They check the age-old impulses of writing scenarios where the hero’s mouth comes crashing down on the heroine to silence her during a passionate argument or when the hero follows her home to ensure she is safe.Īn adult and feminist Sukanya has the advantage of being aware – she understands the aspirational and fictional space that romance offers and how it can be a safer world as compared to the real world where endings are rarely happy or the path towards ‘Happily Ever Afters’ rarely so smooth. However, in more recent romance books, we can clearly see authors redefining boundaries and writing about not just consent but enthusiastic and informed consent along with safety and respect. As author Maya Rodale points out, if the hero is the boss and the heroine is his secretary (a very popular trope) in a book, how does the author remain blind to the inherent unequal power dynamics in that relationship?
However, these were merely excuses and a hasty rationalisation to hide the shame that I still carried.Īdmittedly, if read from a feminist lens, many of these books would not be fit for consumption. The older romance novels thrived on plots where the heroine was often in a vastly subordinate position to the hero, leading to unequal power hierarchies. I told others that it helps me relax and unwind after a whole day of reading difficult academic texts.
#Romance novels in telugu how to
So why did a teenage Sukanya pick up a Mills & Boons mass-market paperback romance gleefully anyway? Why did she feel vindicated when the hero finally confessed his love to the heroine and they kissed and everything was fine? Why did she learn how to hide her Goodreads to-read lists so that her friends wouldn’t see her reading romance novels?Īs an adult, I slowly learned to rationalise my fascination with romance novels and why I read them – I told myself it is a trivial hobby, but not a serious pursuit. If love is just a subplot, then maybe the book is worth reading for the other “ more important subplots” like war, disease, and other human emotions and events that are more complex than two people meeting each other for the first time and finding a life-long companionship.
If it is a “ serious” romance novel, then maybe it is a novel worth reading. In fact, some romance novels have now become classics due to the standards set by men, and their biased notions about what good writing is. Not that Shakespeare or Gabriel Garcia Marquez did not write about romance or did not let the themes of love and longing lead their plots. After some careful consideration, I realised I can bridge that gap simply by not imposing judgment and by being aware of that “critical space” in my mind The initial discomfort that I felt while reading romances was quickly resolved by simply shutting off the feminist judgment of my brain – a careful balancing act. What I have also realised is that feminism doesn’t impose judgments or shame someone who decides to derive fun or pleasure from something. My consistent engagement and negotiation with feminism has taught me that there actually isn’t just one feminism but multiple feminisms for each individual.
0 kommentar(er)
