The Things You Read

Recently, as it was a grey day in December, I found myself wanting to read a mystery novel. I have several that I like, but I had just finished On the Road, and I wanted something different but engaging enough to distract me from what I'd just read. The mystery part is important--I didn't want to just veg in front of a book, I wanted something that would be entertaining but also require my attention.

Having heard of a new author who likes several of the same mystery authors that I do, I picked up a book and brought it home. And then read it. I'm sorry to say it wasn't very good. The main character was engaging enough, but the mystery was thin and the detective was an amalgam of stock characters from Victorian melodrama, casually updated with a drug problem for today's "sophisticated" readers of romantic fiction.

Why is everything about romance these days? Why can't publishers clearly label their works? If I had been in the mood for romance, I would have visited that section. It seems that lately I've been on the fringe of several discussions of the danger present in books with certain points of view, but I haven't yet participated in a discussion of the dangers of romantic fiction infiltrating other genres. Danger? Surely this is an exageration. But no, I don't think so. Romantic fiction is characterized in many instances by repetitve and thin plots and sensationalism. Repetitive, simple plots are inimical to many genres because they disallow for depth of character or action. Sensationalism feeds into today's mania for inciting fear, lust, or anger in people to motivate or sell ideas by the basest of instincts. When this type of book becomes ascendant, it becomes more difficult to sell or find books that engage readers with their ideas or imaginations.

Substituting romantic fiction and its conventions for other genre conventions is one more step toward substituting the simple for the complex, the formulaic for the imaginative. In my opinion, its a similar attitude to making a blockbuster movie in which deeper significance is so absent that the movie itself is little more than the icon on the bathroom door. Enter here for violence. Enter here for romance.

This wouldn't be an issue, since most movies are clearly labeled in terms of content and well-reviewed; however, it's becoming difficult in the bookstore to distinguish between an interesting new novel and a romance novel masquerading as a fantasy, science fiction, or mystery novel. With a limited amount of time and a limited budget, one comes to depend more and more on the recommendations of friends and hopes that the tide will turn back again to a different type of storytelling. Unfortunately, with the rise of sensationalism and its attendant fear of different ideas, it may take some time.