If Music Be The Food Of Love, Play On

Discovering medieval history was a revelation that occurred to me when I was fifteen. Before this bits and pieces had filtered through from family day trips to castles or school fashion projects, but it didn’t become an obsession until I picked up my first medieval set historical novel.
     It is almost humorous looking back to where it all began, for my first foray into the medieval world was at the direction of a historical romance. Yet this is not something I can admit to in academic circles, for I would quite probably invite scorn upon myself.

     There is something faintly embarrassing about romance novels. They have their own section in bookshops and libraries as if they have been shunned by their fellow works of fiction. I wouldn’t really blame them, for romances often have cringe worthy titles such as ‘Surrender to an Irish Warrior’ accompanied by the kind of front cover art that almost always seems to involve a gaggle of naked limbs.

     However I find myself asking why this is the case. Why is romance a genre that no one admits to reading? I suppose there is the stereotype of the romance reader as a middle-aged woman, living alone apart from her cats, and spending her sad lonely life reading trashy novels.

     And so there is almost a sense of shame or guilt when I pick up the occasional romance, as if because I am a young woman of reasonable intelligence I should have progressed past this genre. But there is only so much death, destruction and depression I can take before I need some light relief.

     I was mildly irritated by reading online this week that ‘romance novels are bad for women’. Apparently these novels give women unrealistic conceptions of love and sex, and that books should be put down and reality embraced. I find that as patronising as suggesting that all fantasy fans believe in unicorns. How does romance perpetuate unrealistic fantasies anymore than any other genre of fiction or indeed of film or television? It’s as if researchers or psychologists are assuming that the audience of romance novels are particularly dim witted.

     There are of course many appalling romance novels out there. But I think that is true of many genres. My point is that not all romantic fiction or romance readers need to be ridiculed.

    

 

One of my favourite romance novels is The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly, but it is so much more than simple ‘chick-lit’. It brings to life London at the turn of the twentieth century when women were struggling to become equals.

            “It’s a fight, Mr Malone. A human being – the most beautiful, complex, miraculous machine ever created – against a single-celled parasite. A bacterium. An organism that lacks a mind, a soul, consciousness, purpose and reason. Would you like to be bested by such an opponent? I would not. And will not.”

            Her grey eyes sparked with passion as she spoke. Sid looked into them and for a second glimpsed her soul. He saw what she was – fierce and brave. Difficult. Upright. Impatient. And good. So good that she would sit covered in gore, shout at dangerous men, and keep a long, lonely vigil – all to save the likes of him. He realized the she was a rare creature, as rare as a rose in winter.
            He wanted to tell her what he saw. Wanted to tell her that he had known good people once. A lifetime ago. But he couldn’t. She would think him mad.

The funniest books I own also happen to be romance novels set in nineteenth century England. One of my favourites is What Happens in London by Julia Quinn.

 

            “I have not agreed to dance with you!” She bit her lip. She sounded like an idiot. A petulant idiot, which was the worst kind.

            “You will,” he said confidently.
            Not since Winston had told Neville Berbrooke that she was “interested” had she so badly wanted to strike another human being. She would have done so, too, if she’d thought she could get away with it.
            “You don’t really have a choice,” he continued.
            His jaw or the side of his head? Which would cause more pain?

            “And who knows?” He leaned in, his eyes glittering hot in the candlelight. “You might enjoy yourself.”

            The side of his head. Definitely. If she came at him with a wide, arcing swing, she might knock him off balance. She’d like to see him sprawled on the floor. It would be a gorgeous sight. He might strike his head on a table, or even better, grasp the tablecloth on the way down, taking the punchbowl and all of Mrs Smythe-Smith’s cut crystal with him.

            “Lady Olivia?” 
            Shards everywhere. Maybe blood, too.
            “Lady Olivia?”
            If she couldn’t actually do it, she could fantasize about it.
            “Lady Olivia?” He was holding out his hand.
            She looked over. He was still upright, not a speck of blood or broken glass in sight. Pity. And he quite clearly expected her to accept his invitation to dance.

One of the first medieval set books I ever read was The Falcons of Montabard by Elizabeth Chadwick, which though it could be simply categorised as romance is also a novel about the Crusades.

 

Sounds roared in her ears...hooves thundering and fading, the shouts of men, the screaming of her baby son. Her vision cleared and darkened by turns.

            “Christ, Annais...Annais.” A hand touched her face, her throat, feeling for the life force. She was lifted to a sitting position and cradled against hard, sun-hot rivets. A rim was pressed to her lips and she tasted the appalling burn of Galwegian usquebaugh. Choking, she pushed the drink aside with shaking hands and looked up into Sabin’s face. He had removed his helm and his sweat-soaked hair dripped at his brow. There was a long smear of dust on his cheek and dried blood was caked on one hand and beneath his fingernails. He was kneeling and she was lying against the left side of his chest. Edmund yelled with lusty indignation from the ground between Sabin’s knees. “Annais?”

            She blinked at him. “You are alive,” she croaked. “I saw you shot... I saw you fall...”

            “My hauberk took the blows.... I am not injured beyond a scrape.” It wasn’t entirely true, but it would serve for the nonce, and he was scarcely at death’s door. “It’s all right... everything is all right.”

Romance is then, in my opinion, a long way from being a one trick pony and it should be nothing of which to be ashamed.