[ SECRET POST #2238 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2238 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 097 secrets from Secret Submission Post #320.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[lunabee34]

You want a cheesy romance novel classic? Try the Victorians. :) They basically invented the soap opera.

[dreemyweird]

Any specific examples? I can't think of anyone who would write outright cheesy books. Amongst less popular writers, certainly, but not the classical works.

[lunabee34]

Sure. Now, I love these books and think they have a lot of value to offer, but I also think you could call them cheesy to a certain degree, mostly because they have plot lines that are now considered cliche to varying degrees and they rely heavily on sensationalism and melodrama (such as tropes of buried alive! presumed dead but really alive! pretending to be another person!).

I'd put most sensation fiction written in the 19th century in this category. So for example, No Name by Wilkie Collins where the protagonist is disinherited and goes about in masquerade in the household of the person does inherit. Or Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon where George Talboys disappears. Who killed him? Is it Lady Audley? Is she mad? Who is she really? Oh, she's the wife George abandoned all those years ago who made her way up in the world, committed bigamy, and then tried to kill him when he figured out the secret. But it's okay; George just has amnesia from that conk on the head she gave him.

Or Ouida, who although she has fallen out of the canon, was one of the most widely read female authors of the 19th century and certainly one of the richest. Her novels are just an awesome, hot mess.

[dreemyweird]

Thanks! It is perhaps not to my credit that I read neither Mary Elizabeth Braddon nor Ouida (although I have indeed heard of them and have been meaning to read the latter).

I already surrendered myself to the anon below, so I can only give you a symbolical curl from my head or something.

[lunabee34]

You should so read Ouida. You can find all her works for free on internet archive (you can dl as pdf or to e-reader or just read online). (She's the subject of my dissertation) The only book of hers that's currently in print is Moths which is great but I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point. Which book of hers are you drawn to or are just interested in reading her in general because I could give you a couple ideas of where to start.

:)

[dreemyweird]

There's no particular book, I've just read about her in a theoretical article. Moths was the one I heard mentioned, but I know almost nothing about it; so I'll be glad if you give me some tips.

[lunabee34]

Do you remember who the author of the article was? I bet it was my dissertation director. LOL

I would recommend that you start with her earlier works because they're hilarious. Moths is a great book, but it's a bit more heavy handed and didactic and lacks the ridiculous humor of her earlier works.

I'd start with Held in Bondage from the early 60s. The plot is so convoluted and LOL-arious and centered on romance. Strathmore is another good early one that features a homosocial relationship between the male protagonists, if that's something you like to read about in addition to the melodramatic plots. :)

Syrlin is a great one, too. It's very heavily dialogue driven book; lots of Wildean-esque quippery abounds. The topic is quite serious (the shift in English politics from a ruling aristocracy to a more democratic system), but it's handled quite deftly and interestingly IMHO. There's also some homosocial seduction going on here too and passionate artists!

Puck is a very, very funny book. It's told from the perspective of a Maltese dog (yes; a dog) who dishes all the dirt on his female owners over the years.

This is Ouida pictured in my icon.

[dreemyweird]

Nope; he was some random Russian lad, so I don't think it's likely that he is your dissertation director?

Oh, she sounds (and looks) awesome. Frankly, I'm not sure when I'll get my hands on her books; I have The Flying Inn coming, and right now I'm struggling to finish three books at the same time, all of which happen to be historical novels/memoirs. But I'm definitely putting her on my reading list somewhere after The Inn.

[lunabee34]

That would not be my diss director. LOL

I hope you enjoy reading her when you do get the time. :)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure about cheese, as such, but if you want the original soap opera, look at mythology. Any mythology. The Greeks were the most massively OTT how-many-implausible-and-downright-barmy-reasons-can-we-have-for-strife-and-murder that I've come across, but the Egyptians did some wonderful things with intrigue, murder and incest, the Chinese threw in some quality court intrigue and murderous scheming (and the odd road-trip of awesome) ...

Honestly. The closest thing I've ever seen to a modern TV soap opera is greek mythology. Or Shakespeare. Shakespeare was pretty damn soapy. Though, yes, Austen also has a lot to answer for.

[lunabee34]

I concede your point. :) We have clearly always been interested in telling stories of murder and bigamy and jealousy and etc.

I do think that Victorian sensation literature more closely resembles modern soaps than earlier mythological sources, but I'm all about reading and enjoying All the Things.

[(Anonymous)]

The Victorians has the advantage of a slightly closer-to-modern social structure to work with, I'll grant you. But yes, clearly humanity has ever been fond of telling stories about other people's incredibly elaborate misfortunes ;)

[kathkin]

Oh if you want ancient Greek soap opera - look up the Greek novels? There's about half a dozen or so, and they're all cheesy soap opera romances. With mistaken identity. And seduction. And pirates.

I quite like Heliodorus' Ethiopian Tale because the female lead is awesome but unfortunately the treatment of Ethiopian characters is... questionable. :/

[lunabee34]

Oh, cool. I haven't read that one before. :) I will add it to my list. Thanks.

[dreemyweird]

I remember how I hated Shakespeare for Romeo and Juliet. I was a child with a strange world outlook, and when we were writing an essay about Shakespeare I wrote that it was a mediocre soapy shit and that Juliet behaved like a dunce. Naturally the teacher was not impressed.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yes, R&J was so totally a soap opera. Though I thought Juliet was actually the smart one of the main pair, she was reasonably sensible about things, Romeo was a melodramatic, over-emotional little idiot. The character I feel most sorry for in that entire play is Paris, who was actually being responsible and understanding for a man of his time, was a completely innocent in the feud, and got killed because he happened to be paying his respects to his dead wife-to-be and wanted to stop her family's enemy from desecrating her grave. (Also the Prince, because hell if I'd want to be in charge of a city that the Capulets and Montagues were having a feud in).

[(Anonymous)]

Bad teacher. R&J was a parody of the Twilight-esque writings of the time. It was mocking that sort of writing. Sadly, it did it well enough, too many people think it's real!