Who reads romances?

[charlie_cochrane]

At the local Romantic Novelists' association lunch, yesterday, we had an excellent speaker - Jenny haddon - who spoke to us about the history of the RNA (full write up here).

She quoted one of the ex-presidents as speculating that romantics - and people who read romance - are at heart optimists, looking for the expected happy ending. The same person had said it was as well that Britain had been led by a romantic - Winston Churchill - during WWII.

Comments

[atthe-algonquin.livejournal.com]

The same person had said it was as well that Britain had been led by a romantic - Winston Churchill - during WWII.

....riiiiight.

(I agree with the romantics/optimists thing, more or less. I'm not sure I can quite see it with ol' Winston, though.)

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

Now I can see Winnie as a romantic type, totally.

[atthe-algonquin.livejournal.com]

Well, sort of. On thinking of it, I see where they're coming from, but I kind of see him as the worst of the romantics too. The man who can inspire and fight and who's frighteningly intelligent, yes, of course. The man with enough honour to resign after the horror that was Gallipolli. But also the man who thinks that the old ways are best, even when that translates to breaking up the miner's strike in Tonypandy with force, or opposing Bevan's NHS, despite unbelievable child mortality and illness rates. There's a blinkeredness to him, that I think was reflected in...was it '45 that he lost in? He was complex, and lovely, and terrible, but ultimately he became a kind of relic, at least into the 50's.

So, okay, I'm willing to give Romantic. But as a compliment, and as a complaint at the same time...

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'm with you on that. A tragic romantic, too, as he was definitely losing it at the end of the war - maybe that was his last great fight and then just the shell of the great man left. It is quite chilling to think that the Yalta conference featured three men who were each of them physically (and mentally?) unwell.