‘Reader I married him’ must be the most well known literary quote ever (apart from ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged….’) and was used last night as the title for a series of programmes on BBC4 dealing with Romantic Fiction.
Apparently, this genre is rather looked down upon, is treated in a slighting manner and the authors of such books are not given any credit for being good writers. If this programme was meant to address this attitude it failed as it was completely subverted by the girly, giggly front woman, Daisy Goodwin, and nearly all of those she interviewed. At one stage we were told that a Mills & Boon is ‘better than Valium’ and an experiment was carried out to prove that yes, indeed a good read of a romance was calming and good for you. So tell us something we did not know already. This was then totally contradicted by a Mills & Boon editor who told us, between hoots of laughter, that when she had finished reading some of the sex scenes in their new series Blaze ‘she had to be scraped off the ceiling’. Too much information dear.
As a fully paid up member of the Grumpy Old Women Club (if Blue Peter gave out badges for this I would be festooned by now) I will leave you to imagine my feelings when listening to the spiel from the publishers of the new chick lit cover editions of Jane Austen. Yes, I know she is trying to get more people to read them, and yes I know this is a Good Thing, but something in me winces at Austen being branded in this way. I am prepared to receive any comments telling me I am a die hard stick in the mud in this area with unabated cheerfulness.
Next week the programme is looking at Romantic Heroes – Rochester, Darcy et al and I look forward to this with interest.
This is all nicely linked in with the new BBC dramatisation of Jane Eyre which is due to start this weekend with Toby Stephens as Mr Rochester. From the trailers I have seen, it looks very promising. ITV3 are rerunning their version of Jane Eyre this week, presumably as a spoiler. Waste of time in my opinion as this version of a few years ago with Samantha Bond and Ciaran Hinds was so dire that it can only make prospective Beeb viewers think that the new one couldn’t possibly be as bad. When I tell you that Elle ‘the Body’ McPherson played Blanche Ingram in this production I am sure you will see that no further elaboration is necessary….
