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I've got a weird question, and I don't know where to put it, and I'll probably ask it wrong, but here goes:I am looking for the most "prototypical" romance novel. Not the "best" (or the worst), but one that best exemplifies all of the tropes (or cliches) that romance novels contain. So, if I were asking for the most prototypical noir novel, I could say that every noir is just a pale imitation of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, or for a mystery novel, maybe "Thirteen at Dinner" by Agatha Christie.
I am definitely not looking for a book that "surpasses the genre," but rather a book that IS the genre. So, if I could read just one romance, which one would tell me the most about how romance novels work?
That is quite a difficult question, Matthew, and this probably isn't quite the right place to ask it, since this group deals with literature from 2000 onwards. Still, it's an intriguing one, and I'm sure the moderators will redirect our posts as necessary :-)The thing is, both the novels you give as examples fall into fairly recent literary genres, whereas romance goes back centuries, even millennia. I assume you're not referring to mediaeval romances and courtly love, but to something more recognizable today, so..... God knows. Mills and Boon???!!!!
Yes, I am thinking more along the lines of romance in the modern sense: cheap Harlequin series with Fabio on the cover. Most readers of literary fiction also read some genre stuff, and may have a better sense of the elements of genre than people who only read romances.
I don't read many books that can be considered romance novels. Never did. But if I'm thinking along the lines you are... man meets girl. Man and girl initially loathe each other but are forced to interact for one reason or another. Man and woman realize they love each other, but there is some important reason they can't be together. Something terrible and tragic happens to woman and the man must save her somehow. Man saves woman and they decide to be together regardless of society etc...Book- Twilight lol I'm serious.
Best book Gone with the Wind
21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
Twilight (other topics)Gone with the Wind (other topics)
The Last Summer (other topics)
The Golem and the Jinni (other topics)
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Judith Kinghorn (other topics)Virginia Woolf (other topics)
PublicBooks.org has a review of MaddAddam that orients it within the trilogy and within Atwood's oeuvre. Includes links to her online connections and projects.
The reviewer is a professor who concentrates on utopian and dystopian fiction.
http://www.publicbooks.org/fiction/th...
I first read some Lessing while under the influence of 1970's women's lib. Her scifi, for instance The Marriages Between Zones (whatever) impressed at the time. If not for them, I wouldn't have read The Golden Notebook, as overtly political fiction doesn't appeal.
Wikipedia is a good enough starting point for me to get introduced to a new author. Then I search online for reviews and also excerpts, which are sometimes provided by the publishers.