Saturday, March 6, 2010

Planting a Flag

Our regular readers might have noticed the construction zone going on up at the top of our blog. We're tucking away some of the things that are weighing down the side bar into permanent pages--a mere hop, step and click away.

Betty Debbie (such a Martha when it comes to proper blog maintenance) had the idea of doing an Uncrushable Manifesto and making it a fixture under the header. So here it is:

Betty Keira and Betty Debbie (The Founding Bettys) for years traded Betty Neels books back and forth, chatted on the phone in a casual (read: obsessive) way after each read and pretty much existed on a tiny, tiny Betty Island all our very own. We developed our own language, ("I'm working on maths with Danny.", "I totted up my sums.", "I'm going to visit the loo.") and got along very nicely. Occasionally, Betty Tia would sail in on a cargo ship for a day or two but, generally speaking, we were alone. And then one day, one of us turned to the other and said, "Let's start a blog."

Originally, we kicked around the name Sole Bonne Femme and then Boeuf en Croute but we think it was Betty Tia who said, "You should call it The Uncrushable Jersey Dress." A blog was born.

Our original goals were modest. Review all the Betty books and enjoy ourselves and try not to talk about it too much in front of our not-yet-Betty sisters. Maybe, just maybe, our signal fire on the beach would catch a stray visitor but we knew better than reach for the moon. After all, this was a blog about Betty. And nobody we knew ever read Betty. And even if they did...would they know how to use 'computer'?

We tended the fire for several weeks before our very own Portuguese freighter chugged into the harbor. Betty Magdalen. "Someone reads us!" we squealed. We broke out the metaphorical bottles of bubbly and toasted our success. "A reader!...who is no relation!...who comments!" We had hit the big time. Had we "conquered the world one Betty Neels at a time"? Maybe not, but as The Great Betty might say, it was the thin end of the wedge.

So what are our goals going forward?
  • Betty Debbie wants one of our Betty dots to show up on every continent (all but Africa and Antarctica so far!**Since I wrote this we got a hit from South Africa so if anyone knows anyone going to Antarctica...) and in every state in the U.S. (we've hit 42 accidentally and otherwise). We've been in 26 countries and I'm pretty sure (because I've passed my A Levels) that there are more than that.

  • Betty Keira wants a reader from Saudi Arabia. Not for any particular reason except that it seems as good a high water mark for global ubiquity as any.**Since composing this blog we have had a ping from Saudi Arabia. One ping only.

  • We want to foster an affection for Betty Neels in the broader romance-genre readership so that people are no longer meek about waving their Betty flag wherever they go.

  • We want readers of The Uncrushable Jersey Dress to have as much fun nagging their friends and relatives to read Betty as we do.

  • World Domination--Betty Leagues, coordinated marches, national holidays, a police state (a small one--we wouldn't quibble about size)
The Founding Bettys approach the canon of Betty Neels with unabashed affection. Yes, our reviews are tart and border on the irreverent (our tongues firmly planted in our cheeks), but we salute The Venerable Neels' capacity to reinvent herself in her late 50s, work tirelessly until the end of her life and give readers a chaste romance in a publishing world that...went in another direction, shall we say.

And this last point leads me to discuss the place of Betty Neels in the larger romance-genre world. At the grocery store (yes, there are other places to pick up a paperback but for the purposes of discussion...) there is an aisle with mystery/law novels, and beyond that there are the thick romance books and the thin romance books--neither will be exactly...ahem...pure as the driven snow. Quality of writing and plot will vary greatly.

And then there's the book carousel by the check-out stand with "Inspirational" books. These will almost always be about people who have never heard of Brighton--much less been there. Along with all this rampant "pure as driven snow"-ness there will be lashings of moralism and, often a heavily religious tone. Now, this Betty Keira goes to church every week and reads her share of scripture and religious commentary but if there's one thing I can't stand it is Romantic-Religious fiction. Much like a marriage between a water buffalo and a giraffe, these strange bedfellows rarely work. (I'm making a gagging gesture and noises.)

One of the serious (not tongue in cheek) reasons I read Betty is that I can count on her to keep her characters well away from Brighton (which just isn't my thing--no pejorative for those who like the Brighton) without a trip through Sunday School. She aims her books somewhere between the carousel and the book aisle into a sort of retro no-man's-land (around the baking aisle) where far too few authors ever land.

This blog loves the no-man's-land. There I will plant my flag.

14 comments:

  1. Okay, I actually have a very distinct perspective on this, and it's this: The book has to work.

    At every level of uh, "Brighton-osity," a romance has two protagonists and an HEA. Every romance novel is probably classifiable in some sub-genre or other, but no reader has to love them all. If Brighton-less romances are your thing, there will still be good ones and not so good ones.

    Now, personally, I like Brighton. And I know that's okay here at The Uncrushable Jersey Dress because I behave with Betty-worthy decorum. And because I don't think it's necessary to argue for or against any sub-genre or degree of Brighton-osity.

    All I ask of any romance I read is that the characters make sense. I too read Betty Neels with tremendous affection and enjoyment; there are lots of things to mock, but she completely gets the job done. Her heroines are implausible, perhaps, but they are exactly right for their lives and loves. The heroes may not exist in the wild, but they are just what we would want for their heroines.

    In short, her books work.

    There's something else I've discovered because of this blog, even re-reading some of these books for the fourth and fifth time, and almost 40 years after some of them were first published: these books stand the test of time. Sure the clothes are a bit *cough* dated, and Betty Debbie has to dig deep to find an image of an AC 426 Fastback, but I'm finding Betty Neels as much fun to read now at 54 as I did when I was 14.

    So thank you all for taking this walk on the tamer side!

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  2. I totally agree with you about the "characters must make sense" dictum. All genres and sub-genres are pretty equally spotty--from trash to treasure (which is why they need fun writers like you, Betty Magdalen!) but the Neels I like most are the ones that make sense.

    Also, thanks for getting my point about Brighton. I'm not out to pit lovers of Brighton (this metaphor is becoming funner and funner) against the never-Brightons--but to salute Betty for being a particular niche in a market that too often ghetto-izes Brightonless authors into the Religious lit(gag) camp.

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  3. My friend, Sarah, has a lovely blog with reviews of books ranging from Scandinavian mysteries to romances that start in Brighton and barely even bother to ring for room service, that's how "into" Brighton they are.

    As part of a read-outside-your-comfort-zone, she read a historical romance from the "inspirational" sub-genre: A Bride in the Bargain. She really liked it and gave it a B.

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  4. Betty Keira has neglected to mention a religious fiction author that we both love. At times. Sadly, only at times.

    We do love us some Grace Livingston Hill. At times.
    Her work makes Betty Neels seem progressive and risque(Heroines that marry divorced men! No never in GLH's world!)

    We originally considered doing a dual blog - on both Betty and Grace...but GLH, while occasionally (and totally inadvertantly)hilarious, can get dreary pretty fast. She had some books that we really really love...and some that are just mind-numbingly dull and preachy.

    Betty Magdalen: I read the review for "A Bride in the Bargain"...it sounds fun, especially since my youngest son just finished a semester of Washington State History (which means I also finished a semester of WSH...)

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  5. In GLH, she considers dancing "fast". Still, interlarded with fainting heroines (they haven't eaten enough to stay alive), worldly uncles (their wealth has poisoned them), and smoking heathens (her descriptions of horror are enough to make me want to take up smoking in protest--and I actually have a specific religious dictum against such!) are some really great housekeeping/decorating/cooking obsessions.

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  6. I have no objection to Inspirational Romances and think they are very welcome as an alternative to racier Brighton tomes (for which I don't much care). Since they are almost always from a distinctly Protestant Christian perspective (with some exceptions), readers who do not prescribe to those beliefs probably are just not attracted. Betty's characters just accept church (and presumably its accompanying belief system) in a very matter-of-fact and natural way.

    I do think that Grace Livingston Hill books (perhaps the most gentle of all romances) should be in a bit of a different category--for me, quite lovely if taken in very sparing doses.

    The fun of Betty Neels books is that while the plot is essentially the same (sshhhh, never concede that openly), the written execution of said plot is very well done indeed (I'm channeling Mr. Knightley). In fact, there is a school of thought that the "biography" of Betty Neels is a huge greedy, grubby business major conspiracy and the books were secretly written by an Oxford don for fun.

    Ridiculous, you say? Did any of you Bettys out there ever actually meet Betty Neels? I'm just saying . . . .

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  7. Betty JoDee: Great! Now I have an image of a man in a black robe running through the quad, one hand hold his mortar board on his head, and the other clutching a package with the rough draft of his latest novel "Always and Forever Champagne and Roses in Candlelight"...

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  8. Oh my goodness! I used to have quite the collection of GLH romances when I was in high school. They do tend to make Betty Neels look progressive (I remember laughing myself silly at the idea of a square dance being a haven of sin in one book), but they can be fun in small doses.

    Personally, I read all over the Brighton scale, but as long as the story works and is well-written, I can enjoy it. Also, I loved reading about Countess Below Stairs on The Buttoned-Up Bodice just now. I adore that book!

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  9. I love love love Eva Ibbotson (but must admit that one of her more Brightonous books -- A Company of Swans -- is my fave).

    Has anyone other than me read Emilie Loring? I've kept one of hers, Swift Water, where the hero is a Protestant minister of some persuasion, and the heroine is a bit fast. (It was written in the 1920s when a lot of things were "fast.")

    I love the Oxford Don conspiracy. Will sic Betty Ross (University College, Oxford, matriculated 1978) onto that one.

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  10. Ooh, Betty Debbie & Betty Keira -- file this away. I was Googling to see if there's anything to Betty JoDee's theory about Betty Neels being a made-up person, etc., when I came across an acknowledgment page for the business history of Mills & Boon, Passion's Fortune. The author there thanks Betty Neels by her real name: Betty Meijer. Which suggests her daughter would be (or have been) Charlotte Meijer. (No luck Googling that, but I feel I made progress....)

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  11. Meijer?! My world is potentially rocked!

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  12. Challenge to all our Bettys: I drove today remarkably close to the general area where Betty used to live. Does anyone know her actual village? If so, we'll stop and take some photos.

    Oh, and I'm eating my Cream Teas for all of you! It's the very least I can do... :-)

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  13. In her own words, they found a hospital in need of a Senior Charge Nurse in Dorchester and then found their cottage on the same day. I haven't found anything more specific yet...I'll keep looking.

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  14. Oh, we drove right by Dorchester yesterday (it's the county seat for Dorset). I'm in her neck of the woods, I just know it.

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