thebookishowl.com

The literary establishment is in panic, worried, because of affordable ebooks, that their tottery and moldy empire will come crashing down. Yesterday saw a shaky editorial in the New York Times from lit writer Ann Patchett complaining that brick-and-mortar bookstores are in trouble. She’s frantic that the Pulitzer board awarded no Fiction prize this year. Patchett said that the Department of Justice, by coming out against price-rigging, “has decided to be Amazon’s bodyguard.”

In the same issue, in a different piece, New Republic honcho Leon Wieseltier is quoted on a similar theme: “People who know how to publish books are in danger of being put out of business by people who think they do but don’t.” I guess he can’t see the obvious contradiction in his statement (apart from the fact it’s not true). If publishers are going out of business, then they don’t really know how to publish books—at least not in the current environment.

For some writers, like myself, the ebook revolution spearheaded by Amazon and Barnes and Noble is a godsend. Our current great literary system has designated me blacklisted, a pariah, untouchable, however you wish to term it. No one in the entire system from writers to editors to agents to journalists will allow themselves any contact with me. Whistle blowers like myself are banished to the far reaches of the literary universe. In exile. But now, even if few people know about them or buy them, I’m at least able to get some of my writing via ebooks out there, available for public view. It allows me to prove that I can in fact write. I’ll go further and say that my newest fusion novel, The Tower, is competitive with anything the conglomerates produce. It’s also that rare animal, pop and literature both.

Apparatchiks like Ann Patchett and Leon Wieseltier believe the current moldy system is wonderful, because for those inside the system it is. Neither of them cares two cents worth about corruption within their realm, or what happens to writers who don’t conform. They’ve been trying to shove their stale conception of literary art, centered around the so-called perfect sentence and nothing else—bureaucratic lit—down the public’s throat, through writers like David Foster Wallace, for decades, but the public refuses to swallow it.

It’s truly funny that the great success the big publishers are having at the moment has nothing to do with “literary” fiction. Instead, fed-up readers desperate for readability and plot—and no longer offered that by mainstream novelists—have found it in the obscure or scorned categories of fantasy, romance, and Young Adult. The publishers’ success has come through publishing’s back door, and has been despite the guidance of mandarins. The total dominance of hack authors like George R. Martin highlights the utter bankruptcy of literary fiction. No Pulitzer award? Never has the granting of no award been more fitting.

AttackingtheDemi-Puppets

Change is key to the development of a romance. You can’t have a romance without a “Central Love Story,” that love story “centers around two individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work” (RWA), and so, by definition, the relationship changes over the course of the novel. That kind of change, to borrow one of President Obama’s campaign slogans, is the “Change We Need.”

That may not, however, be the only kind of change some readers need. When SmartBitch Sarah recently gave Georgette Heyer’s The Grand Sophy a “D” grade I wasn’t at all surprised that this was partly due to the anti-Semitic portrayal of Goldhanger, the Jewish moneylender. We have, after all, discussed that before here at TMT. I was, however, surprised by the following criticism of the novel:

Sophy doesn’t change or grow or evolve. She gets her way, and everyone around her is probably better off for her involvement, and they’re all happy, but Sophy doesn’t develop. She achieves through her own machinations, which, while entertaining, was not as satisfying as having her develop or grow as a character.

Although I had noticed that, in many romances, both the hero and heroine are greatly altered by the end of the novel, it had never occurred to me that change in the protagonists was necessary to any readers’ enjoyment of romances. With this revelation still in the back of my mind, I came across the following:

When our immigrant ancestors arrived on America’s shores they hit the ground running, some to homestead on the Great Plains, others to claw their way up the socio-economic ladder in coastal ghettos. Upward mobility, westward migration, Sunbelt relocation – the wisdom in America is that people don’t, can’t, mustn’t end up where they begin. This belief has the moral force of religious doctrine. Thus the American identity is ordered around the psychological experience of forsaking or losing the past for the opportunity of reinventing oneself in the future. (Engle 337)

While there are likely to be plenty of non-American readers who have a preference for protagonists who change a lot, I wonder if the romance genre, as it has developed in North America, does tend to reflect the belief “that people don’t, can’t, mustn’t end up where they begin.”

Virginia Kantra, for example, states that

At the center of every story is a protagonist who wants to do, accomplish or change…something. In pursuit of his goals, our protagonist must struggle, learn and grow to become a more self-realized, self-reliant, autonomous character. This is the character arc.

But as readers and writers of romance, we expect, we celebrate, the development of the pair bond from attraction through exploration to emotional intimacy and sex. This is the romance arc. [...]

As romance writers, our job is to develop all three arcs, the hero’s, the heroine’s, and the relationship’s, in an emotionally satisfying way.

Jennifer Crusie found the genre powerful and important because it

gave me female protagonists in stories that promised that if a woman fought for what she believed in and searched for the truth, she could strip away the old lies about her life and emerge re-born, transformed with that new sense of self that’s the prize at the end of any quest. And when the heroine emerges transformed from the romance story, so do I. So do all romance readers.

Leslie Wainger, author of Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies and Harlequin editor believes that

Static characters are boring: Your heroine (and yes, your hero, too) can’t remain static over the course of the book. As the plot progresses, you need to make your heroine develop, change, grow, and discover things about herself and her abilities — especially how to love and live with her hero. If your heroine starts out perfect, she has nowhere to go. But if she has insecurities, past failures to put to rest, doubts about herself and her abilities, or an out-and-out bad habit — maybe a quick temper, or impatience that leads to rash, unwise decisions — she has room for progress, and readers will want to see how she masters the challenges of the plot and the romantic relationship.

I’m still not convinced, though. If the characters are intrinsically interesting, why do they need to change? Isn’t it enough to see how their relationship develops? In Heyer’s The Nonesuch, for example, neither the heroine nor the hero become “more self-realized, self-reliant.” They don’t change their personalities; what changes is how they feel about each other. And, as Sunita recently said,

For readers who enjoy context and setting, this novel has a lot to offer. There isn’t much in the way of plot: Ancilla and Sir Waldo slowly fall in love; Linden’s initial adoration of Tiffany dissipates and he moves on to a deep, long-lasting love for a more appropriate object of his affection; and Tiffany eventually gets her comeuppance, in a way that engenders some sympathy from the reader.

One of my favourite romances (as I’ve said many times) is Austen’s Persuasion in which, when Captain Wentworth observes that

“You were not formerly, I know. You did not use to like cards; but time makes many changes.”

“I am not yet so much changed,” cried Anne, and stopped, fearing she hardly knew what misconstruction. After waiting a few moments he said – and as if it were the result of immediate feeling – “It is a period, indeed! Eight years and a half is a period!” (Chapter 22)

The years have made Anne more confident in her own judgments but in the essentials of their personalities, she and Wentworth remain basically unchanged:

they exchanged again those feelings and those promises which had once before seemed to secure everything, but which had been followed by so many, many years of division and estrangement. There they returned again into the past, more exquisitely happy, perhaps, in their reunion, than when it had been first projected; more tender, more tried, more fixed in a knowledge of each other’s character, truth, and attachment; more equal to act, more justified in acting. (Chapter 23)

The changes in their circumstances which make it possible for them to marry are more than enough change for me, and what change there has been in their personalities is the sort of gradual change I can believe in.

What kind(s) of change do you need in a romance and what makes it change you can believe in?

• Austen, Jane. Persuasion. The Republic of Pemberley.
• Crusie, Jennifer. “Let Us Now Praise Scribbling Women.”
  
• Engle, Gary. “What Makes Superman So Darned American?” Popular Culture: An Introductory Text. Ed. Jack Nachbar and Kevin Lause. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State U Popular P, 1992. 331-343.
• Kantra, Virginia. “Who’s on Top?: Intimacy, Control, and Conflict.”
• Romance Writers of America. “About the Romance Genre.”
• Sunita. “Review: The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer.”
  
• Wainger, Leslie. “Discovering the Key to Every Romance Novel: The Heroine.”
• Wendell, Sarah. “The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer.”

The first photo, of “Change We Need” was taken by snowmentality and downloaded from Flickr under a Creative Commons licence. The second image, of “Change We Can Believe In,” came from Wikimedia Commons.

Teach Me Tonight

Clocking in your job LOLs and work FAILs every M Thru F

Epic Fail Funny Videos and Funny Pictures

Okay, let’s be honest. I knew full well when I started writing a blog called “Goth Chick News” that I’d be putting out the welcome mat for all manner of weirdness. I’m used to the emails containing cadaver pictures, links to vampire porn sites and invitations to underground parties to which everyone apparently is expected to wear leather riding tack.

At this point I’m fairly unflappable and difficult to impress.

It’s to be expected when, until 2009, Googling “goth chick” lead you straight to several pages of sites that at best required you to swear you were over 18, and at worse required a credit card.

However, once in awhile I get an email that makes even me wonder WTF?

And those, my friends, are rare and wonderful moments indeed; like the one earlier this week I received an email containing an ad for a soon-to-be-released indy film called Rubber.

Granted, at first this correspondence nearly got flushed, being understandably mistaken for yet another solicitation of an “adult” nature. But luckily, fueled by the third triple-shot latte of the morning, and bored to sobs being in between batches of interns to abuse, I decided to roll the email-virus-dice and open it.

Major pay dirt.

The first line of the email read as follows,

Rubber is a good movie about a killer tire. Take a moment and let that sink in.

Fair enough. Taking a nice long draw of triple latte, I let it sink in. Still interested and no longer bored, I read on.

Apparently, there’s this French musician going by the moniker Mr. Oizo who is fairly well known on the European club circuit for his electro-house mixes. He’s cut several albums, collaborated with some high-visibility artists and DJs, and generally has a robust underground following, at least here in the states.

By day Mr. Oizo’s real name is Quentin Dupieux and whether or not you believe this name is also fake, being a tribute to his grindhouse idol Quentin Tarantino, he is widely acknowledged as being a rather astute visual artist, primarily in photography.

However, that didn’t stop Quentin from trying his hand at moving picture, having worked on several music videos including a couple for his own songs.

Back in 2007 Quentin got enough money together to write, direct and release his first indy film entitled Steak. Though I could find precious little about the movie, I did discover it’s a high-school-losers-want-to-be-cool-kids flick that has succinctly divided its viewers into two categories; love it or hate it with very little opinion between the two.

Then again, the film is in French and was only released in France and Canada so draw your own conclusions.

Whatever opinion the viewing public came down on, it was the extreme reaction on both sides of the spectrum that did the trick (remember, there’s no such thing as bad publicity) and Quentin got what every first-time filmmaker wants; funding to do a second film.

So here we are at Rubber.

The premise involves a living car tire named Robert that rolls around killing people with the psychokinetic powers of its tire mind. Robert kills by causing his victim’s heads to explode and he’s apparently on a cross-country rampage searching for a mysterious woman he is obsessed with.

From an artsy standpoint the look of Rubber, from the stills to the poster, is reminiscent of the “grindhouse” movies of the 1960’s complete with the low camera angles, the gratuitous violence and the questionable production values.

But then you stop being pretentious and remember it’s a movie about a tire.

I did read one assessment of Rubber that stated Robert the Tire was a better actor than Nicolas Cage (who is appearing in another newly released, car-based flick, Drive Angry), but I thought that was a bit harsh.

Rubber made the film festival rounds in 2010 and apparently garnered quite a bit of buzz at Cannes, AFI and Fantastic Fest. It hit your On Demand menu in select markets last week and is schedules to go into theaters across the country in April.

Okay, I’m obsessed now.

Not only is this just about the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard, but Rubber looks so incredibly ridiculous that it may border on genius. I’m already blocking time this weekend to watch it, probably more than once. Being a fan of indy films and having the privilege of screening a lot of them, it’s much more usual to see serious plots badly executed, rather than absurd plots decently executed.

Click here to see for yourself or get the full dose of weird by visiting the official move web site here.

If this is the level of creativity we can expect from indy flicks in 2011, we can safely predict it’s going to be a Goodyear.

OK, I borrowed that joke but when you come across a perfect close like that, you go with it. Are you going to seek out Rubber, or do you have a favorite, low-budget movie? Just have something strange you want to say? Post a comment here or drop a line to sue@blackgate.com.

Black Gate

I need people to join this blog for my Writing for Publication Semenar class with Kate Miles. I’ve sorta, um, forgotten to do this earlier. Anyway, if you guys could do me a huge favor and join this, I’d be really greatful and give you telepathic cupcakes.

I’ll be posting art, poetry and stories I happen across, and keep tabs on my own personal projects.

Here’s the link: http://silvereyeforest.blogspot.com/

Glitter: The Unity College Fantasy Literature & Philosophy Blog

I didn’t log onto E-bay to bid on Huckleberry Finn. I didn’t forget, I just couldn’t  find it for sale at a cheap enough price. I’m not being stingy, I’m being thrifty. I have until next fall to decide if English is what I truly want to major in. I thought about religious studies for a while. I love literature and religion but I don’t see myself making any real money from either one. I don’t want to teach and my love for religion is not limited to any particular religion. Money isn’t everything but I would like for my husband and children to live comfortably. It’s selfish to dive into college motivated by my interests alone. I’ve got to be practical and I’ve also GOT TO STOP WASTING TIME! I have ample time to test the waters. I can’t afford to let this opportunity to make a solid decision pass me by. Perhaps I will Google Huckleberry Finn. It could be available at a lesser price on a different site.

The Search to Conquer Classic Literature