On the whole, I don’t mind seeing variations of the same old plot in what I read. Well, I do read plenty of genre literature after all! The finesse and/or psychological depth in which a well-known plot is handled can actually enrich my pleasure in reading a great deal. That said, there are a few plotlines out there that I would really like to retire for a couple of years or so, and which may very well keep me from buying a new publication unless it’s by an autobuy author.
Archive for the ‘Rike AAR’ Category
Plotlines That Could Take a Break
Thursday, November 12th, 2009The Lover Scorned
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Recently, I reread Thornton Wilder’s The Ides of March. It’s a book I’ve read with great pleasure before; this time I was particularly struck by the way the relationship between the poet Catullus and society lady Clodia is portrayed. He loves her with all his heart and writes great poems to her and about her; she sometimes admits him as her lover and spends time with him before jilting him again in favor of a rival. The novel leaves no doubt that Clodia is cruel and capricious; however, at this reading, I suddenly felt that I understood her right to jilt him, and her urge to do so. In spite of the undoubted depth of Catullus’ feelings, it is quite clear that Clodia does not feel as deeply for him. Yes, she might have treated him with far less cruelty, as Caesar points out to her, in ending the affair. But for the first time, my reaction as a reader was sympathy with her desire to regain her autonomy in the face of Catullus’s overwhelming love and of his general wonderfulness.
Storing All Those Books
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
Recently, I sorted some of my bookshelves. Truth to be told, I mostly did it in order to procrastinate doing some other work, but when I had finished, I was really pleased: The books looked so neat, with many from the same publishing house standing next to each other, and next time it won’t take me ages to find a specific book. An added bonus, I unearthed my copy of Meg Cabot’s The Boy Next Door, which I had been hunting for the last two years and which I accused both my sister and my father of having borrowed and forgotten to return.
Genre Fiction and Book Club Etiquette
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
A friend recently started a book club, and I was delighted to join. Sure, what I like best to read are romances and mysteries, but to include one book per month that was outside my usual reading range sounded like a great idea. So far we have met twice, the one book I have read until now was not quite to my taste, but still interesting to peruse, and I like other participants, all women. None of the other women read romance extensively, although one is like me in that she openly and unabashedly prefers happy endings. The other thee women are more into literary fiction, with some women’s fiction and detective stories added. So far, so good. There is only one thing that is driving me up the wall.
And What About the Bad Girls?
Monday, August 17th, 2009
Sandy’s recent blog entry about Bad Boys made me think of the Bad Boy’s counterpart, the Bad Girl. To qualify as a Bad Girl, it’s not enough for a heroine to simply be strong, independent and kick-ass. No, like her male equivalent, she needs to be selfish, pleasure-seeking, careless of others, wasteful and possibly promiscuous. She may be tortured because of a terrible childhood or a disastrous marriage, but she may not act the way she does because she secretly supports her seven minor half-siblings or the whole village – no martyrs here, please!
Books and Holidays
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
On the weekend that started off this year’s summer vacation for us, two of my husband’s oldest friends came to stay. They are very dear people, but when they left Monday morning, my husband told me that he was really looking forward to finally getting some time for reading. I understood him perfectly well, as one of the highlights of each holiday and vacation, for us, is getting uninterrupted time for reading.
When you suddenly find yourself with hours to spend on books, it can be quite an adventure of its own to choose one’s reading matter. There
are lots of titles on all of our TBR shelves, and if you go traveling during your vacation (and don’t own an e-reader of sorts yet), the decision of which books to pack can take considerably more thought than what clothes to put into one’s suitcase. During the years, I have taken books of several different catergories on vacations.
The Unequal Relationship
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
WARNING: This article contains spoilers below the cut for Someone Like Her by Janice Kay Johnson.
Last weekend, I wrote a review for Janice Kay Johnson’s contemporary romance Someone Like Her. While I liked many aspects of the book a lot, I felt the relationship between hero and heroine to be unequal, and to some extent this spoilt my pleasure while reading, and my belief in the HEA. Two days later, my mum phoned me and told me about a situation involving a relative, and I couldn’t help wondering if his marriage, also an unequal relationship, might have something to do with it. (Mind you: Both my cousin and his wife are lovely. It’s just that there is a very obvious imbalance in their marriage.) So I am inclined to take this issue rather seriously, and it makes me wonder how it is treated in romances, which are about relationships in all their facets.
