Georgette Heyer is the originator here, not Austen or the Brontës. Obviously those authors do have imitators, but the focus and aesthetic is very different to modern Regency romances.
Georgette Heyer was explicitly inspired by Austen, and presumably many of her readers were Austen fans hungry for more stories from the same era.
In a similar way we might say that Tolkien was the progenitor of a line of pulp fantasy novels, even though they have a significantly different character.
Sure, but I think you have to draw a line somewhere between proximal and ultimate inspirations; modern Regency romances are very like Heyer (albeit generally much more explicit) and rather unlike Austen.
We subdivide modern fantasy into 'epic', 'sword and sorcery', 'low', and so on, even though they have common ancestors.
> We subdivide modern fantasy into 'epic', 'sword and sorcery', 'low', and so on, even though they have common ancestors.
that's news to me. i personally consider that meticulous categorization of fiction to be tedious and childish. Consider that there are no good definitions of "high" vs "low" fantasy, and that there a few books that are both a) successful (whether you measure this in terms of profitability, popularity, or a combination of both) and b) regimented enough to hold themselves to a dictionary-style definition of what the author is supposed to be writing about.
you're using a definition of fantasy that is frankly not supported by the reality of how we consume and produce said literary works.
You can disagree without attacking the original poster. It’s obviously not news to you, since you present a counter argument, and nothing in your comment suggests thinking there are subgenres is childish. Why resort to ad hominems?
I don't read much fantasy but I do read a fair bit of science fiction and categories like cyberpunk, soft, hard, space opera, etc. while fuzzy are something I tend to find somewhat useful (as is the distinction between SF and fantasy). There are probably books in every category I like but I generally favor some categories over others.
Ooch. In my experience talking to professional reviewers, they will generally say that genres are marketing, not objective categories.
Ilona Andrews's books are marketed to romance (three series) and to urban fantasy (one series). Two of the romance-marketed series could get new covers and be sold as SF. The urban fantasy novels could get romance covers put on and be sold that way.
Repeat ad infinitum with literary SF, magic realism, respun fairy tales, space opera, epic fantasy, issekai, portal fantasies, hard SF, character-driven gay romance post-apocalyptic cyberpunk action fantasy (that was a very good one)...
I read 203 books in 2019. I assure you that the marketing categories are not helpful in my basic quest, which is to determine if the book is good. Nothing short of starting to read the book can do that.
That is really remarkable! Can I ask how you go about selecting what to read? Compared to the ~20 books I read every year that seems like an absolute firehose. I wouldn't even know where to start assembling such a long list.
The vast majority of my reading is SF/F, history, biography, autobiography, and sciences. Each of these have excellent reviewers who I treat as sources of recommendations.
e.g.: for current SF/F, James Nicoll, Locus, and John Scalzi's posts which are nothing but "here's what publishers sent me as ARCs which they are hoping I will blurb" are all good sources. I have access to NetGalley and some insider-baseball publishing sites thanks to my wife, who used to be a professional reviewer for Publishers Weekly. When I read a book by an author I really like, I try to add their blog or website to my RSS reader.
I think the 203 in 2019 was not a record for me, but it was certainly much larger than in 2020, where I had several multiweek periods of not wanting to read. This year is looking up.
One of my long-term tactics is to have some reserve books that I know I want to read but haven't, yet. Currently that pile includes a Walter Jon Williams, a Steven Brust, and an Elizabeth Bear. If I see a long run of not-so-great books, I know I have those to pull me out.
How quickly do you read!? That’s 1.8 books per day! Assuming a book is 240 pages, that takes me about 6 hours if it’s not too dense prose, so for me that would be a full time job with quite some overtime and weekends, assuming I don’t get tired.
Honest question, there’s a couple assumptions in my napkin calculation :)
I think you did the division backwards. By my math that's 1.8 days per book. I'm guessing OP reads pretty fast, and 1-2 hours per day spent reading isn't outside the realm of possibility. I would probably read 2-3 times as many books, except I'm a fairly slow reader and since I read for fun I have pretty much zero interest in reading faster.
Yes, this. I do read quickly, and I typically get 2 hours or so a day to read.
FWIW I don't read slower when I need to absorb serious content, but I do reread repeatedly -- flipping back and forth to make sure I understood the argument, critiquing it in my head, and so forth. Pleasure reading doesn't get that treatment unless I catch the author doing something egregious.
>I assure you that the marketing categories are not helpful in my basic quest, which is to determine if the book is good. Nothing short of starting to read the book can do that.
Interesting. I found that when selecting books, it's helpful for me to see how people have tagged them. That way I avoid some of the cliches I really don't care for and can narrow focus a bit. It's unusual for that to be wrong for me, where I actually like one of the books I had initially excluded based on category.
For example, if you really aren't into steampunk noir, I think it's helpful to know that the book you're about to read is a steampunk noir. Same goes for space opera, litrpg, gun porn, hard sci fi, hack and slash, harem stories, overpowered heroes, etc.
When you've got the best version of something you generally dislike, you'll see that in reviews.
Genres are complex and fuzzily-defined, but they're definitely both useful and widely-used.
You don't have to make it incredibly strict and granular, but subgenres give an easy way to say 'these works are similar', and that's helpful in all kinds of situation.
Pulp fantasy started before Tolkien, Howard and Burroughs are more important for that genre. Tolkien is what took fantasy out of the pulps and started the hard cover doorstopper fantasy series.
> For the origins of the modern Regency romance, look to the works of Georgette Heyer. Starting in 1935, Heyer wrote over two dozen meticulously researched historical books, all set in Jane Austen’s era, with an obsessive focus on London’s tiny upper class. According to literary scholar Diana Wallace, it was the incredible popularity of Heyer’s historical novels that helped transform historical fiction into a more feminine space that continues to “centralise female subjectivity, desires and apprehensions to an unusual extent.”
because this period of history is being rewrriten in the public culture to reifnorce myths about the present and so influence (softly control) the future
edit: the first sentence gets downvoted. I both expected and felt bad about it.
Why would it be worth emphasizing in a very home island bound setting which doesn't even address the middle class residents of the isle. Colonialism went on for over a century before and after.
It would be like emphasizing that Edgar Allen Poe married his thirteen year old cousin when discussing his horror influence. Terrible but hardly germane to the topic.
"Le bon ton" likely had a very direct hand in shaping colonialism, given that they were aristocrats and landed gentry, and given the "season" spent in London was shaped around political networking.
However, I also meant that it was a sort of cultural neo-colonialism: that the British are allowed to present the history of this period as a romantic drama.
Bridgerton at least was written by an American novelist and then made into a TV show by an American director / writer / producer team for an American media company.
but of course, this is not an answer; it's an explanation in the style of the surreal way in which I have chosen to make sense of the larger world around me.
however, who am I to chose how to make sense of the world? who am I to say that mytholgy-engineering has anything to do with the reason for the creation lots and lots of romances set in the british pre-victorian era?
in order to be taken seriously I must provide sources, backing, it is not enough to explain my thoughts cogently. I must show other ideas that support what I say. I must acquire a reputation and then, only then, I can say whatever I want.
But how does one gather a reputation such that whatever I say will be read mindfully and not just dismissed right out when I start to make reasoning leaps all around? the most direct way is to simply repeat what other people with a reputation have said; to preach to the choir.
HN, for all of its claims of intellectualism, is pretty unforgiving to any thoughts that don't fit one of a couple of echo chamber themes. I hang around because I think it's important for people (including me) to hear other ideas, but you should expect to be downvoted.
I've only been coming to this site for maybe 5 years now (not under this account in case people do the lame reddit thing of checking your account history at the drop of a hat), but I feel like even in that time things have become noticeably more echo-y here.
It takes long, hard work to accumulate the knowledge and experience to be able to consistently say things that matter. It’s impossible to fake, and an astute crowd will always spot it.
The commenter above asked: "But how does one gather a reputation such that whatever I say will be read mindfully and not just dismissed right out when I start to make reasoning leaps all around? the most direct way is to simply repeat what other people with a reputation have said; to preach to the choir."
Yoda challenged Luke by telling him he was too old to begin the training, and that a Jedi "craves not" things like adventure and excitement. People have varying degrees of awareness about how much work it is and how long it takes to gain meaningful knowledge and experience. They are impatient, they want shortcuts, they think "likes" are important, they give up. Luke says: "you want the impossible", but of course it's not impossible, just profoundly abstruse.
Without providing sources or backing, it would be useful to be a bit more explicit. You could mention the myths that are being re-inforced, that would be interesting.
You alleged that Georgian romances are part of a conspiracy to control the future. That's a surprising allegation that you made no attempt to justify nor explain, cogent or otherwise.
Under those circumstances, it's perfectly coherent for strangers to dismiss the allegation if it doesn't conform to their preconceived view. It is also perfectly coherent for strangers to agree with it if it does.
Now, if you wish for strangers to come to agree with your world view then you'll have to make some effort to convince them. Whether or not you can be arsed to do that is, of course, up to you.
> in order to be taken seriously I must provide sources, backing, it is not enough to explain my thoughts cogently. I must show other ideas that support what I say. I must acquire a reputation and then, only then, I can say whatever I want.
No one here is actually asking for your sources, so far as I can see. The people who are taking umbrage at your comment are most likely (like me) those who do not see your explanation as cogent but instead an assertion that doesn't even fully explain what is asserting. You're promoting a conspiracy theory--a shadowy "They" who are conspiring to do something--without explaining what the conspiracy actually is. What are the myths being enforced? Why are "They" doing this? Who even is "They"?
> But how does one gather a reputation such that whatever I say will be read mindfully and not just dismissed right out when I start to make reasoning leaps all around? the most direct way is to simply repeat what other people with a reputation have said; to preach to the choir.
In my experience on HN, that reputation is gathered mostly by being seen to speak authoritatively on topics. The highest upvote comments I have gathered are generally when I can put together thorough, concise explanations quickly. It doesn't have to agree with the current zeitgeist, but you do generally want to provide stronger argumentation for your viewpoints in that situation.
There doesn't need to be a shadowy "they" for this to be true. It can be purely the result of a dynamic in the system that results due to certain feedback loops and hierarchies in the organisation of media institutions. This is essentially the thesis of Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" -- that the only media that gets put in front of you has been selected by a process which is emergent and not controlled by some "cabal" but nevertheless results in a form of, essentially, propaganda which supports the power structures of the system.
I honestly am having trouble understanding what you are trying to say here, I think the reason you are encountering so much resistance isn't necessarily because of what you are trying to say, but how you are saying it.
> in order to be taken seriously I must provide sources, backing, it is not enough to explain my thoughts cogently
You must at least provide reasoning, for the thoughts to be cogent. Your assertions are vague - you allude to things without clarifying what you mean, and why you believe it to be so.
> in order to be taken seriously I must...
> I must show...
> I must acquire...
You must do theses things? According to who. again, assertion without explanation. Understand, your thoughts don't explain themselves!
I'm not talking about myths under a precise definition (as in stories to make sense of the world), rather mythology in the rougher sense of the way we think about our ancestors and people from the past (in the vein of "the good ol' days" or in contrast "the dark ages")
also, "who is trying to influence" seems to imply some sort of distinct actor (with agency) doing it based on some definite agenda.
but I don't think this is the case; as some other comments point out, it's closer to a dynamic. it gets fashionable so everybody does it never mind the fact that the next generation of people will inform their beliefs about our ancestor's lives based on this romanticized versions. so in a sense "cultural ideology" is the "agent" behind this.
finally, answering how does this affect our future is not so easy. I said it because knowing our past (our history) allows understanding our present circumstance. and based on this we are able to visualize our future. If I could explain this better I could probably also answer why is there historical revisionism
Indeed. It's startling how much entertainment is actually social engineering. It's worth reading Propaganda by Edward Bernaise if you're interested in better understanding these coordinated approaches.
I'm not sure how much I'd say that's why so much romance is set in a particular era, but I'd buy that's why they are promoted so much and heavily influences their tone and themes.
"Who control the past controls the future. Who controls present controls the past." essentially.
You can take anything and try to claim it is social engineering if it differs from your viewpoint. That sort of tripe has been applied to boring uncontroversial dry Newtonian physics textbooks being called "cultural imperialism".
It is absurd black and white thinking to declare that anything which reflects its source culture is propaganda even if it embeds the bullshit influnces of propaganda of the day like the classics obsession of the Enlightenment.
Calling a work propaganda merely because it reflects a source culture is propaganda in itself. Used to justify suppression of anything not actively promoting their world view as actively in service of evil. That has been used by amongst many others evangelical fundamentalists and the Party in basically every nation which called themselves Communists.
That explains nothing whatsoever as to what's so special about the Regency period? As the article notes, it's nine years. Why not when George III was still in command? Why not during Victoria's reign?
because the constituencies involved (of both the characters in the book, and the modern audience that consumes them) prefer the absence of a strong federating remote figure, to the ability of being able to imprint/insert themselves as participatory observers of the events.
lack of a strong central nexus gives fantasy writers and readers the opportunity to engage with the story and period on their own terms, instead of being subjugated to what some accidental monarch wants the era to have been.
There really wasn't much of a difference for them in terms of actual actions aside from more gentry officers actually being in the field. They still could and did have those parties before and after. It would be a matter of being upshown instead of controlled.
Definitions vary. The formal Regency period was nine years. But, from Wikipedia: "The term Regency (or Regency era) can refer to various stretches of time; some are longer than the decade of the formal Regency, which lasted from 1811 to 1820. The period from 1795 to 1837, which includes the latter part of George III's reign and the reigns of his sons George IV and William IV, is sometimes regarded as the Regency era, characterised by distinctive trends in British architecture, literature, fashions, politics, and culture."
#BLM has challenged that period in the UK and US. And it was a terrible period, with those vast idyllic country estates being built on the backs of slavery abroad and Enclosure of common land at home.
Slavery is being acknowledged now, but the Enclosures still don't figure in the national narrative.
But Regency Romance has been a money spinning genre for a very long time, and it's not more popular now than it used to be.
Nor is there any evidence of conscious narrative control by editors and publishers. There's far more evidence of that elsewhere - for example in both the mytho-feminist and techno-dystopian ends of contemporary SF.
But it's actually most obvious in period and class-specific movies and soaps, which the UK specialises in, and which are a very different genre to romantic fiction.
Here's the creator of Downton Abbey. He's now working on a US equivalent called - unsurprisingly - The Gilded Age. Could he possibly have an angle to sell?
if you feel that badly being disagreed with, perhaps you should go back to a safe content/context bubble on reddit, where your views can be constantly reinforced, and any challengers to your domain can be proudly assailed and repulsed by your impeccable logic and unassailable wit.
Today I learned there was a short period of history called Regency and I demured on the fact that British society could put a psycho executive in restraint while my country, a supposed enlightened democracy (the US), can not.
I actually found the article wanting. I could not turn to a colleague after reading it and explain why this period was an ideal setting for romances. I learned who some of sources of romance in this period are. I learned that perhaps modern romances set in the period aren't true to the original form. And I got a glimpse at some of the attributes of said era (fictional or not so). But I did not see much that told me why this was an appealing backdrop for romance novels. What about this era makes it ideal for romance vs other eras?
The reason the article is found wanting is that the answer to the question is not really in anything to do with the Regency era per se. It's mostly because Jane Austen was really good at writing romantic comedies, and so set a template that everyone wants to follow in much the same way that nearly all modern era Hollywood romcoms are pale imitations of Nora Ephron's work (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail - which was itself a remake anyway but with the Ephron formula liberally applied).
Ephron's genius, as with Austen's, was not simply the fact that she seemed to have come up with a winning formula, there was also an enormous amount of craft, wit, originality and compassion involved.
How do you figure the time was not polarizing? This reeks of nostalgia. Jane Austen's time, for instance, was an incredibly volatile time in the labor market. She just doesn't acknowledge contemporary issues because they weren't relevant to the stories she wanted to tell.
Meanwhile if you watch "You've Got Mail", the fact that it does touch on contemporary issues sours the whole film.
I don't know, it was the sort of a period when regular people in England where ran over by cavalry for demanding suffrage rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre The whole Europe's elites were busy putting down the post-French Revolution upheaval.
>I demured on the fact that British society could put a psycho executive in restraint while my country, a supposed enlightened democracy (the US), can not.
To be clear, this is a partisan political opinion that borders on authoritarianism. You may not like Trump, but he was democratically elected. So prey tell, what would "restraining" a democratically elected 'executive' look like? Remember, any rule you define has to be measured against past presidents and apply to future presidents.
It’s generally agreed upon by constitutional scholars that the 25th amendment wasn’t designed for that, and that trying to use it in that way creates some nightmare scenarios. Specifically it gives the president the ability to challenge their removal and have the senate adjudicate, which would be decidedly not great.
If Trump had been intubated with Covid or suffered a stroke, then the 25th amendment would have been an appropriate choice. Otherwise the proper avenue to remove a misbehaving president is impeachment.
>... and have the senate adjudicate, which would be decidedly not great.
Why not? Sounds like it's roughly tantamount to giving the cabinet the power to impeach the President. Given the natural restraint on that power in that the cabinet is appointed by the President, I'm not sure I see any problem there.
>Sounds like it's roughly tantamount to giving the cabinet the power to impeach the President
Congress also the ability to impeach the President. Congress couldn't get the votes to do remove the President from office ... so your partisan solution is for the cabinet to find a reason to remove the President? Why? Because you don't like how your fellow citizens voted?
How about this: Vote him out in the next election? Oh that actually happened! And Democracy survived!
For all the talk about Trump, the opposition is perfectly willing to destroy every single norm and democratic institution just to get him.
My wording was unclear. Having the Senate check on the 25th amendment is a good thing; the cabinet should not have the power to depose the president just because. That’s clearly a very dangerous power to just leave laying around like that.
What’s bad is having a very much awake and ambulatory Trump arguing in front of the Senate that he should be back in power. That’s a political nightmare, and far worse than Congress using its powers to expel the president on their own initiative. It’s much better for our body politic for Congress to impeach and save the 25th amendment for less politically ambiguous situations.
> It’s generally agreed upon by constitutional scholars that the 25th amendment wasn’t designed for that...
Well, we sure had a bunch of "constitutional scholars" saying that the 25th should be invoked for exactly that. If you want to claim that those people were random people pushing their viewpoint rather than actual scholars, I could accept that. But if you're saying there's a general consensus among the experts, I wouldn't mind seeing a credible source to that effect.
What are you talking about? Remove Trump for what reason? Because you don't like him and so you're willing to discard the votes of half the country just get him out?
> the fact that British society could put a psycho executive in restraint while my country, a supposed enlightened democracy (the US), can not.
That "psycho executive"—George III—reigned during the period of the American War of Independence, which, if you recall, he lost, so it seems both nations managed to restrain his power.
> I demured on the fact that British society could put a psycho executive in restraint while my country, a supposed enlightened democracy (the US), can not
The UK's mechanisms for restraining Naughty Monarchs, back when it was relevant, were largely unwritten but pretty extensive; 150 years previously, Charles I had, ah, lost his head about it. The US's mechanisms are limited, written, and, as it turns out, don't work.
It's probably best to keep in mind, though, that George III had a lot less power than the US president; the monarch had basically lost the royal assent (veto) by then, for practical purposes. I'm reasonably sure that by that point the monarch had nothing similar to an executive order, either.
Coincidentally, started "Bridgerton" on Netflix just yesterday. Mills and Boon brought to the screen basically so bound to be a ratings winner, a lot of fun but with clever contemporary twists like a completely multi-ethnic aristocracy at which no character turns a hair.
I think it's mostly just a way of making the show more visually interesting. Take a look at those dance scenes, and then compare it to a shot from any other regency romance movie. The faces in the latter all just blend in to one another; everything looks like a big blur.
The ethnicity is largely ignored. There's one interesting passing reference to it -- the idea that it's a recent phenomenon that could easily be reversed -- but they spend little time on it.
It's not authentic, but of course nothing about Bridgerton is authentic. Queen Charlotte's skin color is no wronger than her clothing, which is more 1770s France than 1810s England (and not really authentic at that, either). The Duke of Hastings' skin exactly matched that of the real Duke of Hastings -- since Hastings was a Barony.
Over here, the family which normally eats historical stuff up isn't watching, because we found the script and dialog so poor and the characters so superficial and obvious. Although I'll admit nobody got through the first episode. The Mills and Boon reference might just hit the mark, as we thought this show might be targeting the Downton Abbey audience but is instead aimed at something else. With so much wit to draw on in the related genres, its disappointing they couldn't bring everyone along for the ride.
Am I just missing something, or did this article not really even attempt to answer the question? I guess there's nothing wrong with that.
It occurs to me that the "Old West" books, movies, etc. in the U.S. are nearly as small a period in terms of both time and people, and they have been subject to a similarly obsessive focus, although more male-oriented.
Restoration periods are always really fun. The Napoleonic wars were ending, which meant peace and prosperity.
By the 1820s you get into the electrical age, with Faraday. <a href="https://youtu.be/6Ns5tRyvoHY?t=92">First electric motor, 1822, Fraday.</a><br> Now you're into the Steampunk aesthetic.
>one of the characters eulogizes George IV’s reign as “holiday time for people intent upon promoting the greatest happiness of the smallest number,” notes scholar Winifred Hughes.
I wonder about the premise: we need a plot of of number of romance stories by setting year.. my guess is that modern pulp romance outweighs all others.
They still are? The bodice-ripper era was in the 1970s and the 1980s. Or is it back, now that vampires, zombies, and Navy SEALs have been done to death?
probably because music, art and society weren't about pulling hoes and shaking asses or shallow chemistry. may have been about actual love and love games. but the plebes want ass shaking today so no wonder.
The regency period is interesting because it combines the influence of the French Revolution with the aristocratic society of England. Clothes, fashion and behavior no longer were supposed to match your role and status but also your personality. So you have individualism and princes and balls and at the same time it feels quite modern. So it’s not that Jane Austen wrote some books, she lived in a time where she could write books that feel quite modern to us.
92 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 164 ms ] threadIn a similar way we might say that Tolkien was the progenitor of a line of pulp fantasy novels, even though they have a significantly different character.
We subdivide modern fantasy into 'epic', 'sword and sorcery', 'low', and so on, even though they have common ancestors.
that's news to me. i personally consider that meticulous categorization of fiction to be tedious and childish. Consider that there are no good definitions of "high" vs "low" fantasy, and that there a few books that are both a) successful (whether you measure this in terms of profitability, popularity, or a combination of both) and b) regimented enough to hold themselves to a dictionary-style definition of what the author is supposed to be writing about.
you're using a definition of fantasy that is frankly not supported by the reality of how we consume and produce said literary works.
Thought distinction (originally at least) was whether fantasy happening on imagined realm or here on Earth?
When you read several hundred books a year, categorization goes from being tedious and childish to being necessary and useful.
Ilona Andrews's books are marketed to romance (three series) and to urban fantasy (one series). Two of the romance-marketed series could get new covers and be sold as SF. The urban fantasy novels could get romance covers put on and be sold that way.
Repeat ad infinitum with literary SF, magic realism, respun fairy tales, space opera, epic fantasy, issekai, portal fantasies, hard SF, character-driven gay romance post-apocalyptic cyberpunk action fantasy (that was a very good one)...
I read 203 books in 2019. I assure you that the marketing categories are not helpful in my basic quest, which is to determine if the book is good. Nothing short of starting to read the book can do that.
That is really remarkable! Can I ask how you go about selecting what to read? Compared to the ~20 books I read every year that seems like an absolute firehose. I wouldn't even know where to start assembling such a long list.
e.g.: for current SF/F, James Nicoll, Locus, and John Scalzi's posts which are nothing but "here's what publishers sent me as ARCs which they are hoping I will blurb" are all good sources. I have access to NetGalley and some insider-baseball publishing sites thanks to my wife, who used to be a professional reviewer for Publishers Weekly. When I read a book by an author I really like, I try to add their blog or website to my RSS reader.
I think the 203 in 2019 was not a record for me, but it was certainly much larger than in 2020, where I had several multiweek periods of not wanting to read. This year is looking up.
One of my long-term tactics is to have some reserve books that I know I want to read but haven't, yet. Currently that pile includes a Walter Jon Williams, a Steven Brust, and an Elizabeth Bear. If I see a long run of not-so-great books, I know I have those to pull me out.
Honest question, there’s a couple assumptions in my napkin calculation :)
FWIW I don't read slower when I need to absorb serious content, but I do reread repeatedly -- flipping back and forth to make sure I understood the argument, critiquing it in my head, and so forth. Pleasure reading doesn't get that treatment unless I catch the author doing something egregious.
Interesting. I found that when selecting books, it's helpful for me to see how people have tagged them. That way I avoid some of the cliches I really don't care for and can narrow focus a bit. It's unusual for that to be wrong for me, where I actually like one of the books I had initially excluded based on category.
For example, if you really aren't into steampunk noir, I think it's helpful to know that the book you're about to read is a steampunk noir. Same goes for space opera, litrpg, gun porn, hard sci fi, hack and slash, harem stories, overpowered heroes, etc.
When you've got the best version of something you generally dislike, you'll see that in reviews.
You don't have to make it incredibly strict and granular, but subgenres give an easy way to say 'these works are similar', and that's helpful in all kinds of situation.
> For the origins of the modern Regency romance, look to the works of Georgette Heyer. Starting in 1935, Heyer wrote over two dozen meticulously researched historical books, all set in Jane Austen’s era, with an obsessive focus on London’s tiny upper class. According to literary scholar Diana Wallace, it was the incredible popularity of Heyer’s historical novels that helped transform historical fiction into a more feminine space that continues to “centralise female subjectivity, desires and apprehensions to an unusual extent.”
edit: the first sentence gets downvoted. I both expected and felt bad about it.
It would be like emphasizing that Edgar Allen Poe married his thirteen year old cousin when discussing his horror influence. Terrible but hardly germane to the topic.
However, I also meant that it was a sort of cultural neo-colonialism: that the British are allowed to present the history of this period as a romantic drama.
but of course, this is not an answer; it's an explanation in the style of the surreal way in which I have chosen to make sense of the larger world around me.
however, who am I to chose how to make sense of the world? who am I to say that mytholgy-engineering has anything to do with the reason for the creation lots and lots of romances set in the british pre-victorian era?
in order to be taken seriously I must provide sources, backing, it is not enough to explain my thoughts cogently. I must show other ideas that support what I say. I must acquire a reputation and then, only then, I can say whatever I want.
But how does one gather a reputation such that whatever I say will be read mindfully and not just dismissed right out when I start to make reasoning leaps all around? the most direct way is to simply repeat what other people with a reputation have said; to preach to the choir.
As a reaction, the "with me or against me" mantra was increasingly strong for the last four and a half years.
I hope people calm down again now that that its over.
The Luke-in-Yoda’s-hut scene pops to mind.
Even after looking up the script, I have no idea what you are saying.
Yoda challenged Luke by telling him he was too old to begin the training, and that a Jedi "craves not" things like adventure and excitement. People have varying degrees of awareness about how much work it is and how long it takes to gain meaningful knowledge and experience. They are impatient, they want shortcuts, they think "likes" are important, they give up. Luke says: "you want the impossible", but of course it's not impossible, just profoundly abstruse.
sounds better in ther converse: "it's pretty forgiving of thoughts that do go along the predilect tropes"
Under those circumstances, it's perfectly coherent for strangers to dismiss the allegation if it doesn't conform to their preconceived view. It is also perfectly coherent for strangers to agree with it if it does.
Now, if you wish for strangers to come to agree with your world view then you'll have to make some effort to convince them. Whether or not you can be arsed to do that is, of course, up to you.
No one here is actually asking for your sources, so far as I can see. The people who are taking umbrage at your comment are most likely (like me) those who do not see your explanation as cogent but instead an assertion that doesn't even fully explain what is asserting. You're promoting a conspiracy theory--a shadowy "They" who are conspiring to do something--without explaining what the conspiracy actually is. What are the myths being enforced? Why are "They" doing this? Who even is "They"?
> But how does one gather a reputation such that whatever I say will be read mindfully and not just dismissed right out when I start to make reasoning leaps all around? the most direct way is to simply repeat what other people with a reputation have said; to preach to the choir.
In my experience on HN, that reputation is gathered mostly by being seen to speak authoritatively on topics. The highest upvote comments I have gathered are generally when I can put together thorough, concise explanations quickly. It doesn't have to agree with the current zeitgeist, but you do generally want to provide stronger argumentation for your viewpoints in that situation.
You must at least provide reasoning, for the thoughts to be cogent. Your assertions are vague - you allude to things without clarifying what you mean, and why you believe it to be so.
> in order to be taken seriously I must...
> I must show...
> I must acquire...
You must do theses things? According to who. again, assertion without explanation. Understand, your thoughts don't explain themselves!
I'm not asking for hard references, like your other comment implied. Just trying to make sense of your comment.
also, "who is trying to influence" seems to imply some sort of distinct actor (with agency) doing it based on some definite agenda.
but I don't think this is the case; as some other comments point out, it's closer to a dynamic. it gets fashionable so everybody does it never mind the fact that the next generation of people will inform their beliefs about our ancestor's lives based on this romanticized versions. so in a sense "cultural ideology" is the "agent" behind this.
finally, answering how does this affect our future is not so easy. I said it because knowing our past (our history) allows understanding our present circumstance. and based on this we are able to visualize our future. If I could explain this better I could probably also answer why is there historical revisionism
I'm not sure how much I'd say that's why so much romance is set in a particular era, but I'd buy that's why they are promoted so much and heavily influences their tone and themes.
"Who control the past controls the future. Who controls present controls the past." essentially.
It is absurd black and white thinking to declare that anything which reflects its source culture is propaganda even if it embeds the bullshit influnces of propaganda of the day like the classics obsession of the Enlightenment.
Calling a work propaganda merely because it reflects a source culture is propaganda in itself. Used to justify suppression of anything not actively promoting their world view as actively in service of evil. That has been used by amongst many others evangelical fundamentalists and the Party in basically every nation which called themselves Communists.
lack of a strong central nexus gives fantasy writers and readers the opportunity to engage with the story and period on their own terms, instead of being subjugated to what some accidental monarch wants the era to have been.
Slavery is being acknowledged now, but the Enclosures still don't figure in the national narrative.
But Regency Romance has been a money spinning genre for a very long time, and it's not more popular now than it used to be.
Nor is there any evidence of conscious narrative control by editors and publishers. There's far more evidence of that elsewhere - for example in both the mytho-feminist and techno-dystopian ends of contemporary SF.
But it's actually most obvious in period and class-specific movies and soaps, which the UK specialises in, and which are a very different genre to romantic fiction.
Here's the creator of Downton Abbey. He's now working on a US equivalent called - unsurprisingly - The Gilded Age. Could he possibly have an angle to sell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Fellowes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances
Pretty sure that's because it's a mix of unsubstantiated, controversial, and incoherent.
I actually found the article wanting. I could not turn to a colleague after reading it and explain why this period was an ideal setting for romances. I learned who some of sources of romance in this period are. I learned that perhaps modern romances set in the period aren't true to the original form. And I got a glimpse at some of the attributes of said era (fictional or not so). But I did not see much that told me why this was an appealing backdrop for romance novels. What about this era makes it ideal for romance vs other eras?
Ephron's genius, as with Austen's, was not simply the fact that she seemed to have come up with a winning formula, there was also an enormous amount of craft, wit, originality and compassion involved.
Meanwhile if you watch "You've Got Mail", the fact that it does touch on contemporary issues sours the whole film.
To be clear, this is a partisan political opinion that borders on authoritarianism. You may not like Trump, but he was democratically elected. So prey tell, what would "restraining" a democratically elected 'executive' look like? Remember, any rule you define has to be measured against past presidents and apply to future presidents.
If Trump had been intubated with Covid or suffered a stroke, then the 25th amendment would have been an appropriate choice. Otherwise the proper avenue to remove a misbehaving president is impeachment.
Why not? Sounds like it's roughly tantamount to giving the cabinet the power to impeach the President. Given the natural restraint on that power in that the cabinet is appointed by the President, I'm not sure I see any problem there.
Congress also the ability to impeach the President. Congress couldn't get the votes to do remove the President from office ... so your partisan solution is for the cabinet to find a reason to remove the President? Why? Because you don't like how your fellow citizens voted?
How about this: Vote him out in the next election? Oh that actually happened! And Democracy survived!
For all the talk about Trump, the opposition is perfectly willing to destroy every single norm and democratic institution just to get him.
What’s bad is having a very much awake and ambulatory Trump arguing in front of the Senate that he should be back in power. That’s a political nightmare, and far worse than Congress using its powers to expel the president on their own initiative. It’s much better for our body politic for Congress to impeach and save the 25th amendment for less politically ambiguous situations.
Well, we sure had a bunch of "constitutional scholars" saying that the 25th should be invoked for exactly that. If you want to claim that those people were random people pushing their viewpoint rather than actual scholars, I could accept that. But if you're saying there's a general consensus among the experts, I wouldn't mind seeing a credible source to that effect.
Insanity.
That "psycho executive"—George III—reigned during the period of the American War of Independence, which, if you recall, he lost, so it seems both nations managed to restrain his power.
The UK's mechanisms for restraining Naughty Monarchs, back when it was relevant, were largely unwritten but pretty extensive; 150 years previously, Charles I had, ah, lost his head about it. The US's mechanisms are limited, written, and, as it turns out, don't work.
It's probably best to keep in mind, though, that George III had a lot less power than the US president; the monarch had basically lost the royal assent (veto) by then, for practical purposes. I'm reasonably sure that by that point the monarch had nothing similar to an executive order, either.
The ethnicity is largely ignored. There's one interesting passing reference to it -- the idea that it's a recent phenomenon that could easily be reversed -- but they spend little time on it.
It's not authentic, but of course nothing about Bridgerton is authentic. Queen Charlotte's skin color is no wronger than her clothing, which is more 1770s France than 1810s England (and not really authentic at that, either). The Duke of Hastings' skin exactly matched that of the real Duke of Hastings -- since Hastings was a Barony.
It occurs to me that the "Old West" books, movies, etc. in the U.S. are nearly as small a period in terms of both time and people, and they have been subject to a similarly obsessive focus, although more male-oriented.
By the 1820s you get into the electrical age, with Faraday. <a href="https://youtu.be/6Ns5tRyvoHY?t=92">First electric motor, 1822, Fraday.</a><br> Now you're into the Steampunk aesthetic.
This seems rather applicable to now as well.