Noah Berlatsky calls for the creation of a “romance canon,” arguing that “the genre is so culturally maligned that there has been no concerted effort to codify it”:
I’ve poked around online to find “best of” lists or other recommendations, but it soon became clear that
there wasn’t even a provisional consensus on which books were the best or essential romance novels. Jane Austen showed up consistently, as did Gone With the Wind, but there was nothing that gave me a sense that certain books were clearly central, or respected, or worth reading. The genre is so culturally maligned that there has been no concerted effort to codify it. There is, in short, no romance canon.
I’ve always been a little leery of canons. Listing the “best” books or movies or music is always going to be an arbitrary, not to mention hubristic, endeavor. … Looking around desperately and in vain for some sort of consensus “best of” lists for romance novels, though, I realized that such lists are, or can be, unexpectedly important. Canons are a way to solidify, or demonstrate, critical bona fides. Pop music and comics may not have the same cachet as great novels or gallery art, but institutionally codifying the “greatest” is an important way to assert that there is a “greatest” – that there is some group of experts who considers these works in particular, and the genre or medium in general, to be capable of greatness. Romance novels don’t have that.
(Image: From Berlatsky’s list of canon contenders)
The Dish 