I usually want to space these out, but this ended up so long I decided that waiting to add a third thing was kind of pointless.
Flowers From the Storm (Laura Kinsale, 1992)
I recently got into a very long argument about romance (the genre) with some other people—the punchline to which was that none of the main participants, including me, had actually read a contemporary romance novel1 cover to cover. But mid-argument I remembered I’d gotten this book by Laura Kinsale a while ago because an old Twitter friend had recommended it and also because I’d liked the first line (“he liked radical politics and had a fondness for chocolate”) so much. Then it sat in my Kindle library as I went through various life upheavals. Now was the hour!
The set up in Flowers From the Storm seems pretty romance-typical: you have, on the one hand, the infamous rake the Duke of Jervaulx, who we meet in the bed of a married woman. In addition to chocolate and radical politics, the Duke is fond of mathematics; this means he corresponds with a Quaker mathematician named Timms, and together they seem to be developing non-Euclidean geometry. Timms has a daughter, the pious and fiery and strong-willed Maddy, who naturally has contempt for the Duke and everything he stands for. I got to the ending of chapter two and figured I knew where this was going.
This same friend also said—I did recall—that Laura Kinsale was a real sicko (or something along those lines). I assumed, in the romance context, that probably meant there was some rape-adjacent “seduction” going on, which is, okay, not so great, but I can roll with the genre conventions. I was sure that must have been what she meant.
I mean, what else could she have meant…?
Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha.
I don’t really want to tell you what happens here. I think everybody should have the experience I had of being like “ah this is your standard story about a bad boy and good girl coming together despite their clashing personalities, cute” and then being drop-kicked by Kinsale into a Henry Fuseli painting. But none of you are actually going to go read this book, so if you want to know, just head to the footnotes.2
Because it is a romance novel, you are assured going in that it will end happily. Midway through you also begin to wonder if Kinsale has her own extremely weird definition of a “happy ending” such that the book will end in frustration. Still, I would say that while somebody could probably just pick this book up and read it without being aware of its genre, the knowledge that this book is going to end well is actually what creates its feeling of suspense. It’s like Kinsale is playing chicken with a sad ending and you really want know how she can craft a happy ending that is satisfying and feels possible and you’re sure she’s not going to be able to do it, but maybe she can do it, but no, she totally won’t, it’s impossible… and so on.
People who find genre works that they like often wax indignant about the “genre ghetto” and so on. Romance is probably one of the only genres that can still claim to be ghettoized—like, whatever version of “I like everything but rap and country” exists for books, one of those two categories is definitely “romance novels.” But I always find this kind of whining irritating. Do I think that if it were not “historical romance” and was instead marketed as historical fiction, more people I know would have read it? Sure, maybe that Kinsale would be regarded more like Dorothy Dunnett (who I haven’t read) or Patrick O’Brian (but with more sex).
But I wouldn’t say more people, in general, would have read it, since a romance novelist is probably assured of one of the largest reading populations that exists. In the conversation, one of my friends (who can be credited if she wants) wondered if any romance novel would receive the imprimatur of NYRB Classics. But what kind of audience could a niche publisher like NYRB meaningfully give an author like Laura Kinsale? So… I wouldn’t really worry that much about it.
The Venture Bros. (Season One)
Speaking of genre ghettoes….
Here’s something I think is true: in the late nineties / early aughts there was a kind of wave of, if not “arty nerd stuff,” art created by people who had grown up on superheroes etc and wanted to make that material their own. It was fun, it was a bit irreverent, it luxuriated in its basic uncoolness—it was confident, I guess I’m saying.
Much of the work that came my way at the time was stuff I didn’t really like—Joss Whedon,3 Neil Gaiman,4 Terry Pratchett—though two out of three of those guys are mega-canceled now so I guess I don’t really get credit for not liking them at the time.5 Nobody would believe me! However, it’s true.6 But there was also stuff I did like, like Jonathan Coulton and The Incredibles.7 (I do not consider The X-Files to be a part of this period / movement / whatever. Lost might be, but I never watched it.)
And then Iron Man came out in 2008 and the Marvel ecosystem that subsequently emerged more or less wiped all this other stuff out. Not overnight, obviously. I think this kind of thing continued to be produced until at least 2013 or so.… And you still had stuff like Archer. But the actually interesting stuff these other things were doing—stuff that did not involve endlessly remixing the same IP—just disappeared. It’s weird because—I think it’s true that without stuff like The Venture Bros., without this particular wave of brainy nerd stuff, there’s no Iron Man.
But at the same time, I don’t think the 2008–2020 period of total Marvel dominance was exactly “building” on this stuff. It just erased it—except for the parts I already didn’t like, like the scripts of Joss Whedon. Now we are on the other side of Marvel dominance (well, one hopes), but you wonder if instead of once again opening the field for people to do interesting things, it’s instead scorched the earth.8 I guess we’ll see. And this is kind of a loose history anyway. That’s why it’s an idea on this Substack instead of an article where I’d actually have to prove that I’m right.
Anyway. The Venture Bros. is very much “of” this early wave of reworked nerdery. I did not watch it back when it was on TV, since we didn’t have cable for most of my childhood and even when we did I would not have been allowed to watch it, but it recently popped up on Netflix so I figured—why not. Google informs there was a there was a movie last year? Is this a problem for my potted history? Let’s move on.
Given that it is an Adult Swim cartoon from 2003, i.e., peak “edgy humor” years, it’s kind of surprising how well The Venture Bros. has aged. Which… is not to say it’s aged perfectly.9 But it derives most (though not all) of its humor from actual jokes, character dynamics, etc, and not tossing out slurs and sexual harrassment.10
It’s also kind of funny how it’s a sort of superhero / adventure satire in which almost everybody is bad—like, Dr. Venture himself is clearly a kind of (hack) evil scientist, even if he’s got various, more evil archenemies:
I dunno. Maybe there wasn’t anywhere for this kind of joking around to go except where it went—movies like Guardians of the Galaxy11 and so on. There wasn’t anywhere for it to “grow up” as a movement because this was the grown up version. But it’s weird to watch this show now. It feels very much like a road not taken. However, despite its flaws, I am now loyal to this television program, for it got me out of a Spot O’ Depression.
Also, the ending of season one is extremely startling.
What happens is that the Duke has a stroke and gets sent to an insane asylum where Maddy encounters him again because it’s run by her uncle and she’s been hired as a nurse there. She can tell that he’s actually sane, just unable to communicate, and she basically teaches him how to like… speak and get dressed and all the rest again. You see quite a lot of this from his perspective, where he’s constantly trying to express himself, and it’s very grueling.
He is grateful but also resentful to be in such a dependent and abject state and resolves to get his revenge on her by seducing her, even though he is still not in fact capable of language, reliable hand-eye coordination, etc. Also, his family is trying to get him declared insane so they can take all his money.… but they can’t do that if he gets married.… Things continue from there. By “continue,” do I mean, they progress? They deteriorate? Frankly it’s hard to say.
If Buffy has million number of haters i am one of them . if Buffy has ten haters i am one of them. if Buffy have only one hater and that is me . if Buffy has no haters, that means i am no more on the earth . if world for Buffy, i am against the world. i hate #Buffy till my last breath.. .. Die Hard hater of Buffy . Hit Like If you Think Buffy Worst show & Stupid In the world.
Actually I only ever saw like a season and half of Buffy.
Except for Coraline.
I should give Terry Pratchett another shot one day.
I also never liked Harry Potter. Again, you won’t believe me, that’s fine, that’s fine.
Obviously
was a part of this with Soon I Will Be Invincible, and then I guess Jonathan Lethem (Fortress of Solitude) (haven’t read) and Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) (haven’t read). I think even Sam Raimi’s Spiderman movie, though an official Marvel product, falls into this group more than it does the post–Iron Man Marvel world.One other thing that occurs to me writing this out is that while this kind of Nerd 2.0 stuff was mostly written by men… it was wildly popular with women. So it might have also been a casualty of the gender warfare within nerd culture that emerged with Gamergate, etc.
The first episode is cringingly racist.
It’s pretty easy to imagine Dr. Girlfriend being played as a super offensive joke about trans women but she’s just a hot woman with a really deep voice who is in love with a complete loser. (I am under the impression that she is not meant to be a trans woman but I don’t think that has any bearing on whether she would be a nasty joke about them… anyway, the point is, she’s a character everybody likes and respects and the jokes about her are mostly about how she’s totally in love with the most pathetic supervillain on Earth.)
I hate that movie on an almost personal level.
I like Venture Bros very much. Because much of it is flawed and incompetent people absolutely trying their hardest and failing. And most of their successes are achieved by accident or pity. The competent characters on the show are usually hamstrung by fixing a mess for someone they care about, often involving circumstances too absurdly grandiose and/or stupid to reasonably anticipate.
“…being drop-kicked by Kinsale into a Henry Fuseli painting.”
Wonderful.