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A review by enemieseverywhere
Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature by Janice A. Radway
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
Very narrow in scope, as Radway admits, and maybe overreliant on a Freudian interpretation of the mother-daughter relationship. Additionally, things have changed quite a bit in the forty years since this was first published. But this is a groundbreaking, significant, excellent study of mass-market romance— one which was comprehensible even by a reader with zero knowledge of critical theory (me).
Radway unpacks the ways commercial romance fiction simultaneously reinforces patriarchal norms in heterosexual relationships, and helps women to resist and survive under their pressures. She takes a cool and clear-headed look at the complex strategic decisions made by romance authors with regards to their use of language and narrative structures, and how these decisions support (or accidentally undermine) the desired outcome in their readers— temporary catharsis, followed by an almost immediate hunger for more. Fascinating stuff.
Radway unpacks the ways commercial romance fiction simultaneously reinforces patriarchal norms in heterosexual relationships, and helps women to resist and survive under their pressures. She takes a cool and clear-headed look at the complex strategic decisions made by romance authors with regards to their use of language and narrative structures, and how these decisions support (or accidentally undermine) the desired outcome in their readers— temporary catharsis, followed by an almost immediate hunger for more. Fascinating stuff.