always able to help you locate the information you need and can usually be trusted to be objective. That is it.

For I don’t care if someone wears their hair in a bun, wears glasses or asks people to keep keep the noise down (actually I lurrrrve these librarians but here is not the place to write about my opinions on libraries and cacophony). I won’t pass judgement if a librarian is toting a book or e-device of their choice, is in a suit, is in jeans and a polo top or in a flippy skirt or a pair of cinos. I don’t care if librarians choose to wear sensible shoes or stilettos (well – in a workplace where you are expected to climb step ladders I do care but that is an OH&S issue not a librarian issue). I don’t care if the librarian wears converse, a cardigan, sports a beard, a mohawk, ponytail, support hose or has ink and piercings. That’s right, for the tattooed librarian is a stereotype too. Not because they have a tat but because they have delivered an information service.

What I do care about is the disdain with which librarians of the years gone by are being subjected to by proclamations of rejecting the stereotype. These are professionals who went through amazing technological changes in their libraries during the twentieth century, some of them as drivers of change and others who were implementers and, of course there were those who didn’t like the changes too. These “stereotypes” that image conscious information professionals are trying to not emulate were responsible for the transition of the profession from the 19th century industrial era library through the modernist 20th century into the digital information era of the early 21st century. These book peddling, knowledge sorting, program delivering librarians have inspired and changed people. They have delivered them from a tradition of taking on your family’s work to inspiring them to look beyond their personal experiences and to dream of the places that they have read about in books and magazines and movies that would not have been available in the home. The whole thing about librarians is that they are an agile profession providing information and experiences to an agile community.

So those of you who want to be hip and reject YOUR perception (not everyone’s) of librarians of a past era to show how alternative and edgy you are. Well here’s my challenge to you. How about being the alternative to the alternative. Rather than join the herd and rally against the stereotype – just be yourselves, work hard, deliver the information service, give a nod to those that went before you and a leg up to those that will follow.

Bookish Meme: Reading Habits

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The following meme is modified from the original by Booking Through Thursday.

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What’s your favorite time of day to read?

Late afternoon but any time will do.

Do you read during breakfast? 

Sort of. I get coffee in bed every morning while I read. But during breakfast I’m busy getting kids ready for school and I rarely read (though they do).

How many hours a day would you say you read?

3 hours a day at the least. This includes reading for work, newspapers, journals, my twitter feed as well as my novel on the go.

Do you read more or less now than you did, say, 10 years ago?

I read a lot more now than I any other time in my life.

Do you consider yourself a speed reader?

No. I’m not particularly fast though I don’t deliberate over my reading unless it is a peice, a book that has impressed me enough to require re-reading. I always read slower during a reread.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Astral projection.

Do you carry a book with you everywhere you go? What KIND of book?

Yes and it is always a paperback as I don’t like carrying heavy items. And it is almost always a romance.

How old were you when you got your first library card?

4 years old.

What’s the oldest book you have in your collection? (Oldest physical copy? Longest in the collection? Oldest copyright?)

Wilson’s Border Tales c1836

Do you read in bed?

In bed, on the couch, in the backyard, at the beach, on the train but never on a bus.

Do you write in your books?

Rarely. I occasionally put an ownership signature on the first page.

If you had one piece of advice to a new reader, what would it be?

Enjoy and don’t over-analyse.