Why is the Romance Gone?

What’s that saying, “Whatever happened to romance?”

I ask because in the past few months, I’ve read several novels –– the majority being teen fantasy (What? I like it) –– and I’m shocked at the lack of romance. Astounded, really. Flabbergasted.

Sure, there are a few of the novels I’ve read which have romantic subplots. I’m also reading a very specific genre, and I have not read that many books. However, and I could be utterly wrong, even with the little bit of romance in this handful of novels I’ve read, something is missing.

The romance is missing.

Actually, what I’ve read shouldn’t even be classified as “romance” because there’s no real romance in these stories.

There are several things I could pontificate: the sociological influences of culture on literature, emphasising the decline in the marriage rate; the need for authors to make appealing fiction to a specific audience; the etymology of the very word “romance”. But I won’t.

Rather, I’m going to discuss one facet to this multi-angled problem: I want romance.

(Now I don’t mean this in a vicarious sense of escapism, that poor, single me uses reading to feed my selfish desires for my lack of a love life. False. What I mean is –– literally –– I want to read romance.)

Again this could all be my own fault by looking for romance within teen fantasy literature. If I’m wanting romance, shouldn’t I be reading that genre? Well, yes, you’re absolutely correct. Only it’s not merely romance I’m wanting.

I want fairy tales. I want hope. I want battles where good triumphs over evil. I want the clichés, the gimmicks, the familiar, the age old formula. I want “Once upon a times” to end in “happily ever afters”.

You’d think I’d find those in the fantasy literature. Wrong.

What I find is a bunch of complicated plots, messy relationships, and characters lacking in development. I find stories devoid of the one ingredient which completes the plot: hope.

“Oh, but it’s more realistic that way. It’s easier to relate to. It’s what people want, stories like their own broken lives.” I get it. Believe me. (See previous sociological influences comment.) We live in a postmodern world, and it’s effected us, permeated our very psyches, we don’t even realise how little hope is in the stories we tell our children now.

Hope that there is good [Mr. Frodo], and it’s worth fighting for.

What happened to those stories? What happened to those romances? What happened to our hope?

Heck, forget fairy tales. What about authors like Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë? They were writing modern fiction for the women of their era. Where are those authors for us?

Have we women in our fight for equality lost our inherent desires because we’re sick and tired of being treated as a negative other to man’s superiority complex? Have men also lost their sense of male initiative, of integrity, of honour, of chivalry? Have these losses so changed our perspectives, we’ve adapted to survive, our culture evolving with us, that we do not even realise how drastic these changes and their consequences are?

Am I the only one who feels this way, and thus just rambling, allowing exhaustion to dictate nonsense? I don’t know. Maybe.

What then should I be reading? If you’re reading this and sympathise, but have read something you would classify as what I’m describing, let me know in the comments below! Please!

I’ll just conclude this incoherent spiel with saying it’s not just me who wants romance. I think we all do, otherwise we wouldn’t be looking for it. But then we need to ask ourselves, what is romance?

For now, though, maybe I’ll just settle with what I think is the obvious answer: the romance we’re looking for isn’t out there. Thus, like C.S. Lewis said to J.R.R. Tolkien (or vice versa), “We must then write our own stories.”