Author Topic: Books with no redeeming healing value! :)  (Read 3259 times)

Hopalong

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13621
Re: Books with no redeeming healing value! :)
« Reply #15 on: June 22, 2011, 01:28:24 PM »
They're the Society for the Prevention of Cutesypoo Adjective-inventing (though it was a noun)...

Well, the wolf debate...is one I might not win and best avoid!

Awooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Hops
"That'll do, pig, that'll do."

Meh

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2740
Re: Books with no redeeming healing value! :)
« Reply #16 on: June 23, 2011, 04:50:18 PM »
Hops, you have trade marked neenerizing?

You make me laugh.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2011, 04:52:03 PM by Boat that Rocks »

Meh

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2740
Re: Books with no redeeming healing value! :)
« Reply #17 on: July 20, 2011, 03:43:26 PM »
Maybe no redeeming value but healing I think so.

Romance Novels...I never ever ever read them except I was so freakin bored and there was a Nora Roberts book on a freeshelf so I picked it up and it became a page turner for me.

Full of nonsense fantasy crap. I read "Savor the Moment" it's part of the bride quartet series where four friends all get engaged in one of the books. Yeah it's pretty ridiculous but I like reading about the wedding cakes and the dresses and all that.

Thats how I justify it, it's about food and flowers not romance.

So after I read the free shelf book I went to the library to get two more of Nora Roberts books. The portly librarian started raving about the Bride Quartet books....apparently there are a lot of women that need their fantasy worlds now and then.

All the wealthy self-centered brides to be live together on some mansion compound it's practically like a little girls Barbie Doll game.

It's hideous and I like it....ashamed to admit.

sKePTiKal

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5441
Re: Books with no redeeming healing value! :)
« Reply #18 on: July 21, 2011, 07:36:19 AM »
Boat, all that wedding-fantasy touches a little close to home here.

My weakness is wedding dresses and all the foo-foo (and artifice) that goes into them to create what has to be the weirdest genetic memory in women (and sometimes men) about the symbol of what a BRIDE is. For me the symbol is the exact opposite of what people "really want" from that relationship. There's usually this desire for absolute "perfection" in physical looks and attire and demeanor - the whole woman on pedestal concept again - like a goddess, really. Untouchable... out of reach...

when the relationship that results from being a bride is a whole lot more human, practical, emotional than that... and the expectations/roles of "wife" - coz y'all know there's way more than one, if you've ever been one! - is laughably nowhere as glamourous!! Maybe there's a transformation symbolized in this whole ritual, too... it hadn't occurred to me before.

I haven't read a romance novel in years, Boat. I guess the closest I've gotten is Nicholas Sparks; there's a connection to where I live in his books and MIL read them all. I wouldn't put down romance novels... because there's a need that I've noticed that these books kinda fill. I'm not sure how old you are... but I'd say Hops, Izzy, and I were part of the 60s-70s women's liberation generation. We've each been influenced by this social change, because we were at different parts of that change when it happened, age-wise. And I know I've noticed that some of the value and importance of "being female"... and what those traditional, female things even are... has changed as a result. Most of my better jobs, were considered "non-traditional" for women and I was constantly competing with and trying to prove myself to men (and never, ever cry) - until women were mainstreamed into the workplace.

Some silly commercial from the 80's kinda sums up the symbol I was trying to fit into... I can't remember what the product was, but the message was that women can "do it all" - get up & make breakfast, get the kids to school, put on the power-suit with shoulder pads out to there (for, me a symbol of carrying the word on my shoulders; over-responsibility...), impress the boss, get a raise, pick up the dry-cleaning, dinner, the dog from the vet and the kids from school... and still look fresh (and more unbelievably) HAPPY while cooking a full meal, while hubs gets home. This was impossible - for all of us, all of the time. It was too much to juggle and if any one piece dropped... well, we were a failure as women. As people, even. At least that's what I saw in that message and symbol at the time.

I think that's why I've been reading a lot of Lisa See - the inner, hidden women's circle and society in China is her topic. Isabel Allende also speaks to the "inner life" and what "female" is... the "girlie", foo-foo stuff, you know? I wanna have a sleep over and braid each other's hair, and paint our nails... and maybe someone can teach me how to put on and wear make-up without feeling like I've joined Cirque du Soleil. Part of me craves that "community of women" I think... 'coz my mom sure didn't teach me any of that and even got in the way of other people teaching me; prohibiting it...

all that personal blather is to say, that I'm sorry you feel ashamed about liking what you're finding romance novels, but I can relate to why one might. I don't see a thing wrong with it these days... and I think you might even find another "puzzle piece" for yourself in the process. Read what sounds good no matter what it is... and don't analyze it; just read it.

Here's one to look for and read - it doesn't tackle "female" head-on (the story/plot are quite good and the narrative even hypnoticly riveting), but at the end of the book... there were conclusions it was hard to miss. The author is Ann Patchett - the book "State of Wonder".

I didn't want this book to end! I enjoyed the words on the page that much.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2011, 07:39:03 AM by PhoenixRising »
Success is never final, failure is never fatal.

Meh

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2740
Re: Books with no redeeming healing value! :)
« Reply #19 on: July 21, 2011, 01:43:12 PM »
My weakness is wedding dresses and all the foo-foo (and artifice) .

I liked reading your comments, artifice is a good way to describe it.

IMPOSSIBLE perfection.

This morning I walked by a jewelers shop with jewelry in the window displays, beautiful diamond rings etc. I didn't really have the words to put to it like you do, but I observed the dead dehydrated little fly body that got stuck in the display and landed on one of the white satin glove props before it died....and I found some humour? In that? Then I thought to myself....am I just really a downer? Oh well.

I guess after reading about these 4 characters that are wedding planners in the series of 4 books, and each one becomes engaged themselves in the books. Wedding planners in the midst of their own romance.
What stands out after reading your comments is the impossibility of it. The books are slightly funny because family feuds break out during the weddings of women throwing champagne at each other etc.
I recently looked at some photos of a real wedding and the first thing that came to my mind was....oh...that dress is not flattering with her skin tone....and she should have tried harder to disguise her plumpness....and the photographer didn't do a very good job....and layers of criticism came out of me...not that I am in any way better but it's what my mind is trained to do. Expect some kind of perfect.  

Random thoughts: Is there something inherently down about reality, and sunny cheerfulness requires self delusion to some degree.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2011, 02:07:57 PM by Boat that Rocks »

Hopalong

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13621
Re: Books with no redeeming healing value! :)
« Reply #20 on: July 21, 2011, 06:22:34 PM »
I devoured Catherine Cookson novels at one point.
My favorite was The Dwelling Place.

xo
Hops
"That'll do, pig, that'll do."

sKePTiKal

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5441
Re: Books with no redeeming healing value! :)
« Reply #21 on: July 22, 2011, 07:36:24 AM »
Quote
...not that I am in any way better but it's what my mind is trained to do. Expect some kind of perfect.

You hit the nail on the head, Boat - people, all of us, EXPECT the marketing message of "perfection" - especially in weddings and brides - oh, and Christmas is right up there, too. No, I don't think laughing at the fly means you're a downer... I would've found some humor in that juxtaposition too, because it's reality poking a big ole hole in the illusion that perfection is achieveable through human effort and design.

And I think part of the reason, that those criticisms come to mind too, is reality vs the message/image -- i.e., the delusion that anything can be perfect without being artificial. We start comparing... other weddings, other brides, other dresses... I don't really think we can stop ourselves. My lovely, sweet, wouldn't ever badmouth anyone MIL - wouldn't hesitate to make the most outlandishly outrageous criticisms of the cut, fit, look of a wedding dress on someone. I'd have to frequently stifle a giggle sitting next to her awful catty remarks, in church!!  It's just HUMAN to think those thoughts... not some flaw or neurosis in you. It's your opinion, you know? You can have one, too! I've rather enjoyed some of your opinions and thoughts, even.

I guess we've kinda discovered another whole topic that deserves it's own thread again; the meaning, significance of "female"... and all the socially-attached and charged "roles", etc. I know that a lot the younger folk - my kids and their friends and younger don't pay any tribute to the old traditions or the marketing messages of perfection, at all. Or else they play around with it; make fun of it; try to make it more REAL, than just image. My Ds wedding dress was a 30's movie star glam, deep crimson red backless dress. She looked like something from casting for a remake of Bonnie & Clyde, since she dyed her hair that light blonde and had it styled that way. That was between the height of the Goth trend and before the vampire stuff.

But, as for that "perfection"... and how we deal with our discomfort with the dissonance of reality against the image and expectation of perfection... I stumbled across the ultimate defeat of that conflict of ideas. By accident. The most "perfect" moments I've had... where I've actually experienced that feeling of WOW it doesn't get any better than this...

Perfect is that moment when one can finally LET IT ALL BE** and just be with each other, having fun. Playing, connecting, dancing, talking... just being together enjoying each other.



***and that includes letting the Ns be Ns - and not caring anymore; paying them no mind; letting all the "planned" items disintegrate into the dregs of a party; making sure people who need a ride home, have one... but no longer trying to force things to be -- what they aren't. That's when I've felt that everything was "perfect".
Success is never final, failure is never fatal.