I love reading.
(Which is not really a surprise — this is a literature mag, after all.)
But I’ll be the first to admit: I am a bit of a book snob. I never really go for romance books. When I think of romance, I picture pastel clip art covers, vapid characters, Wattpad-esque plotlines and a ‘cosy’ title that usually involves some sort of café. I’m aware how cynical – and frankly how out of touch – that sounds. Sure, those books exist and often inexplicably go viral on TikTok, but they certainly don’t define the whole genre.
When I really think about it, nearly all of my favourite books involve some sort of romantic plotline. And coincidentally, nearly all of these books are written by women.
I think Jane Austen had a pretty similar viewpoint to me, in that she seemed to have a bit of a vendetta against the romance genre. Of course, back in the 18th century, popular romance books were even more predictable, dramatic, and downright sexist – so she probably had more of a reason to dislike them. And, unlike me, she actually did something about it.
In 1790, aged just fourteen, Jane Austen wrote the charmingly misspelled Love and Freindship. This story, written in epistolary, was a clear comedic parody of the sentimental romantic novels popular at the time, such as Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740). The storyline is wafer-thin: a woman falls in love and writes to her friend about it. The main character, Laura, is satirically over-the-top – she faints at the slightest whiff of romance – highlighting the harmful one-dimensional characterisation of women in these novels at the time.
As well as this, the romantic plotlines are wildly unrealistic, the language is stilted, and the characters are all caricatures, encouraging readers to see how shallow and formulaic this genre of romance novels really was. The story is hilarious, and demonstrates Austen’s disdain for the frivolity of the romance fiction of her time.
Her later, more widely known novel Northanger Abbey, is similarly satirical, but this time makes fun of both romance and Gothic novels. Her wit and sharp awareness of clichéd romantic tropes made her novels extremely controversial, so much so that Northanger Abbey wasn’t even published until after her death. Upon its publication, it received mixed reviews from critics, who failed to understand Austen’s use of irony, and its intention to write more developed female characters. Although she made her novels humorous through light-hearted wit, she was always hinting at a larger message. As Lehigh University comments, “Her novels contain subversive social critiques which go well beyond her “safe” image to subtly address gender. For example, through the experiences of her heroines, Austen exposes the economic need and social pressure that forced women to marry. She critiques inheritance law, which forbade unmarried daughters from gaining their father's property, and the minutiae of class differences that made certain marriages undesirable.” In tackling these issues through parodying romance, Austen not only subverts the genre, but reinvents it.
Fast forward a couple of centuries, and we find similar themes in the works of Sally Rooney. Her novel Normal People focuses on the typical ‘star-crossed lovers’ Marianne and Connell, who have grown up worlds apart. Importantly, we learn a lot about their individual struggles, families, friendships and lives as well as their relationship. The story spans a decade, a strong undertone of a class divide runs throughout, and we watch both characters as they grow from awkward teenagers to successful adults, making us interested in far more than just their sex lives (although yes, there is a lot of sex).
In real life, romance doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It just doesn’t. That’s like trying to separate flour and eggs from an already-baked cake. This is where so many romance books fall flat and become one-dimensional, because we never actually learn anything about the characters other than their relationship with each other.
Normal People, on the other hand, read more like a coming-of-age story than a romance to me, and it worked deliciously. I’ll be honest, I found it pretty depressing at times, but isn’t that refreshing? To actually feel something other than boredom during a romance book? (There’s my cynicism coming out again. Just call me Jane Austen – I’ll be writing the next Northanger Abbey before you know it.)
Normal People was beautifully bleak. It was driven by its characters and their flaws, rather than the expectations of its genre. Of course, the romance was central, but it never felt like a fairytale. It felt like real life. Rooney picked apart the complexities and fragility of modern relationships through characters who were flawed, and sometimes unlikeable. Because of that, we see our own lives in them – and we nod in agreement or sigh in frustration because we’ve been there too.
Rooney built such real and raw characters that I fell a little bit in love with them. Like I said, I usually steer clear of romance books, but even I melted at the line: “I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.” I found myself thinking about Marianne and Connell long after I finished the book. In having that effect on her readers, Rooney has done Austen proud. She’s proven that romance doesn’t have to be melodramatic and unrealistic, and that giving readers characters like them will have a much more emotional impact than maidens fainting all over the place. Both authors subvert the genre, Austen with her irony, and Rooney with her painfully realistic characters, and have succeeded in redefining romance. Who knows, they might just convert me one day.
