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Memories of less judgmental days
Sep. 2nd, 2013 09:23 pmThere were books I liked when I was young (late primary school / early high school) that I think now win the award of, "Yes, These Really Are As Bad As Twilight...And I Turned Out Okay."
Janette Oke. Inspirational clean historical Christian American romance. I'm guessing that today I'd see the Christian propaganda for what it is and despise it, and the writing was not good writing. Active religious propaganda, as against ambiguous arguments for Meyer! And about the same level of toxic, restrictive sexism.
There was this one Oke book that I'd still love to write femslash fanfiction for, where the story was centred around a close, beautiful, lifelong friendship between two women and one of them was a Nice Christian Housewife and the other a Brilliant Atheist Scientist who eventually converted. (It was this one, cowritten with T. Davis Bunn.) But other than that... My memories are vague and coloured by nostalgia, but I'm pretty sure the books were terrible.
Relatedly, Francine Rivers was probably as bad in her own way, with her drippy melodramatic pure as purest snow Christian virgins and the bronzed warrior men who worship them. At least she was one of the first writers I read who openly wrote about lesbianism? (Francine Rivers: corruptor of my tender youth. Seriously, thanks for that aspect, Ms Rivers; it really inspired me in ways you probably didn't intend.) Also, the writing was pretty bad.
If I have to say one thing in praise for Oke as against Meyer, it's that Oke was extremely prolific. One admires a writer who's so dedicated--it's the same quality I admire in Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Anthony Trollope and Agatha Christie. It's not that 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is less great because it's the only published novel by that author, or that 'Kublai Khan' is a horrible poem because it's incomplete, but producing that amount of publishable work is pretty amazing.
I've tended to forget about Janette Oke, because the world is big and wide and because my tastes developed and I moved on. It's much easier to remember the good childhood books, like Margaret Mahy and LM Montgomery and Madeline L'Engle. But reading a little that is bad can give anyone a taste for reading a lot more that is good, later on.
Janette Oke. Inspirational clean historical Christian American romance. I'm guessing that today I'd see the Christian propaganda for what it is and despise it, and the writing was not good writing. Active religious propaganda, as against ambiguous arguments for Meyer! And about the same level of toxic, restrictive sexism.
There was this one Oke book that I'd still love to write femslash fanfiction for, where the story was centred around a close, beautiful, lifelong friendship between two women and one of them was a Nice Christian Housewife and the other a Brilliant Atheist Scientist who eventually converted. (It was this one, cowritten with T. Davis Bunn.) But other than that... My memories are vague and coloured by nostalgia, but I'm pretty sure the books were terrible.
Relatedly, Francine Rivers was probably as bad in her own way, with her drippy melodramatic pure as purest snow Christian virgins and the bronzed warrior men who worship them. At least she was one of the first writers I read who openly wrote about lesbianism? (Francine Rivers: corruptor of my tender youth. Seriously, thanks for that aspect, Ms Rivers; it really inspired me in ways you probably didn't intend.) Also, the writing was pretty bad.
If I have to say one thing in praise for Oke as against Meyer, it's that Oke was extremely prolific. One admires a writer who's so dedicated--it's the same quality I admire in Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Anthony Trollope and Agatha Christie. It's not that 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is less great because it's the only published novel by that author, or that 'Kublai Khan' is a horrible poem because it's incomplete, but producing that amount of publishable work is pretty amazing.
I've tended to forget about Janette Oke, because the world is big and wide and because my tastes developed and I moved on. It's much easier to remember the good childhood books, like Margaret Mahy and LM Montgomery and Madeline L'Engle. But reading a little that is bad can give anyone a taste for reading a lot more that is good, later on.
