/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21880497]

Romances? I'm very tired of the cheating, abusive and otherwise horrible "relationships" most books seem to be spewing out nowadays. Anyone got and comfy romance recommendations? Preferably old Regency era books like Pride and prejudice but open to anything.

[Anonymous No.21880642]

Sense and Sensibility

[Anonymous No.21880784]

>>21880497
Just read manga instead if that's all you're looking for. I recommend Kaoru Mori's works Emma and Otoyomegatari for starters.

[Anonymous No.21881048]

>>21880497
Bump out of interest. Never really thought about looking for this in books. Comfy romance doesn't seem to be a common thing in literature. There are plenty of movies from between 1930-1960 about wholesome relationships because strict censorship made it so they couldn't show stuff like adultery or pre-marital sex, but for literature the only example I can think of off the top of my head is Konstantin Levin's relationship in Anna Karenina. Even then you have to read about a bunch of broken relationships to get to it.

[Anonymous No.21881351]

>>21880497
John Adams by David McCullough, it great biography and the retionship between him and his wife was beautiful. if you have time, I also recommend the miniseries

[Anonymous No.21881998]

>>21880497
>Preferably old Regency era books like Pride and prejudice
Ew, that leaves out the cheating for the most part but horrible no doubt. A couple of twisted creeps fall for each other and it looks like everything will be roses forever because they're rich and only have known each other for a couple of months and never in a genuinely intimate context.
Every bit as repulsive, but with a different polarity.

[Anonymous No.21882085]

>>21880497
here's some wuxia danmei
Heaven Official's Blessing
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

[Anonymous No.21882089]

the only wholesome one ive actually read is mishima's sound of waves, actually quite comfy and with a solid moral message and happy romance

[Anonymous No.21882184]

>>21880497
Skip all the vanilla bullshit and read Jane Eyre.
Also Murakami always makes me blush

[Anonymous No.21882831]

>>21880784
Don't listen to this weeb nigger

[Anonymous No.21883073]

>>21880497
>Romances? I'm very tired of the cheating, abusive and otherwise horrible "relationships"
women arent faithful, you have to accept that

the difference is that women are inherently sexual perverts. Men don't like sex, men like the competition before and during sex and to see a girl orgasming due to their dicks, and for the atheists due to their tongues. Ie men love the competition and having a direct influence on the world. men dont love sex at all . It's only women who are hedonistic and sex cravings machines coasting thru life thanks to their orbiters

[Anonymous No.21883080]

[Anonymous No.21883172]

>>21882831
>implying there's a difference between novels and manga when it comes to genre fiction

[Anonymous No.21883202]

>>21883073
Nigga wut?

[Anonymouṡ No.21883432]

>>21880497


>I'm very tired of the cheating, abusive and otherwise horrible "relationships" most books seem to be spewing out nowadays.
I have posted several times that a society which finds it impossible to tell "boy meets girl" without sneering or sabotaging it is in serious trouble. That's where we are right now. It's no coincidence that two popular candidates for "Great American Novel" (Moby-Dick and Blood Meridian) exist almost entirely in women-free universes. The two sexes are entirely estranged. It's not just those two either. Go further afield with "serious" writers from the past hundred years. Who's giving us couples living happily ever after? Houellebecq? William Golding? Updike? Philip Roth? Samuel Beckett? It just doesn't happen.

Some people say "well, of course serious art doesn't portray anyone with any virtue or sexual continence and doesn't have the main couple getting married and living happily ever after". But that's complete bollocks. It used to; it just doesn't now.

Northrop Frye in Anatomy Of Criticism suggests that societies go in big cycles, and we're currently in the "winter" (ironic) cycle, where nothing healthy can flourish. A bit reminiscent of Spengler. There's something in it, I guess. (I could say more but you'd tell me to go back to /pol/).

The sad thing is that people really want this story. Of course they do: it's essential emotional nourishment. But the "serious" artists have given up supplying it. If you find it anywhere these days it's in the trash (Mills & Boon, etc).


>Anyone got any comfy romance recommendations? Preferably old Regency era books like Pride and prejudice but open to anything.
Correct approach. The answer is to read old books. (Which you should be doing anyway. Never read new books. Well, almost never.)


——— A FEW COMFY BOOKS WHERE BOY MEETS GIRL


Taking Pride & Prejudice as a starting point:

— Northanger Abbey
Lightweight but quite fun and Catherine Morland is easy to like. Caveat: the actual getting together only really happens after the end of the book. It is implied, so you get the aforementioned emotional nourishment, but perhaps more subtly than you want.

Venturing afield:

— Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
So good you'd swear it was written by a man. OK, I admit, not obviously comfy, but the ending is upbeat. Catherine & Heathcliff don't live happily ever after, but the next generation are going to. It's comfy in a strenuous, bracing way, like a good gym session. Ignore this if you want.

— Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
Could only ever have been written by a woman, but it's still pretty good.

— Lorna Doone (R.D. Blackmore)
Women like this (or used to) but men need feel no shame reading it. It was voted 'favourite novel' by men at Harvard in 1906, I believe, and their testosterone level was twice yours.


[1/2]

[Anonymouṡ No.21883437]

>>21883432

— The Rivals (R. B. Sheridan)
If it's Regency you want, why not try a Regency stage play? Only takes seven seconds to read so even if you don't like it you didn't waste much time. Fairly flippant, but the boy gets the girl, and most of the jokes still land in 2020.

— As You Like It (William Shakespeare)
Sticking with the stage. Romeo & Juliet, while comfy in some ways, doesn't end happily. As You Like It is comfy and DOES end happily. Everyone likes Rosalind. And Orlando is a fine fellow, even though he does write 'poetry' which is even worse than the poetry in /lit/ poetry threads.

— The Far Pavillions (M. M. Kaye)
Some people on /lit/ are going to frown disapprovingly because it's 'white boy meets indian girl'. But the parties involved do not behave like filthy degenerate sewer-rats, which is what you're after. Also it avoids WHITE PEOPLE BAD which is sort of baked into the DNA of any present-day book with a similar setting.

— Precious Bane (Mary Webb)
Like Jane Eyre, it's a novel written by a woman told in first person with a female protagonist. That might be too much femininity for you, but then again it might not be. (Just to warn you, here's the premise: MC Is A Young Women With A Hare-Lip But Beauty of Character. Will Any Man Ever Look Past Her Deformity?)

— David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
Comfy if you like your romance slow and you're prepared to put up with a hero who marries the right girl only after he's tried the wrong one.

— Far From The Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy)
Comfy if you like your romance slow and rural and you're prepared to put up with a heroine who does the right thing only after having tried LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE.


There's a lot of lightish genre adventure stuff which has a reasonably comfy boy-meets-girl plot woven in. For example:


* If you can stomach another female author writing a female protagonist in first person:

— The Moonspinners (Mary Stewart)
Basically a cheery 'we stumbled on a murder and now the murderers are after us' yarn plus romance. Also it's in Greece so you get lots of sunshine, which is nice.


* If you can't:

— Shooting Script (Gavin Lyall)
Hero is a free-lance commercial pilot in the Carribbean. A John Wayne / Clint Eastwood type arrives planning to make a film there; meanwhile there's a revolution brewing. OK, it's 85% adventure and 15% romance but the people we're rooting for behave honourably and the ending isn't wretchedly miserable and that's all we ask of life. I never hear Gavin Lyall mentioned on /lit/ but I found this a very comfy read. The climax is a cool bombing run where they don't have any bombs but they make do.


[2/2]

[Anonymous No.21883538]

>>21883432
quality response, you saved the thread. do you have any quality, wholesome, romance in a more modern setting? steering away from the "pride and prejudice" setting

[Anonymous No.21883558]

let me guess you think women are pure

[Anonymous No.21883565]

>>21883432
>>21883437
Holy shit guys, come check out there based responses. Thanks librarian anon.

[Anonymous No.21883625]

>>21883565
Disregard wuthering heights the whole thing is about a dysfunctional relationship. The only highlights are some of the prose. It’s so histrionic and retarded though I wanted the characters to just drop dead suddenly.

[Anonymous No.21883629]

>>21883558
let me guess you believe in virginity and only males are allowed their erections

[Anonymous No.21883641]

>>21883629
… you are a coomer

[Anonymous No.21883739]

>>21883641
You are a moron at odds with your own body.

[Anonymous No.21883835]

>>21883073
you're losing it brother, come back to the light

[Anonymous No.21883857]

>>21883080
Yes they should because as partners increase pair-bonding decreases and the chances of an unsuccessful relationship go up. So insofar as a man isn't looking for an unsuccessful relationship, he probably should worry about bodycount.