Review: Exit to Eden

Title: Exit to Eden
Author: Anne Rampling (a.k.a. Anne Rice)
Publisher: Dell
Copyright date: 1985
Part of a series? No

I tried to read this book years ago, and stopped halfway through, but I remained interested enough to pick it up again. I'm glad I did. Perhaps my life situation has changed, and that's why I loved it so much this time around -- I'm much more comfortable with erotica now (looking at it as literature, and not just a 'cheap thrill'), and I'm filled with a lot of those falling-in-love passions that consume the main characters of Exit to Eden. The book is full of the sensuality that Rice is known for, mostly through the Vampire Chronicles, and I don't just mean in relation to sex -- smells of flowers, tastes of food, the way things look and feel and sound -- her novels are saturated with sensory description, and it makes reading a lucious experience. Labelling the story as "erotica" seems way too one-dimensional. The combination of the sensory hedonism and the real depth to the philosophies of religion and life that her characters show make this a really layered and meaty love story. I'm not sure I buy these philosophies, and I have some issues with how conventionally the love story is concluded, but I still think Exit to Eden is a very worthwhile read.

Notable quotes:

"'People say S&M is all about childhood experiences, the battles with dominance and submission we fought when we were little that we are doomed to reenact. I don't think it's that simple. I never have. One of the things that has always fascinated me about sado-masochistic fantasies, long before I ever dreamed of acting them out, was that they are full of paraphernalia that none of us ever saw in childhood [...] racks and whips, and harnesses and chains. Gloves, corsets. Were you ever threatened with a rack when you were a kid? Did anybody ever make you wear a pair of handcuffs? I was never even slapped. These things don't come from childhood; they come from our historic past. They come from our racial past. The whole bloody lineage that embraces violence since time immemorial. They are the seductive and terrifying symbols of cruelties that were routine right up through the eighteenth century [...] all the paraphrenalia is the flotsam of the past. And where is it routine today? In our dreams. In our erotic novels. In our brothels. No, in S&M we're always working with something a hell of a lot more volatile than childhood struggles; we're working with our most primitive desires to achieve intimacy through violence, our deepest attractions to suffering and inflicting pain, to possessing others [...] And if we can keep the racks and the whips and the harnesses forever relegated to the S&M scenario -- if we could relgate in all its forms to the S&M scenario -- then maybe we could save the world'" (223-4).
[N.B. - I find the ideas that we are innately violent, particularly sexually, and that there is some kind of collective unconscious memory of past violence very problematic. The idea that relegating violence symbolically to the bedroom as a solution to the world's problems is also extremely reductionist. However, I still find this passage thought-provoking.]

-----

"But I was thinking the strangest thing: what if, what if it really was something that could happen? What if Martin was right and Elliott and I could have each other like that? What if it was half that good for only a year, a fourth that good for a decade? Christ, that was worth the death of everything I'd ever been before, wasn't it?" (287)

Review: Widow in White

Title: Widow in White
Author: Evelyn Bond a.k.a Morris Hershman
Publisher: Avon
Copyright Date: 1973
Genre: Gothic Romance
Series? No

This was an amusing read. It had tons of problems (e.g. "I like my drinks and my women neat"), but it was so obvious about them, so comfortable with them, that I can't really bring myself to criticize it -- it is what it is, a wholly hegemonic 70s text. What is really interesting about this for me is that for the first time I know for sure that one of the romance novels I've read was written by a man. I didn't find out until I was finished and checking for the publication date, and I realized that Widow in White was copyrighted by a Morris Hershman. Not covering his tracks very well, but maybe he didn't need to in order to sell books. After all, I didn't think to check the copyright until after I was finished, and most people probably don't check at all. I've never willingly read a romance novel by a man, but I wonder how many I've read unknowingly? I'm also really interested in how his books are being marketed online -- as "mysteries" or "crime fiction," even though my book says AVON GOTHIC ORIGINAL right across the top. Maybe this is the reason he didn't WANT to be seen as a man -- maybe he just wanted to be able to write romance in peace.

Let's Talk Romance: What Makes a Romance Novel?

I just finished Tarzan of the Apes, and it's got me thinking about the nature of romance fiction -- what makes a romance novel?



In A Natural History of the Romance Novel, Pamela Regis defines the romance novel as "a work of prose fiction that tells the story of the courtship and betrothal of one or more heroines" (19). Using this definition, Tarzan cannot be a romance novel, since *SPOILER ALERT* Jane and Tarzan don't end up together at the end of the novel. It is also much more about Tarzan that it is about Jane, so the story does not revolve around the heroine.

However, in Conrad Sucatre's book, Old School Romance, in which he talks about romance fiction before the Harlequin boom of the 1970s, he complicates this simple definition. Using Gone with the Wind as an example, he outlines characteristics of romance fiction in the 1930s:

1: Blunt, realistic dialog.
2: A great deal of action.
3: Characters who all wear their emotions on their sleeves.
4: The story continues after marriage, rather than ending with the wedding of Scarlett and Rhett.
5: Very imperfect, very human lead characters. (11)

Note that crucial difference -- by Sucatre's definition, the romance novel doesn't need to end in marriage/betrothal. As he points out, in Gone with the Wind, arguably one of the most widely recognizable romance novels/films of Western history, the hero and heroine don't even end up together at the end.

Sucatre argues that Edgar Rice Burroughs (author of the Tarzan series) was a romance writer; in fact, Tarzan was originally subtitled A Romance of the Jungle (37). After reading it I'm more than willing to recognize it as such, despite the non-cannon ending. But I'm left wondering if there's any definition of romance fiction that will work across a wide range of tastes and interests. Here's one that works for me:

Romance fiction is fiction whose plot centers around the romantic relationship of two or more people.

That's broad enough to cover a lot of options, including non-heteronormative romances such as those featuring more than two people, same sex couplings, etc. However, it still gets to the heart of what I consider romance fiction - a work revolving around the dynamics of a romantic relationship. Hmm, it's already starting to seem problematic though, because what about novels about the dissolution of romantic relationships? Perhaps it should be "the romantic courtship" of two or more people? But I dislike the conservative connotation of "courtship." Hmm, it definitely needs thinking about...

- Regis, Pamela. A Natural History of the Romance Novel. Philadelphia: U of Penn P, 2003.
- Sucatre, Conrad. Old School Romance. Goose Creek: Vintage Romance Publishing, 2005.

Let's Talk Romance: Coming Soon

I just went nuts at Chapters and bought seven new books:


I like how it's a combination of teen fiction and erotica, with a mystery novel thrown in because I am obsessed with reading organization self-help books and online tips. With any luck I'll be reviewing some of these on here soon.

I'm really impressed with the books in the Teen section of Chapters. I haven't explored Young Adult books in a long time and I was surprised to find that tons of major adult authors are writing teen books now. Even though Companions of the Night is one of my favourite romance novels and also happens to be a young adult book, looking for romance in the Teen section just hasn't occurred to me. It makes sense though -- teen books, because of their content restrictions, are great places to find UST. They're also great places to find angst because, well, they're TEEN books. However, just because content is restricted doesn't mean they aren't as complex as adult books. There was a huge selection of dark-paranormal-romantic stuff in there and a lot of it looked more complex than anything I've found in Romance or Horror lately. I'm definitely going to be browsing that section more from now on.

Review: The Wild Hunt

Title: The Wild Hunt
Author: Jill Tattersall
Publisher: William Morrow & Company, Inc.
Original Date of Copyright: 1974
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

I thought this book would, as my fourth gothic romance in a row, blend with the others into obscurity, but I was pleased to find that it stands out among those of its genre. The characters were clever and amusing, the heroine especially, and the hero was as dark, satanic, and attractive as I could hope. The witchcraft makes the plot a little different and intriguing, and the Wild Hunt is very cool. The romance is great, not explicit but there are some small but satisfying hints of sex at the end and some great UST moments scattered throughout. This book is one of the best gothics I've read so far.

(I couldn't find a picture of the cover and the book is in a library up north, so you'll have to use your imagination on this one).

Review: Darkwater

Title: Darkwater
Author: Dorothy Eden
Publisher: Coward-McCann, Inc.
Original Date of Copyright: 1963
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

This book was a well-written, complex web of intriguing characters. Unfortunately, the most interesting characters were the peripheral ones: Lady Arabella, the alternatingly vindictive and helpful great-aunt; and Amelia, the 17-year-old cousin who has an obsession with escaped prisoners (one in particular as the novel progresses). Fanny, the heroine, was somewhat bland. Adam Marsh as a hero was okay, but not sexy or sinister enough to suit me. It is a gothic novel, after all, so I give myself carte blanche to expect a Romantic, threatening hero.

One different thing about the novel was the issue of race raised through the narrative's connection to China. There is some cynical display on behalf of the author of the racism of the flightier people in the novel -- the refusal to accept a Chinese "nurse," worry about whether or not two orphaned children would turn out to be "yellow," etc. The perfection of racism in the Victorian period is something that is more taken for granted than critiqued in most romance novels, so it was refreshing to see it called to attention.

Overall, Darkwater was better than I expected. I only made a concentrated effort to read it because I wanted to finish just one more novel before New Year's Day and I had to finish my "Books Read, 2007" list, so I wasn't expecting much. However, it did turn out to be tolerable, even enjoyable, though I would have been much more interested in a book about Amelia and her passion for criminals. I should force myself to finish books more often.

Review: Falconridge

Title: Falconridge
Author: Edwina Marlow
Publisher: Ace Publishing Corporation
Original Date of Copyright: 1969
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

Like The Chaperone, this book was better-written than a contemporary novel of the same quality would be. It was also similar in its lack of sensuality, though the hero, Norman Wade, was quite a bit more attractive and sinister. Here's the excerpt, on the first page after the cover:

Several minutes passed and I was suddenly aware of my own fear. Something was wrong. It was silent, and the silence was terrifying. I whirled around. He was leaning in the doorway, his thumb hooked in his belt. He looked menacing as he stood there, casually blocking the door. I stepped back, and the boards creaked. The water behind me slapped loudly against the wood.

"Two more steps back," he said quietly, "and you would be in the water. It would carry you out to sea. No one would ever know what had happened to you."

I stood on the edge of the platform, my knees weak. He put his hands on my shoulders. His fingers gripped my flesh.

"Or someone could push you," he said. "Just one little shove and you would be gone. You could never swim in those skirts, not in this water. It would be so easy." His voice was beautifully modulated; it seemed to caress the air. "So very easy..."

It was a little like Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, shorter, less complex, and completely derivative, of course, but interesting and readable.