dpeterfreund

Some of you know this, but in my other life, I was a science major. (Geology to be precise). Which meant that in the course of my studies, I wound up making quite a lot of chemical diagrams. I love diagrams.

Now, of course, I do not have as many opportunities to chart molecules or chemical reactions (though I did manage to sneak a few of my favorites into Tap & Gown). However, in considering the whole “love triangle” situation the other day, I started to think about how it can get very complicated in some of my favorite books and… well, I may have gotten a little… involved.

Take Persuasion. So, yes, in Persuasion, there is a love triangle with Captain Wentworth and Louisa Musgrove vs. Anne Elliot. But there’s ALSO a love triangle, later on in the book, with Anne and the Captain and Mr. Elliot. And then when you consider who Mr. Elliot ends up with…

It gets complicated. Here’s what it looks like, when all’s said and done:

(Please note: you can click to enlarge any of these, and you’ll probably have to as we go on.)

The arrows are directional to indicate the direction of the affection/romance. For instance, Mr. Elliot is into Anne, but not so much the other way around. The faded dots indicate familial relations (cf. the Elliots), and the the dashed arrows indicate supposed or rumored affections.

Which of course, are all the rage in another favorite Austen: Emma.

Emma, of course, is all about the power of suggestion and rumor when it comes to relationships.

The more I did this, the more I realized that Jane Austen was ALL about the love triangles. And though Emma and Persuasion both feature love triangles prominently in the plots, they are not driving the plots. Louisa is not the thing keeping Anne and Wentworth apart, nor is Harriet the only obstacle between Mr. Elton and Emma. Only in Sense and Sensibility do we see a story entirely incumbent on the conflict of the love triangles:

Why can’t Edward be with Elinor? Because of Lucy. Why can’t Colonel Brandon catch Marianne’s eye? Because she’s completely besotted by Willoughby. (You see how the arrows between the Colonel and Marianne are of uneven end points? That’s to indicate degree of affection.)

I love these things. I may have to make them into T-shirts or something. They’re so pretty and sciency, but you know — Jane Austen.

You guys, I had way too much fun with this. After I finished up Jane, I went a little off the rails. More tomorrow.

There has been a lot of discussion
recently on the state of love triangles in the current crop of YA
literature. Most of the discussion has focused on how gosh darn
prevalent it is, with a lot of the usual refrain of "I'm so sick of love
triangles" or "do all YA novels have to have love triangles in them"
and etc. Some
of the discussion has raised the point that there seems to be a
particular focus, in love triangley books, for there to be a girl
choosing between two guys, rather than the other way around. Others
have pointed out the fact that book publisher publicity departments get a
lot of mileage out of pushing a "Team X" vs. "Team Y" campaign on
readers (I'm looking at you, Hunger Games).

While I will not deny that there are a lot of novels out there that
have borrowed the love triangle formula (in the mathematical sense) that
worked so well in Twilight, it's not a singular occurrence. Also
incredibly popular after the worldwide, game-changing,
publisher-floating, industry-saving and genre-creating success of Twilight? Books about EVERYTHING that Twilight was
about. Books about vampires, books about beautiful immortal people,
books about unusual families of paranormal humanoid creatures living
amongst us, books about girls with paranormal boyfriends, and books in
which high school girls fall into extraordinarily quick and everlasting
love. All of these are available in ready supply right now, all of them
owe at least some part of their current popularity to Twilight.

This is a good thing. People finding new things they like in books and then reading more books about those things? Wonderful.

And one of those things, yes, is "a girl in love with two boys" love triangles.

I have only published one book with that kind of love triangle in it: My first novel, Secret Society Girl, which came out in 2006, right when Meyer was lighting the world on fire with New Moon. Like Bella, my character Amy has to make a choice between two boys she likes who both like her.

However, I have written two books with this supposedly rare "two girls one guy" love triangle: Rites of Spring (Break), in which Amy competes for the affections of a guy, and the upcoming For Darkness Shows the Stars,
which is based on Persuasion, and therefore includes the Anne Elliot --
Captain Wentworth -- Louisa Musgrove triangle so beloved (or
beloved-to-behated) by its fans.

So, having published one of these and seen years worth of reader
reactions (and read enough reactions to the Persuasion one to know it's
the same), I can tell you right now why the Twilight kind is more
popular:

1. most of the readers of these types of novels are girls
2. These readers are moved by the "tough decision" facing a heroine with two fabulous guys after her.
3. Which leads to "team" formation, by individual readers, in fan circles, and by publicity departments.
4. Whereas the heroine competing for the affections of a guy against another girl gets one reaction: beat the "other woman."

(Note: this is very typical Louisa Musgrove treatment in Jane Austen fandom.)

If the other woman is a normal woman with faults like the heroine,
she is labeled an irredeemable b****. If the other woman is a saint, she
is allowed to be pitied, but we still root for the heroine to get the
man. Why? Because to do otherwise would mean the reader is rooting against the heroine. And, almost without exception, that ain't good.

In Rites of Spring (Break), Amy does not win her love
triangle. And despite the fact that I very clearly demonstrate that the
guy at the center of it is NOT the one for her, and soon after I embroil
her in a fabulously delicious romance with a new guy, you would not
believe the number of emails I get demonizing both other parties and
wishing that Amy had won. Even though, if she HAD won, she would not
have going on to her wonderful romance that they also say they love so
much.

The way I look at it is like this: even if you know your ex or the
guy who would never ask you out in high school  was TOTALLY wrong for
you now, you still want to look drop-dead gorgeous at your high school
reunion, right? Just because you're better off without them doesn't mean
they shouldn't still pine for you. It's not the most enlightened of all
feelings, but it's a fantasy.

(Hello, exes. Yes, this is what I Iook like every single day. No, I
do not currently have bags under my eyes because Q was up half the night
or applesauce in my hair because, well, see previous.)

And it's that fantasy -- of having multiple people madly in love with us, that is so compelling to so many readers.

But here's the problem: because it's so compelling, and because
publisher publicity departments (understanding this visceral response
readers have to this storyline) have pumped it up, its prevalence in the
book on the shelves and, perhaps more importantly, in the marketing
material for books on the shelves, has trained readers to expect a love
triangle in their novels When people complain "why does there have to be
a love triangle in every YA novel" they are often complaining about
things that a few years ago would not have been considered a love
triangle at all.

How do I know this?

Because there was no love triangle in Twilight.

Bella loved Edward, and Edward loved Bella. There might have been a
few other people who were interested in dating Bella, just like there
was some lingering resentment on the part of Rosalie that she
hadn't good enough for Edward while Bella was, but neither of those
things weighed particularly heavily on either of these characters' minds
(and Rosalie has been long since happily matched up).

But if that book were published today, with the microscope readers
have been trained to place on any whiff of something that might be a
love triangle, they might see this:

And maybe that's a compelling story, told from the point of view of
Mike or Jacob. Poor guys, they secretly love Bella, but she only has
eyes for the vampire. Indeed, as the series progressed, Meyer chose to
dwell on this facet of Jacob's story. But that's as the series
progressed.

I
read reviews of books all the time where they talk about love triangles
that range from a stretch to completely non-existent. I have received
emails about the "love triangle" in Ascendant. At first, I spent a
lot of time scratching my head. Then I realized they were referring to
the fact that Astrid is pursued by one boy while dating another.

To me, that was no more a love triangle than the fact that every boy
in Forks instantly goes ga-ga over the "new girl" Bella is somehow
indicative of a love tetrahedron.You kinda need love to have a love
triangle. Or at least the idea of choosing one over another. The love
triangles in my friend Carrie Ryan's books (The Forest of Hands and Teeth,
etc.)? LOVE. TRIANGLES. Mary is in love with Travis but betrothed to
his brother. Gabry feels enormously guilty over her growing attachment
to Elias after her old boyfriend got infected with the zombie plague...
for her. Angst galore! What will she choose? Who will she end up with?

If you've read Ascendant, you know that's not Astrid's
problem. And not in the sense of "she has bigger problems" (which she
does), because girls on the run from zombies ALSO have bigger problems,
but more in the sense that those questions are not on the plate for her.

However, I also agree with Carrie's point in her own post on love triangles, in which she says:

"To
me, that's the essence of a love triangle -- each man is a viable
choice for the heroine but each speaks to a different part of who she
is.  The heroine isn't choosing between two men, she's choosing who SHE
wants to be and that will dictate who the right match is."

I first read about this conceptualization of a story's love triangle
in a screenwriting class in 2005, and it really stuck with me. When I
looked at the love triangle in my first book through this lens, I
realized not only why neither prong would work but who, in fact, it was
that was right for my heroine.

(When Meyers claims in interviews that the books are anti-human, this
is what it means. If you can swing your vampirism the way the Cullens
do -- going off and eating venison in the woods -- there is absolutely
no downside to vampirism. Bella's choice reflects the fact that, very
reasonably, she'd rather be an eternally healthy, beautiful, young,
powerful, awesome vampire then get old, get sick, get hurt, and die in a
frail human form.)

But of course, all choices a character makes is reflective on who she is. The choices that Astrid makes in Ascendant
regarding her love life have very little to do with the boys involved,
and everything to do with her depression, isolation, and eventual
nihilism. And though you can argue that Giovanni is a reflection of one
facet of Astrid's character, choosing him would not magically make that Astrid manifest, and Astrid knows it.

One of my favorite scenes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes
from season five. Buffy and her friends have just overcome a spell that
was meant to split Buffy into her component parts: normal girl and
vampire slayer. Her boyfriend Riley tells her that he loves all of her
-- both parts. That to him, she is indivisible.The tragedy comes when
later in that same episode, he posits that it is this elemental
wholeness of Buffy that makes her unable to love him. (And where he goes
from there is truly tragic.)

(I know a lot of people dislike Riley because of the things he did
AFTER this revelation, and I used to be right there with you, but upon
repeated rewatching, I've come to the conclusion that Riley's mistakes
-- and he makes plenty -- are not so much him having a problem with a
strong woman -- since he ends up marrying another -- as him deciding,
maybe or maybe not falsely -- that he's not good enough for Buffy
without magical powers. To be discussed in detail later. People often
liken Astrid and Giovanni to Buffy and Riley, though I think a more apt
corollary would probably be Buffy and Xander, which never happened on
the show.)

Buffy may have chosen Riley, but choosing to have a relationship with
this nice, normal guy (instead of her occasionally sociopathic vampire
ex-boyfriend) doesn't make Buffy a normal girl. Over and over in the
series, Buffy is forced to make a choice between her love life and her
job, often explicitly. Save Angel, or save the world, etc.? Again and
again, they ask Buffy who she is, and her answer is "slayer."

Sometimes, the triangle doesn't even involve another guy. Sometimes
it's about the heroine choosing not to be with someone, full stop.

I’m amassing quite a collection of foreign editions of Morning Glory:

Look at all those different covers. The Brazilian one (which just came in and so is not included in this picture) has the same cover as the French one (top right).

And there’s other fun stuff, like the sticker on the Korean one proclaiming the screenwriter’s history with The Devil Wears Prada:

And the fact that my name, in Czech, is apparently Diana Peterfreundova:

Makes me sound like a spy in a Cold-War era James Bond film, dah?

Given that I was named for a Bond spy, I’m okay with that.

And of course, there’s the way the Spanish version doesn’t use quotes for dialogues, but instead, em-dashes:

Very Emily Dickinson.

I have done a lot of foreign deals over the years, but most of my books have used the same art as the US versions. So it’s fun, for once, to see the different covers.

Speaking of foreign deals, I have some big news for my Brazilian readers. Editora Record, the publishers of the rest of the secret society girl series, has made me an offer on book four, Tap & Gown. And, in case you can’t get enough of my books, they’ve ALSO bought my fantasy novels, Rampant and Ascendant. I’m so excited to be able to bring the conclusion of the series to my Brazilian readers as well as to introduce them to my fantasy novels as well.

Off to write!

Originally published at Diana Peterfreund

The news is out, and apparently my agent already has her hands on a hot copy, so I suppose I can finally, finally share the news I’ve been keeping to myself for nine months:

My SECOND full-length book this year……. ::Drumroll, please::

Yes, that’s Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, and Diane Keaton on there. MORNING GLORY is a new movie coming out this November from Paramount Pictures. It’s produced by JJ Abrams (Lost, Alias, Fringe, Star Trek) and written by Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada screenplay, 27 Dresses). I adapted the novel from the screenplay. The book will hit stores on October 19th.

Here’s the trailer for the film:

Now, to answer a few of the questions I know are coming…

Is this a work for hire?

Yes. I do not own the copyright to this book. It is Aline Brosh McKenna’s original idea and work. I merely adapted it for the page.

Have you met anyone involved in the film?

Nope. I was given a copy of one of the shooting scripts (watermarked with my name) to use as reference when writing the novel. When there were discrepancies between that script and the final cut of the film, I was asked to make edits. I’d love to meet people.

Have you seen the film?

No, but I’ve seen the trailer, a bunch of still shots, and one tiny scene some dude illegally recorded with his cell phone at an early screening and uploaded to You Tube. I can’t wait to go see it, though! It looks great.

How did you get this job?

My editor for the Secret Society Girl books thought I’d be a good fit for the project because of the tone and character of Becky (Rachel McAdams’s scrappy and capable up-and-coming television news producer). The script has the same irreverent yet poignant tone and larger-than-life hijinks I targeted in the Secret Society Girl books. She pitched it to me and me to Paramount. Fortunately, we all agreed.

You have always done original work before this. Why work for hire?

Why not? The truth is that there are lots of kinds of writing that I’ve “never done before” but would leap at the chance to do if anyone was interested in letting me. This year, I’ve also published my first short stories, which was something else I’ve never done before, but I had a total blast. I’ve also sold my first science fiction book and my first retelling. As for the novelization, I loved the chance to be able to adapt someone else’s characters and words, to try to do justice to the story they told and the way they wanted things presented. I probably would never have written a character like Becky all by myself, but to write her through the eyes of the screenwriter who did allowed me to stretch my own wings in terms of character creation. I learned a lot by forcing myself into those constraints, and I also learned a lot by deconstructing such a fine screenplay. To write such an adaptation was on my writer’s goal list. Check.

There are three additional reasons I took this job. 1) Yay! A job! Freelancers like me like that. 2) It was a REALLY good screenplay. Of course I loved Aline Brosh McKenna’s other films, so I had a hunch this one would be great too, but this screenplay made me laugh out loud several times. I wanted to be able to translate some of that wit to novel form. 3) I love working with my brilliant Random House editor, and this was a great opportunity to do another project with her.

I don’t live in America. Where can I get this book?

Currently, Czech, Polish, Korean, Hungarian, Portuguese, and Spanish rights have sold for this book. Everyone in the US and Canada, though, can buy it on October 19th.

And they definitely should.

Today, I'm guest blogging over at the Booksmugglers with pal and fellow anthologist Carrie Ryan as part of their YA Appreciation Week. We're attempting ot get the zombies and the unicorns to sit down at a table and talk out their differences...

with slightly unexpected results.

Check it out!

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Today we have a very special treat: a guest blogger. I hardly ever have a guest blogger here, but I think I should start doing so more often. All the fun of blogging, none of the pressure of staring at that damned blinking cursor. (Ah, Hemingway, your white bull has been replaced by something even more phallic).

But I digress. Today we are visited by the utterly awesome Saundra Mitchell, whose debut novel, SHADOWED SUMMER, knocked off my flip flops when I read it last year. (I wasn’t wearing socks because her descriptions of a steamy Southern summer were so spot on I felt like I was getting heatstroke just turning the pages.) It’s a very creepy ghost story, and to my genre-loving heart’s eternal delight,  it’s been racking up the award nominations and wins ever since it was published. (I am the girl who defiantly turned in a ghost story as a final project after the instructor of the one creative writing class she ever took sneered to another student that he did not accept genre works in class.) This book was an ALAN nominee, a Junior Library Guild pick, on the VOYA summer reading list, and up for an Edgar Alan Poe award. Y’all — read it.

Oh, how I love it when the ghosts win, and when savvy genre writers like Saundra show the world that family secrets and coming-of-age can fit perfectly into stories that go bump in the hot, humid night.

Today, Saundra is here to promote hte release of the SHADOWED SUMMER paperback and to talk about one of my favorite topics: strong, kick-ass heroines. And — I blush to type it — she is talking specifically about Astrid. Take it away, Saundra!

__________________________

INDEPENDENT WOMAN

Astrid Llewelyn is the ideal kind of awesome. I found myself thinking this often while reading RAMPANT on a train toward Chicago. I forgot to be nervous about the trip, because I was so wrapped up in watching Astrid grapple with her unexpected destiny.

Now, there are a lot of awesome female characters in fiction and in film. Gwen from Merlin is awesome. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter is awesome. Katara from The Last Airbender is awesome.

And Astrid is awesome, not because she’s perfect at everything, or gets it right all the time, or makes ideal decisions–but because she’s not, and she doesn’t. In fact, her reaction to discovering that her mother’s seemingly dippy attachment to killer unicorn stories is true is one of the best portrayals of dumbstruck incredulity I’ve ever seen.

In short, Astrid is exactly what a real girl would be, if confronted with an Ancient Destiny, a Mystical World, and Her Part In It: conflicted, and confused. And I love that she doesn’t rebel just for the joy of it. When she comes around to her mission, it’s not for the convenience of the plot.

Even though RAMPANT is full of mythology and mystical creatures, it’s completely honest. I believe in it, and that’s why I eagerly await September, when I can dip back into this amazing universe with ASCENDANT. It’s why Astrid Llewelyn is the ideal kind of awesome for me:

She’s real.

______________________

Hey, guys. It’s Diana again. So, who wants to read SHADOWED SUMMER NOW? I hereby provide you with six easypeasy ways to do so:

1. Buy it though Indiebound at your local independent bookstore
2. Buy it at the Book Depository (international shipping!)
3. Buy it at Powell’s
4. Head to Amazon
5. Borrow it from your local library (Since it’s a JLG selection. you can find it at a lot of libraries)
6. (I know this is the one you’re waiting for) — win it here, today!

All you have to do is leave your name in the comments. And yes, I know i never announced winners from the ASCENDANT ARC giveaway contest. Oops, sorry. But I will on MONDAY, as well as announce winners for this contest. That means you have until Monday to enter this contest and the other one.

Have at it!

I’ve been a lazy blogger since coming back from vacation. probably because I haven’t been lazy in any other aspect of my life. We’re doing a lot of redecoration Chez Diana, I had houseguests, and I’m super busy with the draft of PAP. The blog, she suffers. However, I recently ran across a review of Rampant that reminded me of somethign I wanted to write about here: worldbuilding, sexual politics, and variations on a theme.

This review of Rampant by Aimee of To the Wolves, in which the reader is very interested in talking about the sexual politics of the novel (minor spoilers if you click through to the actual and more comprehensive review, but not here):

“Peterfreund remains faithful to the unicorn folklore that states that only virgins can tame them, and I loved how she used this; in the hands of a lesser writer, it’s the kind of thing that could potentially make me want to throw a book across the room.  The topic of sex and virginity in YA novels can always be counted on to get folks raging on all sides of the sexual politics spectrum.  Peterfreund’s unicorn characters are all discovering their powers – and how conditional they are – right at a point in their lives where they’re also discovering their sexuality, and deciding what they want out of their relationships with boys, and the confusion that all this causes is pitch-perfect.”

What is interesting to me is that as I see the different reader responses to Rampant, this issue seems to be the most polarizing. I’ve seen readers praise the approach and really dig into the ramifications of what happens to the characters and I’ve seen readers metaphorically (and perhaps physically, I don’t know) throw the book across the room.

My point of view on the subject, as it pertains to Astrid’s story in particular, is that the configuration of a unicorn hunter’s magic is something that we, in today’s society, would view as particularly misogynistic. In many ways, it mirrors the unbalanced valuation system that our society places on female virginity as defined, at times confusingly, by heterosexual sexual intercourse. It is young girls –not young boys — who are taken to “purity balls” and told that their virginity, specifically, is a precious gift. There are also a lot of young people today who are led to believe that “everything but” vaginal intercourse is a virginity-preserving option. Even as a teen, I knew people who would have anal sex in order to “preserve their virginity.” It’s rather bizarre, if you think about it. It doesn’t really have any benefits, either in the “physical intimacy” or the “disease” spheres. It’s an entirely artificial construct based around this definition of “virginity” (that the book’s magic mirrors).

As an abstinent teen, I dealt with a lot of the same questions and criticisms that Astrid does; this idea that a teenager (and especially a teenage girl) is not capable of making her own decisions on the subject, and must be shielded or kept ignorant of her options or terrified. The system in place trains people to think that teens aren’t capable of making this choice themselves without some outside force like shame or religion or etc motivating them. I don’t think that gives teens enough credit. Like me as a teen, Astrid just knows she’s not ready to have sex yet, and she really shouldn’t have to explain that to anyone. I also thought it was important that the different hunters have different reasons for the choices they make — and that all of these reasons are valid as well. If Rosamund chooses to remain abstinent because of her religious beliefs, that’s every bit as valid as Phil or Astrid choosing abstinence without the help of God.

The flip side of this is that the idea of abstinence has become such a polarized one that a lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction to it. If I discuss abstinence, that means I’m trying to control the minds of teenage girls and teach them that their desire for sex (if they have it) is evil and wrong. I have gotten this reaction to my book as well. I think sometimes, it’s because magical powers are so often presented as being the ultimate “good” in fantasy novels. It’s better to have magical powers than not to have magical powers. Therefore, the argument goes, it’s better to behave in a way that allows you to have magical powers. And therefore, the author is making the argument that this behavior is the better one.

Am I? That decision is, of course, up to the reader. Not everyone who reads my book is going to come to this website and listen to me say, “Oh, wow, no! The magic in Rampant sucks! It’s misogynistic and antifeminist!” I either succeeded in getting that across in the book to that particular reader, or I didn’t. I am interested to see how the opinion changes, however, when they read Ascendant this fall. (Or perhaps not, as I don’t think it likely that most folks who disliked Rampant will continue with the series.)

At the same time, that’s Astrid’s story, which is very much concerned with the role of the woman in today’s society and today’s sexual politics. In Ireland last year, a discussion with my soon-to-be editor Holly Black on this exact topic led me to challenge myself to write a story set in my world that wasn’t about those topics. The result is “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn,” in this fall’s Zombies vs. Unicorns, in which there is nothing about sexual politics whatsoever.

Later, fresh from finishing Ascendant, and in need of a breather, I took an entirely different tack on the world. If the magic is misogynistic in today’s society, what might it be in another society? In more ancient times, institutional virginity or the perception of it (Vestal Virgins, Catholic nuns, Queen Elizabeth I) was actually a form of feminine freedom. Retired Vestal Virgins had rights that no other woman in Rome did. Catholic nuns were some of the only female intellectuals of the European middle ages. Queen Elizabeth consolidated her power by not marrying a foreign head of state. Depending on the configuration of society, could a unicorn hunter actually have more freedom than the alternative? The result of that trail of inquiry is “Errant” my first historically-set story and my contribution to July’s Kiss Me Deadly anthology.

I have been thinking a lot about how different the three stories I have coming out this year are. They each explore a facet of a world I built for the purposes of one particular story — Astrid’s story. But as different as she and her situation are, Astrid has a lot in common with Wen, Gitta, and Elise, and I hope that I do each of them justice as young women who are trying to make the best choices they can for themselves.

There has been a lot of chatter on Twitter lately about the role of gender in YA books. On one hand, women writers and female-centric books dominate the YA market. (An interesting phenomenon given the "general knowledge" that a girl will read a book by or about any gender, but most boys will only read books about--or sometimes by--males.)

On the other, there's still a lot of sexism. Female characters are held to ridiculous standards (especially by female readers!) and vilified for having faults. In YA fiction, as in adult fiction, male writers are showered with praise and awards while comparable books written by female writers are not. Year after year, critics "best of" lists are all about the men. In that post, critic Lizzy Skurnick writes:

I got a glimmer of an answer last year as I sat in a board room hashing out the winners for one of the awards for which I am a judge. Our short list was pretty much split evenly along gender lines. But as we went through each category, a pattern emerged. Some books, it seemed, were "ambitious." Others were well-wrought, but somehow . . . "small." "Domestic." "Unam --" what's the word? "-- bititous."

Oh, those damn scribbling women and their little domestic novels!

A few months ago, I visited the Jane Austen exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York City. The exhibit displayed some of Austen's letters, first editions of her works, things like that. But the exhibit that stuck with me the longest was on on Nabokov. Seems he wasn't such a fan of Jane (along with Emerson, Twain, and other males):

"I dislike Jane, and I am prejudiced, in fact, against all women writers. They are in another class. Could never see anything in Pride and Prejudice."

He was called out by Edmund Wilson, a famous literary critic. Great, huh? Well, wait until you see the manner of the calling-out:

"You are mistaken about Jane Austin. I think you ought to read Mansfield Park. Her greatness is due precisely to the fact that her attitude toward her work is like that of a man, that is, of an artist, and quite unlike that of the typical women novelist, who exploits her feminine day dreams . . . She is, in my opinion, one of the half dozen greatest English writers."

So she's good, but only because she writes like a man. Astounding, huh? Because no male writer (and certainly not Nabokov), ever made a great work of literature out of exploiting his own daydreams. Right? Anyway, Nabokov revisited Austen, found an appreciation for Mansfield Park, and proceeded to teach it in his lit classes at Cornell. All's well that ends well, I suppose.

As I said in yesterday's post, I watched the new PBS version of Emma. I have to say it won me over in the end, but only because I am a sucker for the proposal scene and the way the two characters, who have had such an unequal relationship throughout the entire book come together in a moment of true mutual respect. Yes, it's due to a big misunderstanding, but it's quite moving, and it makes you realize that when they are married, he won't treat her like the child he spent the first half of the book treating her as.

But I digress. My point here is that each episode of the mini-series began with actress Laura Linney addressing the screen and lecturing: "Is Jane Austen too ordinary and narrow for today?" she asks us. Linney's point turns out to be that Emma Woodhouse is not Harry Potter or Edward Cullen or Wolverine. That she's just a normal human with normal flaws. (Those magical guys all have "normal flaws" too, though.) However, the use of the word "narrow" is suspect. Ordinary? Fine. But narrow far too closely echoes another famous critic of Austen's, Ralph Waldo Emerson:

I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seems to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer is . . . marriageableness . . . Suicide is more respectable.

Oh, Ralph, tell us how you really feel!

It must be nice to live in a world where your options are wider than "marriageableness" or not. I feel like Emerson must have read the first line of Pride & Prejudice, took it at face value, and then went for a walk in the woods. The women in Austen are concerned about marriage because marriage was the only "business" they were allowed to conduct. And Austen's characters do in fact realize the folly of bad marriages. Elizabeth Bennet would rather risk the kind of poverty that ends up befalling the Dashwoods than wed Mr. Collins. Her friend Charlotte decides that the stigma of being an old maid rates higher on the humiliation scale than that of being married to a fool with good prospects. In Austen's novels, the onset of love goes hand in hand with the onset of respect. They are romantic within the realm of practicality. Talk about a woman's daydream! Those were high hopes for the 18th century gal. (And if you want to read about how easily it can all go wrong, check out Millenium Hall by Sarah Scott.)

So Austen is narrow. But it doesn't stop in the 18th century. I recently read a New York Times profile of the writer/director/producer Nancy Meyers. Meyers is famous for her women-focused domestic comedies. She writes about affluent women and their families and their romances. Sounding familiar? Something's Gotta Give, The Holiday, It's Complicated -- these are hers. The first page of the long article is devoted to talking about how Meyers was asked to move from her table at a tony LA restaurant. Ha, see? Even powerful Hollywood moguls get no respect -- you know, if they're women.

Then the writer goes on to talk about how important and influential and successful Meyers is -- never letting go of the fact that gosh, it's hard since she's a chick. In response to a complain about the number of takes she likes to do of every scene, her (male) agent is quoted as saying there wouldn't be a complaint if Nancy was Mike Nichols. And gosh, Jack Nicholson respects her, too! I especially loved this bit:

It would be tempting to attribute Meyers’s uninflated manner to her being female — to having been trained from birth in the art of the soft sell — except for the fact that she is more straightforward than girlish, more clear than coy. “She’s just really smart and doesn’t seem to be impeded by all the weirdness that everyone brings to whichever gender they are,” says Helen Hunt, who starred in “What Women Want.”

In other words, just because she's powerful, don't fear that she's that horrible, aggressive kind of female. Don't fear that she's a bitch.

Later, the writer, Daphne Merkin, calls Meyers's women-centric, romantic films "retro" and "post-feminist" -- tags I find rather shocking. Because they are romantic? The women in Meyers's films are successful and (usually) wealthy from their own accomplishments. Diane Keaton's character in Something's Gotta Give is a hit playwright with a tenured professor (in Women's Studies, yet!) for a sister. Cameron Diaz's character in Holiday owns her own movie trailer production company (and a mansion in Beverly Hills). Diaz puts it bluntly in that film when she tells Jude Law's single-dad character that she feels comfortable telling him about her success because she knows he won't be intimidated, having been raised by a mother who was a high level executive editor at Random House. The romantic elements of the film do not detract from the feminist ones.

And the writer momentarily agrees:

"These women are self-sufficient and notably energetic. They may not have men, at least when we first meet them, but they make do with friends and children and siblings, for whom they whip up tasty dinners and homemade pies and laugh over their own situations. When men do appear on the scene, whether in the form of a babe-chasing player like Jack Nicholson’s Harry or Alec Baldwin’s renewedly impassioned Jake (or Dennis Quaid’s Nick Parker in “The Parent Trap,” for that matter), they awaken dormant desires that nevertheless have to be fit into pre-existing, busy lives."

But then she spends a few pages obsessing over the filmaker's focus on set dressings. She criticizes the thread count in the upholstery as being needlessly lush and overindulgent. Let us unpack the following quote:

"Whether her insistence on “softening the message” [Meyer's quote, which I for one believe was taken out of context] through plush surroundings ultimately weakens the films — renders them more glossy and insular than they need be, even for a genre that is inherently fizzy — is a question I have debated with myself and others."

So, because women-centric romantic comedies are "inherently fizzy" we should make doubly sure to grit them up in a visual sense? I wonder how many other filmmakers are asked not to put their characters in fancy cars or film in exotic locales in order to, you know, make something real. These damn domestic female stories!

"At worst, her films can give off an air of tidy unreality — and it is this unexamined aspect, I think, this failure to even hint at darkness, that most fuels critical ire. Richard Schickel condemns Meyers with faint praise, hinting that she and the studios have struck a devil’s pact of sorts. “Clearly there is an audience for sweet little middle-class romances of the kind she makes, and it pleases the studios to indulge a woman, whom they would not trust with more vigorous projects. It’s as if they’re trying to say: ‘Hey, we’re not sexists. We make Nancy Meyers movies.’ ”"

"Sweet little middle class romances." (First of all, anyone who lives in a house like the Hamptons mansion in Something's Gotta Give is NOT middle class, fwiw.) But can't you just hear Emerson's or Nabokov's dismissal of Austen in those words? Can't you hear the dismissal of that roomful of critics deciding on literary awards? Why is domestic a dirty word? Why is a character driven movie about a successful person dealing with their personal lives a Best Picture nominee if it stars George Clooney, but not if it stars Meryl Streep? I think I'm inclined to agree with Meyer's agent. An article like this would never be written if Nancy was Ned.

I leave you with this (there's a little bit of language at the end):