Laura’s Reviews > An Academic Affair > Status Update

oh that sucks when it panders like that!

lyrewing wrote: "oh that sucks when it panders like that!"

Yes, especially when the main couple is two English Lit professors who, allegedly, have knock-down, drag out intellectual debates. But the thinking doesn't seem analytical or nuanced enough for a scholar character, and the author is clearly way too concerned with making the male lead so perfect that, far from debating her on any of these points thus far, he agrees and calls her brilliant. I was expecting some actual debates on these issues, or at least on some books, that would show them in a more interesting light, but alas.

Laura wrote: "lyrewing wrote: "oh that sucks when it panders like that!"

Yes, especially when the main couple is two English Lit professors who, allegedly, have knock-down, drag out intellectual debates. But th..."

way to make the characters seem empty-headed! and perfect male lead blergh! and that sounds like nlog-ing the female lead by calling her 'brilliant' for saying something like the 'sky is blue' except in bourdieu (although, idk what a bourdieu is 😂)

lyrewing wrote: "Laura wrote: "lyrewing wrote: "oh that sucks when it panders like that!"

Yes, especially when the main couple is two English Lit professors who, allegedly, have knock-down, drag out intellectual d..."

lol, understandable. Pierre Bourdieu is a sociologist most notable for writing a book called Distinction that maps out how our "taste cultures" aka what we culturally think of as in good taste or bad taste, "low brow" or "high brow," was actually far more indicative of class status than any sort of inherent "better" quality - i.e. those things clearly aimed at the lower classes because they were cheaper, more accessible, etc. immediately then got slotted into "not quality" and therefore not worthy of things like academic analysis, reviews by top critics in newspapers, etc. Subsequent scholars then expanded on the idea to show how this also includes gender and race - things aimed at primarily female audiences (like, say, romance) and/or people of color also often immediately gets lumped into the "low brow" category.

This was an incredibly important, foundational idea for all of us who study "popular" forms of media/art (as both I and the main character of this book do/did). However, it's also something you learn in like, your first semester of grad school. Bourdieu also wrote the book in 1979, so we've had almost 50 years of building on the idea to make it more complex and consider the ways it does or does not still map to current pop culture.

But the way it's written here, it feels pitched towards letting the BookTok crowd (who are actively mentioned here multiple times) pat themselves on the back, rather than really analyzing the current popularity of romance in the mainstream in any sort of nuanced way, which if the book insists on going meta and having the main character be a scholar who writes about romance novels, would at least feel more in-character.

Sorry if you did not want a mini lesson on Bourdieu, but hopefully now you feel fully informed on my sick academic burn.

Laura wrote: "lyrewing wrote: "Laura wrote: "lyrewing wrote: "oh that sucks when it panders like that!"

Yes, especially when the main couple is two English Lit professors who, allegedly, have knock-down, drag o..."

consider me fully-informed on sick academic burn [chortling]! i sort-of knew how historically, female novelists were not valued as much and i think some of the most famous ones originally wrote under a male pseud? but back to this cr- i canNOT believe that there is self-insert of the booktok crowd in this cr [facepalm] yk when that happens you're reading Real Literature (but also ik how painful that is to someone like you who actually knows wtf this bourdieu biz is about). i always feel second-hand embarrassment when the romance novel is about a romance novelist- it's very cringe to me. i think i just dnf'd a hr today called 'honorably engaged' for just the same reason! i don't read romance novels to be taught how to read romance novels, or to 'understand' the writer better- it feels like being condescended to unless the writer is very good at writing and i don't think i've found a writer who is THAT GOOD and i include my faves in that opinion.