20世紀八九十年代時，言情小說以席卷之勢風靡于中國讀者之中，瓊瑤、亦舒、席絹等言情小說作家迅速躥紅，帶來了言情小說的高潮。一時間，俊男美女的主角，身世顯赫的才子佳人，浪漫而唯美的愛情幻想吸引住了各個年齡層次的讀者，而這些快餐式言情小說的“無營養”也讓不少家長和老師操壞了心。這似乎并不是我們獨有的困擾：本文作者在地鐵上的一次偶遇，讓他對現代西方女性的閱讀品味產生了質疑……

By Palash Ghosh

吳悠 選 鐘凡凡 注

The other morning on my subway commute I sat next to an attractive young blonde woman who was reading something on her iPad.¹ She was very well-dressed, carrying a Prada bag with tastefully applied make-up—indeed, she exuded an unmistakable air of affluence, material success and even authority.² I suspected she worked as a highly-paid Wall Street attorney or stockbroker or something of that ilk.³ So, I was curious to see what she was poring over⁴. The Wall Street Journal perhaps? The New York Times? The Economist?⁵

Quite the contrary; rather, she was mesmerized by a romance novel—I could tell because I spied a few paragraphs written in the sentimental, florid style of that genre.⁶It occurred to me that the relative anonymity of an iPad (i.e., in place of a paperback featuring an absurdly cartoonish cover illustration of a muscular he-man embracing a beautiful ingénue) spared her any embarrassment over her choice of reading matter.⁷ After all, romance novels fall into the same sordid category as soft porn, violent comic books and anything written by Stephen King in the realm of literary “guilty pleasures.”⁸

Then I realized that I have known many women who devour these romance novels—smart, attractive, successful, “liberated,” modern females who nonetheless find some kind of deep satisfaction and vicarious thrill from delving into hyper-romantic, contrived and extremely unrealistic tales of handsome, manly heroes falling in love with virginal women, enduring a series of adventures, then inexorably ending in a happy resolution.⁹

These “romance” stories are to literature what hot dogs are to cuisine—quickly made, tasty, filling, temporarily satisfying, but with no nutritional value whatsoever.¹⁰ Yet, the genre remains enormously popular.

Consider some of these sobering statistics from the good folks at the Romance Writers of America (RWA):¹¹

*More than 9,000 romance titles were released in 2012, yielding sales of about $1.44 billion (more than triple the revenues generated by classic literary fiction), making it the biggest portion of the U.S. consumer market at 16.7 percent.¹²

*Some 75 million people in the country read at least one romance novel in 2008, but most are long-time dedicated consumers of the genre.

*More than 90 percent of the market are women (okay, that’s not at all surprising).

*Readers are typically women between the ages 30 and 54 who are themselves involved in a romantic relationship (betraying the stereotype that only lonely women long for these tales of love and adventure).¹³

*Almost 40 percent of romance book consumers have an annual income of between $50,000 and $99,900 (placing them firmly in the middle class and even upper middle class).

I had thought that romance novels accounted for a very small fringe corner of the literary market—so I was quite surprised that this segment has such enormous popularity.¹⁴ Now that books are transitioning from the dying hardback and paperback forms to e-books, romance novels have made the change effortlessly;¹⁵ in fact, they represent the fastest-growing parts of the digital market, far ahead of general fiction, mystery and science fiction, according to Bowker, an industry research firm.

The most famous purveyor of romance novels is probably Toronto-based Harlequin Enterprises which generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually from book sales.¹⁶ The most well-known romance writer might have been Dame Barbara Cartland, the English woman who died only about twelve years ago at the age of 98. Throughout her long life, Cartland produced more than 700 novels which have reportedly sold as many as one billion copies around the world, which would make her one of the most prolific¹⁷ and successful authors ever.

Although Dame Cartland had a rather messy personal life herself, she nonetheless applied Victorian-era morality to her books—that is, only a chaste kiss between the protagonists, and generally no sexually explicit scenes.¹⁸ Princess Diana¹⁹ herself reportedly devoured Cartland’s tales of innocent romance. Granted, the contemporary romance genre has moved far from Dame Cartland’s squeamishness about sex, with female lead characters who are strong, independent and hardly virginal—but at their core, they remain true to her original vision of simple love stories that always lead to happiness.²⁰

But I must wonder why so many women—forty years after the women’s liberation movement—continue to indulge in the fanciful tales of females so unlike them who live in fantasy worlds light years removed from their reality?²¹

I’m not sure if the immense popularity of romance novels represents a kind of “repudiation” of the women’s lib movement, but clearly something is missing in the lives and experiences of tens of millions (maybe even hundreds or millions) of contemporary ladies.²² An anonymous female reviewer at goodreads.com said of the genre: “Romance novels offer an escape from daily life with the belief that true love really exists.”²³

A romance author named Donna Hatch who focuses on the Regency period (early 19th century Britain) explained the appeal of such books this way:²⁴ “Regency men were civilized and treated women with courtesy. When a lady entered the room, gentlemen stood, doffed their hats, curtailed their language, offered an arm, bowed, and a hundred other little things I wish men still did today.²⁵ But they were also very athletic²⁶; they hunted, raced, fenced, boxed, rode horses.²⁷ They were manly. Strong. Noble. Resolute²⁸. Honorable. And that is why I love them!”

Mrs. Hatch may have expressed the secret (or not-so-secret?) desires and attitudes of untold millions of her peers—that is, in the early 21st century, have women grown tired of the burdens and expectations that the “freedoms” they have gained impart²⁹ upon them? Is this a rejection of modern feminism? An expression of distaste of the hippie culture which essentially destroyed all traditional forms or behavior in the western world?³⁰ Do women long for days of old when men were masculine gentlemen and women were feminine and protected as precious treasures and regarded as possessions?³¹

Perhaps most women (even the ones who get lost in romance novels) do not want to go all the way back—but it is obvious, they are unhappy with how the world has turned out in the contemporary era.

Still, I would suggest that if someone is enamored with romantic novels, one should perhaps eschew the contemporary books and read the beautiful, deep and moving works of 19th century women authors like Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters—they combined romanticism with cold hard reality and profound insights in humanity.³²

Vocabulary：

1. commute: 通勤，往返交通；blonde: 金發女子，淺色頭發的女人。

2. 她穿著入時，拎著普拉達的包，略施襯托出品味的粉黛——不可否認，她渾身上下散發出富有、物質成功以及桀驁自恃的氣場。Prada: 普拉達，著名意大利時尚奢侈品牌；exude: 散發出，流露出；affluence: 富裕。

3. Wall Street: 華爾街，美國紐約市下曼哈頓的一條街道，現在已經是美國經濟最具影響力的金融市場和金融結構的代名詞；attorney: 律師；stockbroker: 股票經紀人；of that ilk: 同一類型的。

4. pore over: 專心閱讀。

5. 文章中依次提到的報刊分別是：《華爾街日報》、《紐約時報》和《經濟學家》，均是經濟政治社論領域的嚴肅報紙。

6. mesmerize: 使……入迷；spy: （尤指經過尋找）突然看見，突然發現；sentimental: （故事、書等）故作傷感的；florid: （語言、音樂或藝術）修飾過多的。

7. 這時我忽然意識到，iPad毫無個性的封蓋成功掩蓋了她正在閱讀的內容（也就是說，他人無法看到她正在閱讀一本平裝書，封面突顯了滑稽可笑的卡通式插畫——一位肌肉發達的健壯男子懷抱著一位美麗無邪的少女），她不必為自己所選擇的書感到羞愧。anonymity: 無個性特征，無特色；paperback: 平裝書，簡裝書；he-man: 〈幽默〉肌肉發達的健壯男子；ingénue: 天真少女，少不更事的初出茅廬者。

8. sordid: 猥褻的，齷齪的；soft porn: 軟調色情，指商業上含有色情成分的照片或電影，稍少一些性暴露成分；Stephen King: 史蒂芬·金（1947— ），一位作品多產的美國暢銷書作家，以恐怖小說著稱。

9. 然后，我意識到自己竟認識不少如饑似渴地閱讀言情小說的女性，她們都是聰明、有魅力、“得到了解放”的現代成功女性，但卻在這些超級浪漫、情節矯揉造作且極為不現實的故事中找到了某種深深的滿足和感同身受的刺激；這些故事都在講述英俊、勇敢、強壯的英雄們愛上了貞潔的少女，他們在經歷了一系列的磨難后毫無懸念地獲得了圓滿的結局。devour: 如饑似渴地閱讀；liberated: 被解放的，獲得自由的。此處指在女權主義運動之后獲得更多自由與權利的女性，她們在生育權、受教育權、性別歧視等方面獲得了更多的話語權；vicarious: 感同身受的，產生共鳴的；delve: 探索，探究；contrived: 不自然的，矯揉造作的；virginal: 處女般的；inexorably: 不可阻擋地，不可更改地；resolution: 解答，解決。此處指故事的結局。

10. cuisine: （精致的）菜肴，烹飪；filling: （食物）使人感到飽的；temporarily: 暫時的；whatsoever: 絲毫（用于強調否定句）。

11. sobering: 使人警醒的，令人清醒的；Romance Writers of America: 美國言情小說作家協會，美國一個非營利組織，目標是支助言情小說職業作家，并為他們提供社交機會。

12. title: （書的）一本，一種；yield: 產生，產出；revenue: （公司、機構等的）收入，收益。

13. betray: 背棄；stereotype: 模式化的思想，舊框框。

14. account for: 占（一定數量或比重）；fringe: 邊緣的，非主流的；segment: 部分。

15. transition: 過渡，轉變；hardback: 硬皮書，精裝本。

16. purveyor: 提供者，供應商；Harlequin Enterprises: （加拿大）禾林出版公司，全球最成功的浪漫小說出版商，被稱為“出版界的麥當勞”。

17. prolific: （藝術家、作家等）多產的，作品豐富的。

18. messy: 混亂的，麻煩的；Victorian-era: （英國）維多利亞時代，即英國維多利亞女王的統治時期，被認為是英國工業革命和大英帝國的巔峰。維多利亞時代的道德觀念支持性節制，不容忍罪惡，主張訂立嚴格的社會守則；chaste: 純潔的，不帶性意味的；protagonist: 主角，故事主人公；explicit: （描繪性或暴力的語言或畫面）清晰露骨的。

19. Princess Diana: 威爾士王妃戴安娜（1961—1997），英國王儲、威爾士親王查爾斯的第一任妻子。

20. granted: 誠然，的確；squeamishness: 易受驚，神經脆弱。

21. indulge in: 沉迷于；light years: 遙遠地。

22. repudiation: 拒絕，否認；lib: liberation的縮寫。

23. anonymous: 匿名的，不留真名的；goodreads.com: 美國一家圖書分享型社交網站。2013年由亞馬遜公司收購納入旗下。

24. Regency period: （英國的）攝政時期，大約指1811年至1820年間。這一時期的歐洲發生了許多影響重大的歷史事件，例如拿破侖戰爭的結束等，工業革命也與此時在英國持續展開。這一時期亦是英國著名作家簡·奧斯汀作品的創作背景，使攝政時期在西方文學史中有著特殊的地位；appeal: 吸引力。

25. doff: 脫帽致意；curtail: 削弱，限制。

26. athletic: 強壯的，擅長運動的。

27. race: 賽馬；fence: 馬術障礙賽；box: 拳擊運動。

28. resolute: 堅決的。

29. impart: 賦予，給予。

30. distaste: 厭惡，反感；hippie culture: 嬉皮士文化，最先是用來描寫西方國家20世紀六七十年代反抗習俗和當時政治的年輕人，用流浪的生活方式來反映出他們對民族主義和越南戰爭的反對。他們的外貌特征是留長發、大胡子，常穿色彩鮮艷的衣著或不尋常的衣飾。

31. masculine: 男子氣概的；feminine: 女性氣質的；possession: 所屬物，財物。

32. 盡管如此，我還是要建議那些迷戀于言情小說的讀者們，或許她們應該拋開現代小說，轉而去讀簡·奧斯汀和勃朗特姐妹等19世紀女性作家的那些文筆優美、寓意深刻而動人的作品——她們把浪漫主義與冷酷現實相結合，并提出對人性的深刻見解。enamored: 喜愛的，迷戀的；eschew: （有意地）回避，避開。

（來源：英語學習雜志 編輯：祝興媛）