Romance Reader in Chief

A couple weeks ago, I caught a story on NPR of professor Jack Murnighan's guilty secret passion for romance novels. He reads them furtively in his office when he should be preparing his next lecture on Beowulf.

Now the Huffington Post ran this pic of President Obama accepting a signed copy of Geri Krotow's A Rendevous to Remember. Geri signed it for Michelle and the First Lady made a point to come over to thank her personally. (Judging from the photo, Michelle may have a time wrangling it away from her husband.)

The HP goes on to suggest that literary circles will be dismayed that Michelle might be reading (insert horrified gasp!) genre fiction. First of all, Michelle Obama is entitled to read whatever she wants, just like the rest of us. And secondly, there is nothing inherently wrong with genre fiction. I tend to agree with Mark Twain on this matter. He said,

"A classic is something everyone wants to have read... but nobody wants to read!"

Don't get me wrong. I love the classics of literature. I didn't cheat, like my DH did, to pass my World Lit classes. (It was all about doing as little as possible with him. That bad boy always started at the back of the book and read forward till he had enough of the gist of the novel to write his paper! He managed a B without finishing a single tome! What do you expect from a Math major?) Even now, when I want my presuppositions challenged, when I want to think deeply about serious issues, I'll turn to a literary title.

But sometimes, I just want to be told a story. And there's nothing wrong with letting a well-told tale wash over you.

Living in New England, where only 12% of the population will admit to ever having read a romance novel, I feel a little vindicated by this story. Writing novels that will entertain and encourage people to feel happy is a worthy goal.

Can it be that in these uncertain times, folks in academia and the halls of power are finally realizing a guaranteed happy ending is a force for good? Why are they so surprised when people opt for feel-good fiction when their 401K is tanking and pink slips loom?

Why does the romance genre carry such a stigma with opinion-makers?

Pirate Date Night

Much has been made of the president taking his wife to a Broadway play last week. Fortunately, Michelle Obama isn't the only one whose husband knows how to show a girl a good time!

My DH came home with tickets for us to see Gilbert & Sullivan's PIRATES OF PENZANCE tonight. It's a delightful little operetta with "piratitude." According to the playbill, this production is "freely plundered" from the original, which means the musical score is intact, but the spoken part of the show has been modernized, and probably "Disney-ized", to trade on the Pirates of the Caribbean popularity. That's fine. G & S shows have always been light-hearted, irreverent romps, full of incongruities and scathing satire. Updating them makes sense.

When I studied music history, I learned that Arthur Sullivan secretly loathed his work with Gilbert. He saw himself as a serious musician, a creator of sweeping grand opera. He believed his collaboration with the librettist Gilbert was holding him back from his true calling.

Unfortunately, Sullivan's attempts at the dramatic were abysmal--over-blown, pompous and just plain boring, while the music he wrote for Gilbert's saucy libretti sparkles with wit and enduring good humor. He might have wanted to be Wagner but he didn't have an authentic "big story" voice in him.

He was however the perfect composer for Gilbert's operettas, the father of the modern musical, and as long as there are staged works, his music will be a much-loved part of the repertoire.

This is a cautionary tale for me. An accurate self-image is more important than a good self-image.

As a writer, I'm sometimes tempted to try to 'write to the market.' However, since I have no "inner snark" in residence, attempting a chicklit would be futile. Vampires show no sign of slowing down in popularity, but if I don't find them sexy, I can't write them sexy. Just as Sullivan poured out his pattersongs, I have to write the stories that are in me, whether I think it's what the market wants or even what I wish I could write.

Tonight, I'm going to sit back and let the joy of frivolity wash over me. I only wish Arthur Sullivan could have taken the same pleasure in it.

So how about you? Have you and your significant other had any fun dates lately? Have you had any "ah-ha!" moments when you realized something you were good at was something other than what you thought you wanted to do?