Criticism and the Romance Genre WAS RE: A Lot of Plot

[Eileen Rebstock]

Oh good, reader response!

> Kneasy:
> >...whenever there's a set-piece confrontation,
> >authorial partiality, protectionism, the requirements of plot
> continuation
> >always seem to over-ride everyday expectations.
> 
> Talisman:
> The observation that plot drives all else in the HP series has been
> historically cited as an authorial flaw.  In actuality, hegemony of
> plot is a legitimate feature of the author's chosen genre.

Ah, but that's not really a way out of the criticism. To take an
example, the 'deus ex machina' is a legitimate feature of Classical
drama. Has never stopped anyone from criticizing it as a weakening of
the play's strength where it appears. 

There is no objective standard of criticism, protecting a genre's
classic features from negative reaction. Criticism at bottom is the
reader's response. It is useful to understand where the genre or author
is coming from, but that does not determine the scope of criticism.
There are no off-limit zones. 

In the history of literature, there are features of genres and even
whole entire genres that we have completely abandoned. Let's take a very
small example this time of the former. The Detective Genre. 

The person who decides to employ the features of the detective story
circa Conan Doyle is in for a big shock. He will discover that, although
everything he employs is well supported in tradition, readers won't
judge it by the criteria of 1890. The detective who makes connections as
obscurely as Sherlock Holmes isn't likely to be a hit with the public.

If the author is happy to live with that, playing with genre features
that few others like, that's fine for him and his devoted fans.
Sometimes an author's play with seemingly out-dated literary features
will turn out wildly popular in the end. The Lord of the Rings broke
most of the 'rules' of modern characterization and dialogue, going back
to more antique precedents. And we all know how well that worked out.

But sometimes it doesn't work out at all for a lot of readers. The end
of OotP is a good example. I'm sure many people enjoyed it. A lot of
people didn't. I didn't. I found it - I'm not sure contrived is the
right word, since all literature is contrived! Showing itself as
contrived? It crossed that boundary of suspension of disbelief. Why
should a hundred other coincidences and plot nudges not do that, and
this one scene do it? I have a few theories - one of them being that
readers are influenced by having seen the conveniently survived
confrontation scene done way too many times in book and film to tolerate
it much anymore - but in the end, it comes down to something very
personal, as does all criticism.

> A better appreciation of genre would save a lot of erroneous
> criticism of the author, not to mention misreading of the text.

I'm not of the opinion that there can *be* erroneous criticism of the
author, if we're talking of emotional reaction. If someone says, "This
is not satisfying to *me*," how can you counter that with "This is a
legitimate feature of the genre?" That's an explanation of why the
author is doing what he or she does. It can help understanding where the
plot is going, which I admit is more often the focus of fan discussion
than pure reader response. 

> Moreover, romantic characterization *leans toward* allegory.  While
> *pure* Romance calls for *idealized* characters, the trend over
> literary history has been toward increased realism. Afterall, even
> Gawain gets a nick in the neck.

Yes, the trend. There are trends. And the trends are important. In
general, we prize authors who take romance and strike out towards
increased realism. We are not clamoring to read the latest romance about
perfectly idealized characters, not all of us. Our critical senses are
pointing in the other direction, even if we appreciate the genre.
 
> Rowling's characters have sufficient psychological realism to
> engage the reader (another evidence of her talent, IMO) but this
> quality is only a movement along a continuum whereon they are still
> well within the Romantic genre.

Certainly. And further along that continuum, yet still well within the
Romantic genre, are stories with more psychological realism than
Rowling's. And less. I rank Rowling higher than Garth Nix, an author
within the same genre: children's romance, whose stories I very much
enjoy, for the simple reason that her greater psychological realism is
the superior. Yet, also within the same genre, I rank Terry Pratchett's
"A Hat Full of Sky" as a better book than Rowling's HP series. 

There's no really objective standard of criticism. Perhaps it might be
unfair to call Rowling's plot gymastics an authorial flaw, but then
perhaps it might be unfair to call any lack we sense in any story a
flaw. No story is obliged to live to our expectations. 

Still we do. 

> Conversely, the bully plot is sometimes blamed for characters
> behaving *out of character,* when what is really happening is that
> the reader has totally misapprehended the character.
> 
> Typically this pertains to DD.  It really is mystifying how many
> times readers can blame Rowling for making DD do something that
> *doesn't fit* (or requires the reader to concoct elaborate
> explanations) and yet never ask themselves if, instead of DD doing
> something odd for the umteenth time, it might not be they,
> themselves, who have got the wrong end of things.

In practice, I mostly agree. Yet, it's not impossible or even improbable
for an author to write their character acting in a way that contradicts
the author's own view of the character. Authors do slip up sometimes.
Questions about whether they have in any specific case are usually
unresolvable, except from the author's POV, though.

Eileen