"Stories are nice, but the lowest form of reading." Bruh, HWHAT? Why tf else do people read?? Why do people RE-read anything if not for the story? We literally have a meme where people joke about making dumb decisions "for the plot."
The people who are out here saying that Austen is not a romance writer - with their full chest, apparently - are not grounded in reality.
Side note: Are you familiar with the YouTube vlog series The Lizzy Bennet Diaries? It's a re-telling of P&P via vlogs circa 2010 (which really shows), but in my opinion it's well done. Your throw away comment about Lydia made me think of that series, because they take her character development in a very different direction!
Amen! I’m on a quest to read all of Austen this year and so far I’m loving it. I’m a man and I’m not supposed to read romances but I’ll join you on your hill. They’re romances. Witty romances with a lot of social commentary, but romances.
The problem, I think, is that the people saying JA is not a romance writer are basing this on a very narrow view of what romance actually is. And this may well be because they 'don't read romance' so have a highly stereotypical and reductive view of the genre. And to some extent it's self-fulfilling because if what people expect of romance is so specific, the publishing industry will shy away from attaching the label to any book which departs from this stereotype.
One result is that what we generally understand by romance has changed and narrowed very significantly. The works of authors like Jules Verne and H G Wells, which we'd now call science fiction, were commonly described at the time as scientific romance. (See also 'Romantic', wrt Wordsworth, Coleridge, et al.)
I think this also illustrates a problem about the concept of genre itself. I can't really put it better than Ursula K Le Guin did:
’Genre, a concept which could have served as a useful distinction of various kinds of fiction, has been degraded into a disguise for mere value-judgment. The various 'genres' are now mainly commercial product-labels to make life easy for lazy readers, lazy critics, and the Sales Departments of publishers.'
Or if you want a soundbite, which I think is original to me, genre should be a signpost not a straightjacket.
That’s probably part of the reason why I don’t really like modern romance books: they’re so narrow in what they cover and that means they have to do it very well. But I can’t stand most of them. I would love to have good modern romances that don’t just focus on the lust and miscommunication.
I didn’t know Verne and Wells’ books were called scientific romances. That makes me more interested in reading their stuff.
I like your soundbite about genre! That’s certainly a good way to look at it.
Thanks. I do feel that the publishing industry seems to be marketing-led rather than led by creativity.
One of the advantages of self-publishing is that you don’t have to sit within one set of tramlines—though there are plenty of pundits out there who’ll tell you that’s exactly what you should do.
You are very persuasive that Austin writes romance. I agree with what you say here. Her work provides the basic framework that regency romances work from. However because she was not writing for an established genre and her works are contemporary to her time her works are much deeper than the average modern regency romance.
The day I realized that Napoleon was always lurking in the shadows of her work, but that we are so entrenched with the world view of a upper middle class women of the time, that so many things are left unsaid.
Shortly after reading & responding to this, I read the following in a footnote in _The Annotated Northanger Abbey_. (I'm a huge fan of the Shapard "Annotated" editions.)
"The term 'romance' was used then for stories that, in contrast to typical novels, were usually set in distant times or places and involved unusual characters and situations very different from those found in ordinary life."
I found this amusing because while Austen did not intend her novels to be "romances" in this meaning of the word... with the intervening 200 years, a large part of the enduring appeal of her novels is they clearly bring to life a distant time and characters that are very different from modern ordinary life. Her novels have clearly evolved into being "romances" in the way Austen would have defined it!
BahahaHAha! Oh my goodness, this article was worth the read for those bonkers takes alone! 😂🤣
Otherwise, it was a fun read too. I can't believe that saying that Jane Austen is a romance writer is THAT controversial. A case can be made that it wasn't all she was doing, but you lay out excellent counter-arguments here.
Quick notes:
- I would say that the enemies-to-lovers trope originated more with Shakespeare and Much Ado About Nothing and Taming of the Shrew.
- I have come to think Mansfield Park is actually much less a romance than Miss Austen's other works, and focuses more on family and friendship.
- Jane Austen wrote comedy, and I think a big reason why I like her is because I have a similar sense of humor. Some who have been critical of her (the Brontës for instance) don't get her sense of humor at all.
So happy you enjoyed it! I did get a little fired up while writing it, but it sure was fun.
I’m not very familiar with Shakespeare (sacrilegious, I’m sure) but I vaguely know those stories and that trope originating with him sounds right, but Austen did it for novels, so I can give her credit for that.
Here's my take: she did write romances, but gave rise to a genre which is now populated by vastly inferior works. I think this is because her romances were built around virtue and pretty much nobody following in Austen's footsteps gets this. "The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After" posits that she was presenting a guide for young woman--who now had more freedom of choice in their matches than ever before--to make a happy marriage. This is why some people find her books stilted or stodgy, I think, because her heroines aren't fainting or shrieking or giving into every wild passing emotion (except Marianne, who has to get over that. Sadly. I will always love Willoughby), they are trying to conduct themselves with dignity and virtue while also finding true love. That's why I love them-- it's something to aspire to. As you say, the wit, the comedy, the nosy neighbors, the gossip, are all seasoning. Brilliantly observed, precisely rendered seasoning from someone who knew people, and believed in women's ability to be wise and good as well as spirited.
Although—follow up—it DOES make her sound really stodgy to say she was writing her novels as a guide for young women to make virtuous marriages. When you read about her and her sister laughing in their bedroom as they read over her first draft of Pride and Prejudice, I think nothing can be farther from the truth. The guide, if it was intentional, was always second to the story. It's just that I think her personal code was so established, and her belief in acting a certain way was so strong, that it informs her stories on every level, and so they're more than romance in the sense that romance is more than sexual tension and passion.
An author who was influenced by Austen was Georgette Heyer and I read one of her romances (Frederica) and liked it better than Austen. I think it had more interactions between the leads and they were fun together.
I wonder if when P&P was published lots of women got together to discuss it and what they would’ve said. Was Darcy as popular back then as he is now? How many of them were being pushed towards their own Mr. Collins?
But having virtue in romances today would be a welcome game changer. I can’t imagine a bigger upset to the genre, aside from having the people actually communicate. Virtue would mean they care more about the outcome and the long-term effects and maybe that’s the reason why modern stories end when the couple gets together: most writers can’t imagine/don’t want to create what a good life after happily ever after looks like. The stories are more about what feels good now and is this guy fulfilling what they want at this moment. No one’s looking down the road because divorce has never been less of a taboo and they can always try again if things don’t pan out. But back then, you made a choice and you were kinda stuck with it, so don’t throw it all away on the first handsome face that walks by.
"Stories are nice, but the lowest form of reading." Bruh, HWHAT? Why tf else do people read?? Why do people RE-read anything if not for the story? We literally have a meme where people joke about making dumb decisions "for the plot."
The people who are out here saying that Austen is not a romance writer - with their full chest, apparently - are not grounded in reality.
Side note: Are you familiar with the YouTube vlog series The Lizzy Bennet Diaries? It's a re-telling of P&P via vlogs circa 2010 (which really shows), but in my opinion it's well done. Your throw away comment about Lydia made me think of that series, because they take her character development in a very different direction!
That comment still gets me. I can’t believe someone said that.
I did watch the Lizzy Bennet Diaries years ago, but I don’t remember what they did with Lydia.
Amen! I’m on a quest to read all of Austen this year and so far I’m loving it. I’m a man and I’m not supposed to read romances but I’ll join you on your hill. They’re romances. Witty romances with a lot of social commentary, but romances.
Yes! Thank you for joining me on my hill.
You're absolutely right.
The problem, I think, is that the people saying JA is not a romance writer are basing this on a very narrow view of what romance actually is. And this may well be because they 'don't read romance' so have a highly stereotypical and reductive view of the genre. And to some extent it's self-fulfilling because if what people expect of romance is so specific, the publishing industry will shy away from attaching the label to any book which departs from this stereotype.
One result is that what we generally understand by romance has changed and narrowed very significantly. The works of authors like Jules Verne and H G Wells, which we'd now call science fiction, were commonly described at the time as scientific romance. (See also 'Romantic', wrt Wordsworth, Coleridge, et al.)
I think this also illustrates a problem about the concept of genre itself. I can't really put it better than Ursula K Le Guin did:
’Genre, a concept which could have served as a useful distinction of various kinds of fiction, has been degraded into a disguise for mere value-judgment. The various 'genres' are now mainly commercial product-labels to make life easy for lazy readers, lazy critics, and the Sales Departments of publishers.'
Or if you want a soundbite, which I think is original to me, genre should be a signpost not a straightjacket.
That’s probably part of the reason why I don’t really like modern romance books: they’re so narrow in what they cover and that means they have to do it very well. But I can’t stand most of them. I would love to have good modern romances that don’t just focus on the lust and miscommunication.
I didn’t know Verne and Wells’ books were called scientific romances. That makes me more interested in reading their stuff.
I like your soundbite about genre! That’s certainly a good way to look at it.
Thanks. I do feel that the publishing industry seems to be marketing-led rather than led by creativity.
One of the advantages of self-publishing is that you don’t have to sit within one set of tramlines—though there are plenty of pundits out there who’ll tell you that’s exactly what you should do.
You are very persuasive that Austin writes romance. I agree with what you say here. Her work provides the basic framework that regency romances work from. However because she was not writing for an established genre and her works are contemporary to her time her works are much deeper than the average modern regency romance.
The day I realized that Napoleon was always lurking in the shadows of her work, but that we are so entrenched with the world view of a upper middle class women of the time, that so many things are left unsaid.
Thanks! I had a little too much fun writing it :)
And I never thought about Napoleon’s presence, but he certainly was a huge deal when Austen was writing.
Shortly after reading & responding to this, I read the following in a footnote in _The Annotated Northanger Abbey_. (I'm a huge fan of the Shapard "Annotated" editions.)
"The term 'romance' was used then for stories that, in contrast to typical novels, were usually set in distant times or places and involved unusual characters and situations very different from those found in ordinary life."
I found this amusing because while Austen did not intend her novels to be "romances" in this meaning of the word... with the intervening 200 years, a large part of the enduring appeal of her novels is they clearly bring to life a distant time and characters that are very different from modern ordinary life. Her novels have clearly evolved into being "romances" in the way Austen would have defined it!
That’s a very neat twist in things. I hope she wouldn’t mind being categorized as a romance writer now!
I wish more contemporary romance novels would fit that definition of romance; even Regency novels don’t really have “unusual characters.”
BahahaHAha! Oh my goodness, this article was worth the read for those bonkers takes alone! 😂🤣
Otherwise, it was a fun read too. I can't believe that saying that Jane Austen is a romance writer is THAT controversial. A case can be made that it wasn't all she was doing, but you lay out excellent counter-arguments here.
Quick notes:
- I would say that the enemies-to-lovers trope originated more with Shakespeare and Much Ado About Nothing and Taming of the Shrew.
- I have come to think Mansfield Park is actually much less a romance than Miss Austen's other works, and focuses more on family and friendship.
- Jane Austen wrote comedy, and I think a big reason why I like her is because I have a similar sense of humor. Some who have been critical of her (the Brontës for instance) don't get her sense of humor at all.
So happy you enjoyed it! I did get a little fired up while writing it, but it sure was fun.
I’m not very familiar with Shakespeare (sacrilegious, I’m sure) but I vaguely know those stories and that trope originating with him sounds right, but Austen did it for novels, so I can give her credit for that.
Thanks for your (sane) comment!
I think a major part of the problem is that a lot of people have defined 'romance' so that anything with merit is automatically excluded.
Interesting observation. I’d like the romance genre to include all manner of books, no matter their quality, just like every other genre.
I suppose it’s a similar impulse that made Margaret Atwood resistant to calling her books ‘science fiction’.
I might venture a guess that merit is excluded across the board, but I think you're on to something.
All you guys on the hill, move over. I'm coming up. I can't say it better than you already have. Love the review.
Thanks! There’s plenty of room on the hill.
Here's my take: she did write romances, but gave rise to a genre which is now populated by vastly inferior works. I think this is because her romances were built around virtue and pretty much nobody following in Austen's footsteps gets this. "The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After" posits that she was presenting a guide for young woman--who now had more freedom of choice in their matches than ever before--to make a happy marriage. This is why some people find her books stilted or stodgy, I think, because her heroines aren't fainting or shrieking or giving into every wild passing emotion (except Marianne, who has to get over that. Sadly. I will always love Willoughby), they are trying to conduct themselves with dignity and virtue while also finding true love. That's why I love them-- it's something to aspire to. As you say, the wit, the comedy, the nosy neighbors, the gossip, are all seasoning. Brilliantly observed, precisely rendered seasoning from someone who knew people, and believed in women's ability to be wise and good as well as spirited.
Although—follow up—it DOES make her sound really stodgy to say she was writing her novels as a guide for young women to make virtuous marriages. When you read about her and her sister laughing in their bedroom as they read over her first draft of Pride and Prejudice, I think nothing can be farther from the truth. The guide, if it was intentional, was always second to the story. It's just that I think her personal code was so established, and her belief in acting a certain way was so strong, that it informs her stories on every level, and so they're more than romance in the sense that romance is more than sexual tension and passion.
An author who was influenced by Austen was Georgette Heyer and I read one of her romances (Frederica) and liked it better than Austen. I think it had more interactions between the leads and they were fun together.
I wonder if when P&P was published lots of women got together to discuss it and what they would’ve said. Was Darcy as popular back then as he is now? How many of them were being pushed towards their own Mr. Collins?
But having virtue in romances today would be a welcome game changer. I can’t imagine a bigger upset to the genre, aside from having the people actually communicate. Virtue would mean they care more about the outcome and the long-term effects and maybe that’s the reason why modern stories end when the couple gets together: most writers can’t imagine/don’t want to create what a good life after happily ever after looks like. The stories are more about what feels good now and is this guy fulfilling what they want at this moment. No one’s looking down the road because divorce has never been less of a taboo and they can always try again if things don’t pan out. But back then, you made a choice and you were kinda stuck with it, so don’t throw it all away on the first handsome face that walks by.
Thanks for your comments!
Glad you agree. Thanks for commenting!