A-Z Romance: Stalkers in Nora Roberts' Skin Deep

For "R" I read Nora Roberts, the novella Skin Deep. The plot is about a film celebrity being stalked and the ruggedly handsome guy who guards her. 

I'm a big believer that there are exceptions to every rule, so even though I dislike books about celebrities, and I don't care for books about people being stalked (women or men: I have never watched more than ten minutes of Cape Fear 1962 despite Gregory Peck), I thought I would give it a try. 

Lo and behold, the celebrity part and even the stalking part didn't bother me too much. I thought Roberts captured the day-to-day grind and professional attitude of actors on set. The stalking was less than satisfactory but frankly, it paled next to what did bug me. 

The hero behaves like a stalker. 

He wanders through the film star's home. He enters her bedroom. He demands that she do what he wants and go where he wants. And because he is so virile and handsome and angsty or whatever, she doesn't get creeped out. She argues, but oh my, even as she is arguing, she is swooning. 

The problem here is not (necessarily) the bold, demanding, slightly demented hero. At one point, he acknowledges that he is behaving rather like the stalker. And I've read books, including manga, where the bold, demanding, slightly demented hero was matched by the bold, demanding, wholly demented love interest. Hey, if it works for them...

The problem here is that I was supposed to ignore the female character's OWN ARGUMENTS. 

"Oh, how dare he! I can't stand that kind of pressure. I am so tired of feeling unnerved in my own home! But..."

The mistake here is a mistake that I think only Joss Whedon and Dorothy Sayers have ever directly acknowledged: a person can be overwhelmed physically and sensually. That doesn't mean they won't hate themselves when their brain catches up to the rest of them. 

Yes, even with sex (which is supposedly untouchable). 

So Angel sleeps with Darla and then goes, "Wow, that was SOOOO dumb." 

And in Dorothy Sayers, Wimsey, who has a reputation for being good in bed, refuses to use that particular tactic with Harriet. He tries everything else. He takes her on dates. He argues with her. He gets involved with the murder case she comes across. But he never uses physical pleasure to bind her. 

At one point, she acknowledges that if he had, she--weary from her trial; weary with herself--would have "gone up like straw." 

Wimsey would have got her in the short run. He would have lost her forever in the long-run. 

In truth, in fact, in reality, the film celebrity in Nora Roberts' novella should have fired the hero the moment he stepped into her bedroom without her permission. There was absolutely no reason for him to be there. It's unprofessional behavior. And having non-professionals guard one is the epitome of dumbness. And rather terrifying.

Intent does not excuse stalking--not once the brain catches up to a person's integrity.  

The Sad and Lovely Ache: Sweet Moments in Romance

I recently posted on Votaries about mono no aware, a concept in Japan that often shows up in slice-of-life. Below is a repost about that concept in romance.

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I am a fan of romance from manga to paperbacks, from classical literature to movies. Generally speaking, I prefer my romances to end on a positive note, which by my definition means "conclusively." So, are they married or what?!

Every now and again, I will encounter a captivating film that ends somewhat inconclusively. Such films leave behind a gentle, sweet sadness or acceptance--mono no aware in Japanese. And that's okay. It isn't the equivalent of some dreadful French drama where I'm asked to acquiescence in the futility of life. Rather, instead, I'm being asked to accept the fleeting beauty and kindness of life.

The two films that come to mind are both the product of Japanese artists (slight spoilers):

Only Yesterday: From Studio Ghibli, Only Yesterday ends romantically (if not entirely conclusively). The romance is either the entire point or it is entirely incidental: I'm not quite sure. What brings an ache to the heart is not necessarily Taeko and Toshio meeting on the road but Taeko's decision to leave the train. And what turns that ache into a shout of joy are the children from Taeko's past. They crowd about her, encouraging her, egging her on while they engage in high energy, hilarious romps.

The entire sequence is accompanied by a gorgeous rendition of Amanda McBroom's "The Rose" sung by a Japanese singer. It sounds sappy. It surprisingly isn't. Rather, the song evokes a nostalgia that transcends mealy-mouth nostalgia. Taeko is not remembering her childhood fondly or wishfully, the way people think back to their "glory" days in high school. She is recapturing her youth in order to move forward.

Voices of a Distant Star: One of my all-time favorites, Voices of a Distant Star ends, possibly, with the lovers separated. There are Blade Runner-type hints--especially in the manga--that time and space may collapse, but as with Only Yesterday, that is hardly the point. They have already transcended time and space through the  email messages that eek through what Star Trek fans would call the space-time continuum and what Cat from Red Dwarf would call magic.

In this case, Cat is the closest because the result is magical.

"It's like a miracle to hear from her after all this time."

"Maybe thoughts can overcome time and distance."

"One thought. What would it be?"

"It would be--"

I am here.

Singles Without Stigma

Bilbo remains single. So does Frodo. Sam gets married. 

Leslie A. Fiedler spent a lifetime as a critic claiming that while European and British literature is suffuse with romance, American writers (of the classic novel variety) spent their careers running from the female. 

Like most theories about anything, I think Fiedler has a tiny point that is blown way out of proportion. 

The tiny point is that American culture does seem to idealize marriage and worry incessantly about it while stigmatizing singles--all this in a way that the more outwardly romantic British do not. 

Of course, there is a historical-time-period issue here. Tolkien was born in the late 1800s. He was writing in the early to mid-twentieth century. In England. In a university town. 

In sum, Bilbo's singleness is VERY English. It also carries zero stigma. He is the classic bachelor, even more so than Wooster and, for that matter, his own nephew. Frodo is the Fisher King, the wounded hero who cannot stay in the village he saved. 

Bilbo, on the other hand, is part of his village. He has his books, his friends, his food, his wanderings (hikes), and, eventually, his beloved Frodo. 

And there's absolutely nothing more to be said about his lifestyle one way or the other, either from a conservative or progressive perspective. 

This view of singleness is, truly, quite lovely.  

What Makes This Manga Different From the Others: Dashing Zaddy and Icy Protege

Dashing Zaddy and Icy Protege is one of those series I picked up at Books-a-Million. I visit Books-a-Million for its stunning and expanding manga section. And I have been pleasantly surprised by a few volumes I chanced across (rather than volumes I went to BAM on purpose to find). Dashing Zaddy is one of them. 

I like it for several reasons: 

(1) The older "December" Zaddy character actually looks older. So many times with manga, the only reason I know one character is older than the other is because the "script" tells me (similar to BL Thai series on Viki, in which the "older" character is almost always taller despite the character looking much younger). 

But Takanashi of Dashing Zaddy actually looks older--while still being charismatic and attractive. He has a kind of Elvin quality that makes him sparkle on the page. In many ways, his age enhances this otherworldly quality: he is a lively 40-year-old and appears that way. 

(2) The characters have a background. Quite often with manga series in office environments, the characters MIGHT have a background from high school (where they were rivals) but there's no substance to the background. But Hiwatari from Dashing Zaddy has an entire foundation of memories which fuel his affection and attraction for Takanashi. 

(3) The characters are different from each other. As I have mentioned multiple times on this blog, the best romances bring together complementary characters, and they retain their differences throughout the romance. 

They don't have to be the odd-couple: the slob and neat freak come with a separate set of issues. But they are more enchanting if they work off of each other rather than mirroring each other. 

Takanashi is an extrovert, a people-person manager. In contrast, Hiwatari has a "straight-arrow," somewhat blunt personality that masks a deeply romantic nature. In fact, the underlying mindsets here are quite clever. Takanashi, while being more people-aware, is more relationship-cautious. He's the kind of guy who has to figure out whom he loves. Hiwatari is the kind of guy who knows whom he loves and needs to bring the knowledge out of the clouds and into reality. A dreamer-realist and a realist-romantic: those combinations are more common than you might think!  

(4) Because the characters are different and reasonably complex, the story is not just about the relationship. There's nothing wrong with the relationship being the primary focus but endless pages of people being cutesy can get rather dull (one reason I love romance-mysteries so much is that the couple solve crimes: the focus is the couple, but the couple actually gets to do stuff). 

In Dashing Zaddy, the workplace is more than a staging area for dates and sex. The characters have to function in society: might as well show them carrying out those functions! (The underlying politics of New Employee/New Recruit also come to mind.)  

Dashing Zaddy and Icy Protege is a wonderful series that I am still enjoying!  

 

Borrower Romances

I comment on Votaries that Mary Norton seems to have abandoned Arrietty's core personality in The Borrowers Avenged. I write, 

On the one hand, I can understand Norton wanting to give Arrietty more dating options than the exceedingly uncommunicative Spiller. And the new home offers more to the family than the other homes did. And people, especially teens, do change as they mature.  

 Arrietty doesn't have to get married. If she does...hey, I always liked Spiller. As I also write, 

Arrietty would travel up and down the river with Spiller and their borderline wild kids. 

However, I do agree with Norton's desire to give Arrietty options. So I decided, Why not bring back Stainless?

Stainless is a boy of Homily's generation, which means that he is anywhere between 32-40 at the time of The Borrowers Avenged. As a boy, he caught a ride in a basket to the local sweet shop. When he came back, he was completely insouciant about the chaos he caused (everyone was looking for him) but had lost his beautiful complexion due to all the sweets he ate. 

It's a very funny short story. 

I decided that Stainless never loses that tendency to catch rides to places. He ends up in the luggage or coat pocket of a human who goes to a distant town, distant enough that Stainless might as well have gone to Antarctica. When he returns to his home turf many years later, he is older, wiser, quite adept at survival, and still restless. Borrowers get together to hear his reports of his travels. And he brings back objects to trade. 

Arrietty would admire him! Maybe she marries him. Maybe he married and had a son, and she marries the son. Maybe, because I like to consider all possibilities, he forms a relationship with Spiller, platonic or romantic. Maybe he and Peregrine get together--he writes a book and Peregrine illustrates it. 

I like the idea of a larger borrowers' culture beyond the Clocks. And I also want  Arrietty to have lots of possibilities, including, of course, Spiller.  

I should end by stating that Homily and Pod are one of the best compatible-with-distinct-personalities couples in all literature. Ian Holm and Penelope Wilton (who were a couple at the time) capture them perfectly. 

Lack of Romance in Carroll's Alice

I'm one who believes that Lewis Carroll was not a pedophile hankering after the eleven-year-old, Alice Liddell (though by Victorian Ruskin standards, such hankering was somewhat accepted; not that Ruskin is the best role model...). 

From a literary perspective, however, the more important point here is that no romance exists in the Alice books in the modern version of "romances." Carroll draws on images of chivalry for various scenes but only as tropes. So there is little "romance" in the medieval sense either: romance as great deeds carried out by honorable figures who save others.

The White Knight makes an appearance and is quite kindly. But his encounter with the Red Knight is reminiscent of T.H. White's jousters who behaved with such a lack of panache or competence, the Wart gets worried for them. 

The most "romantic"--in the older sense of the word--event occurs when Alice meets the fawn. There is a quiet pathos to the scene that exists in the older tales: Dante and Virgil gain quiet moments between meeting sinners and saints and monsters as well as between scenes of tremendous (if exhausting) majesty. 

I'm not entirely opposed to the mundane, precisely because high romance can get truly exhausting. But I prefer my romance (both definitions) and my mundane to overlap more. 

So I prefer Through the Looking Glass to Wonderland. And I go elsewhere for the type of story I truly love.    

Shakespeare's Couples: Isabella and the Duke

Measure for Measure is Shakespeare getting sick of the Woke Progressives of his day, the "pelting petty officer [who] would use heaven for thunder, nothing but thunder." 

He went after the type through Malvolio in Twelfth Night. In Measure for Measure, he makes the minor issue the major one. What happens when a preachy, label-happy, " I know how poeple should behave about everything moral" is left in charge of a community. Unlike Malvolio, Angelo is initially ego-less and well-meaning, until he proves utterly hypocritical (it's okay when I do it). Whatever the initial motivations, the end result is legalism, parsing the meaning of words at the level of pronouns in order to punish violators. 

The interpretations--and villains--of Shakespeare's play are endless. For instance, there is an all-male version in which the discouraged behavior is gay marriage. I wasn't able to track down a copy, but I suspect that it would capture the wild disguises and violent implications and pointed criticism in a way a modern audience would quickly grasp.

And, really, the underlying analogy could be almost anything. 

The controversial relationship for playgoers is the magnanimous Duke and Isabella, the novice nun. She leaves the convent to save her brother. The Duke asks her to marry him at the end. She replies with silence. "Silence" was consent for Elizabethans but Shakespeare never keeps his heroines silent. So the character's silence here is a deliberate choice. 

Is she consenting against her will? Consenting because she knows she'd make a lousy nun? Not truly consenting but unwilling to turn down yet another power-play? Happy to consent but not wanting to admit as much? Overwhelmed? Conflicted? 

The BBC version , which is quite faithful to the script as well as well-acted, portrays the Duke and Isabella working easily together to save her brother since she and the Duke have a similar serious mindset and strict though sensible moral code. 

At the end of the BBC version, Isabella accepts the Duke outstretched hand. He waits patiently for her decision, and she appears to consider and then make a thoughtful choice. 

However, the moment is still fraught with questions: Is Shakespeare saying that there is a time and place for chastity? Or is he suggesting that the Duke (and Isabella) are still putting on a play for the populace? Or is he doing--with transparent effort--what he is supposed to do as the playwright? 

Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare's problem plays, so I suppose an ambivalent end is allowed.