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The smart women fantasising about dragon sex · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian, this is the weekend edition of The Front.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. It's been over a decade since we
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  Speaker 1: were told books were going the way of the VHS.
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  Speaker 1: But this week, bookshops from local indies all the way
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  Speaker 1: to Target saw thousands of readers pack midnight release parties
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  Speaker 1: for A Court of Splintered Harmony. That's the sixth instalment
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  Speaker 1: in Sarah J. Maas' series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, ACOTAR.
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  Speaker 1: Maas writes Romantasy, and with 75 million books sold worldwide,
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  Speaker 1: she's become the genre's undisputed queen. Romantasy is now the
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  Speaker 1: biggest book genre in the world. Tens of millions of
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  Speaker 1: physical books, revenue tracking towards $ 40 billion per annum. But why?
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  Speaker 1: The plots are kind of silly. There's a lot of sex,
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  Speaker 1: but it involves dragons. I can't think of anyone better
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  Speaker 1: qualified to answer than one of Australia's most successful journalists,
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  Speaker 1: a beloved columnist with The Australian and the author of
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  Speaker 1: a stack of books, Matthew Condon.
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  Speaker 2: Romantic-y is my favourite.
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  Speaker 1: Fantasy, romantic-y. Romantic-y. I love romantic-y! Matt, you're what I
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  Speaker 1: would call a serious novelist among many of your other talents.
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  Speaker 1: I really wonder now that romantic-y is taking off, do
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  Speaker 1: you regret not having got some dragons and fairies into
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  Speaker 1: some of your books?
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  Speaker 2: That's such a good but painful question, Claire, because having
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  Speaker 2: researched this genre... I'm thinking, how did the train leave
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  Speaker 2: the station without me all those years ago? I mean,
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  Speaker 2: tens of millions of copies, billions of dollars in revenue.
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  Speaker 2: It is an absolute phenomenon.
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  Speaker 1: Publishers have found a rare kind of customer, one willing
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  Speaker 1: to buy the same story again and again, and big
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  Speaker 1: brands see an opportunity in that too.
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  Speaker 2: I have 17 different editions of Fourth Wing.
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  Speaker 1: All I have to say is that I am overconsumption's
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  Speaker 1: final boss.
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  Speaker 2: Culturally, it has become a genuine phenomenon. It's discussed all
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  Speaker 2: over the world at festivals, academic symposiums. You know, it's
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  Speaker 2: the real deal. And it was just fascinating, of course,
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  Speaker 2: sad and regretful that I didn't cotton onto this at all. But,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I'm that sort of reader too, and this
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  Speaker 2: is not being critical of romanticism, but, you know, the
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  Speaker 2: first appearance of a dragon, even the corner of a
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  Speaker 2: wing of a dragon, and I'm out.
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  Speaker 1: Amazing thing to see.
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  Speaker 3: People thought dragons were gone forever, but here they are.
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  Speaker 3: Perhaps we should all be examining what we think we know.
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  Speaker 1: I really wanted to be in on Game of Thrones
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  Speaker 1: when everybody else was in on it, but my husband
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  Speaker 1: and I sat down to watch the first episode. Not
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  Speaker 1: far into it, I think a crow starts talking and
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  Speaker 1: he was just like, no, we're back on the rugby league.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not that harsh.
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  Speaker 1: I mean.
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  Speaker 2: I can abide by a talkative crow. And I thought
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  Speaker 2: Game of Thrones was terrific because the dragons were tolerable
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  Speaker 2: because the human drama was so incredible. I mean, it
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  Speaker 2: was Shakespearean, it was revenge, it was love, empires fighting
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  Speaker 2: against each other. I get all of that. But then
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  Speaker 2: when you meld fantasy with romance and you get romantasy,
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  Speaker 2: you know, there has to be, and there is, a
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  Speaker 2: reason why it is so huge because It's meeting a moment,
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  Speaker 2: I think, in terms of where we're falling down societally
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  Speaker 2: and culturally. There's something missing that this genre is providing
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  Speaker 2: to people.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, is it porn? You know, is it porn
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  Speaker 1: in written form for women who want to be able
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  Speaker 1: to consume it on the train? Because I read a
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  Speaker 1: quote from someone saying, I'm a lady, I read my porn.
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  Speaker 3: Rune Dannen knew three things with absolute certainty. One... He
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  Speaker 3: had smoked so much mirthroot that he couldn't feel his face,
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  Speaker 3: which was a damn shame because there was a female
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  Speaker 3: currently sitting on it. He hadn't even undressed before going
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  Speaker 3: to town on the sweet fawn who'd shyly approached him
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  Speaker 3: at the beer pong table.
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  Speaker 2: Is it porn? Well, I mean, the New York Times
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  Speaker 2: called it the smut renaissance. It's been around forever, romance.
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  Speaker 2: But the romance books have always been ones that you
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  Speaker 2: sort of, you know, hid the covers on the trains
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  Speaker 2: and the trams because the old notion was, you know,
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  Speaker 2: look at that poor woman having to get her kicks
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  Speaker 2: out of some invented relationship book, you know. It is
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  Speaker 2: now completely in the open. And in terms of smut
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  Speaker 2: or porn, I mean, I went to a romanticist book
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  Speaker 2: club as research for this story. And there was an
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  Speaker 2: enormous amount of debate about the level of, and they
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  Speaker 2: all used the phrase, the level of spiciness in the novels.
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  Speaker 2: And they were debating whether, do you think that's got
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  Speaker 2: too much spice? Has that got too little spice? And indeed,
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  Speaker 2: they argued and debated about the importance of having literal
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  Speaker 2: R-rated classifications on the backs of these books, because some
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  Speaker 2: of them are incredibly spicy. And available for, you know,
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  Speaker 2: younger children that can wander into Big W and pick
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  Speaker 2: up a romantic-y slap-bang porn tract, you know, basically. And
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  Speaker 2: there are some books that are starting to have little
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  Speaker 2: R ratings like films or et cetera and classifications on
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  Speaker 2: them because they're very spicy, some of them. Yes.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want to make fun of it either, Matt,
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  Speaker 1: and I think it's important for us to kind of
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  Speaker 1: consider this seriously. But just before we move on, the plots, though, are...
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  Speaker 1: absolutely ridiculous. I mean, I suppose as the plot of
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  Speaker 1: The Hobbit is pretty ridiculous or the plot of The Lion,
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  Speaker 1: the Witch and the Wardrobe is ridiculous. But the addition
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  Speaker 1: of sex kind of really brings it into sharp relief.
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  Speaker 1: Like Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarris, one of the seminal
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  Speaker 1: works of romance, no pun intended, is about a physically
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  Speaker 1: fragile young woman who goes to dragon rider training school
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  Speaker 1: and then has to deal with the other cadets and
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  Speaker 1: conquer the mysterious trainer who is really mean to her.
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  Speaker 1: You know, that is the plot of a children's book, really,
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  Speaker 1: I would think, but with the addition of sex. So
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  Speaker 1: what is it about these plots that we would normally
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  Speaker 1: associate with works intended for very young people? You know,
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  Speaker 1: why are they so appealing to adult women, do you think?
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  Speaker 2: This was, again, brought up repeatedly in my book club
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  Speaker 2: session that I had here in Brisbane with a bunch
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  Speaker 2: of Romanesie fans, and they did talk about Plotline and
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  Speaker 2: and how, you know, I didn't like that book because
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  Speaker 2: it was too much for little kids, but this one
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  Speaker 2: was more mature. And so they are aware that the
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  Speaker 2: plot lines are, you know, can enter into sort of
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  Speaker 2: a young fiction realm. But what all of them, bar none,
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  Speaker 2: were looking for in these novels was, if it was
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  Speaker 2: a female protagonist, the relationship with the male hero. This
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  Speaker 2: is the old-fashioned classic girl meets boy or in the
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  Speaker 2: 21st century, of course, girl meets whatever chosen partner that
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  Speaker 2: fits your life. But in essence, it's an age-old plot
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  Speaker 2: and the plot they care about, no matter how much
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  Speaker 2: it is wrapped in implausible invention, is the possibility of love, romance, security,
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  Speaker 2: great sex, care, togetherness, the classic love plot. And all
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  Speaker 2: of these books have that common steel beam, if you like,
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  Speaker 2: going through the plot line.
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  Speaker 1: Literary Review, the British publication, used to do a fantastic
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  Speaker 1: annual award, which was the Bad Sex in Literature Award.
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  Speaker 1: And it was a hilarious kind of skewering of very
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  Speaker 1: serious literary fiction types and authors of more popular books.
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  Speaker 1: who would write about sex really badly.
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  Speaker 4: A bad sex scene in literature could look something like this.
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  Speaker 4: Like a furious matador. He thrust his throbbing member into
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  Speaker 4: her desperate yearning flower. Oh God, she cried. She was
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  Speaker 4: a locked door begging to be opened. And he was
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  Speaker 4: the locksmith. of her dreams.
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  Speaker 1: So un-erotic, you know, absolutely nothing to get your pulse racing.
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  Speaker 1: Is that part of the difference? Do you think that
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  Speaker 1: the sex is, even though, you know, one of the
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  Speaker 1: partners in the sexual encounter might be an elf, that
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  Speaker 1: the sex is, you know, is actually titillating?
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  Speaker 2: Just let me recover from the thought of elf and sex.
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  Speaker 1: Look, I mean, who's going to argue? Have you seen
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  Speaker 1: Orlando Bloom in The Lord of the Rings?
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  Speaker 3: I mean.
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  Speaker 2: I.
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  Speaker 3: Thought I'd die fighting side by side with an elf.
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  Speaker 1: What about side by side with a frat? I.
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  Speaker 2: I could do that. There are several things happening here.
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  Speaker 2: One is I think there is a great renaissance happening,
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  Speaker 2: not just in great sex writing or sexual writing, if
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  Speaker 2: you like, but it's translating into television, into Netflix series.
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  Speaker 2: The Hot and Bothered is all happening at the moment and,
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  Speaker 2: you know, full male frontal nudity. And I think we're
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  Speaker 2: in a moment where, you know, the gears are changing
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  Speaker 2: very loudly and a lot of this stuff is all
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  Speaker 2: feeding into the same zeitgeist. What interests me though, too,
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  Speaker 2: is that underneath the titillation and potential allure of eroticism
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  Speaker 2: is some genuine shifts as well in terms of interpersonal
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  Speaker 2: relationships that are now spilling into the public arena in
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  Speaker 2: a very big way. And that is like in researching
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  Speaker 2: the story, you know, I came across a phrase that
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  Speaker 2: I'd never heard before. There's two versions of this phrase. It's, um,
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  Speaker 2: called hetero-fatalism or hetero-pessimism. And that is the moment whereby
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  Speaker 2: the classic age-old relationship paradigm of one person and another, male-female, male-male, female-female, whatever,
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  Speaker 2: the paradigm of the relationship, in particular female-male, is failing
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  Speaker 2: and that it is failing young women and and that
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  Speaker 2: they are pessimistic about their futures. They are disappointed in
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  Speaker 2: the young men of their generation, and they're turning somewhere else.
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  Speaker 2: And at the moment, they're turning to romanticism for solace, empowerment,
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  Speaker 2: and stories of relationships that they indeed would like to
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  Speaker 2: be a part of. That's what they thought their life
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  Speaker 2: would be.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, how Harry Potter, Twilight and the Hunger Games
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  Speaker 1: paved the way for romanticy and saved the book industry.
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  Speaker 3: You tired?
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  Speaker 1: Do you want.
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  Speaker 3: To go for a swim?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that sounds nice.
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  Speaker 1: I could use a few human minutes.
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  Speaker 3: Don't take too long, Mrs Cullen.
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  Speaker 1: These millennial women who were buying these books, they discovered
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  Speaker 1: reading through Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, these blockbuster
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  Speaker 1: series that came out starting from 1997 when the first
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  Speaker 1: Harry Potter book was released. They kind of saved publishing,
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  Speaker 1: didn't they? Those books, I mean, J.K. Rowling and the
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  Speaker 1: people who wrote those other series have saved publishing from
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  Speaker 1: what a lot of people thought was doom.
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  Speaker 2: There is no question about that. And it's right to
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  Speaker 2: argue that the romanticist phenomenon is a natural, progressive, raunchier
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  Speaker 2: extension of the Harry Potter phenomenon.
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  Speaker 3: You're a really good teacher, Harry.
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  Speaker 1: Probably full of nargles, though.
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  Speaker 3: What are nargles? I've no idea.
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  Speaker 2: There are many similarities in terms of tweaking with genre,
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  Speaker 2: with fantasy. As we discussed, having dragons and elves wrapped
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  Speaker 2: around the very primal stories that have driven humankind forever.
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  Speaker 2: There's only about half a dozen. And they don't go away,
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  Speaker 2: but it's the wrapping that changes. Mm. to suit a
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  Speaker 2: cultural moment. And the cultural moment at the moment is
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  Speaker 2: where tens of millions of people, primarily women, are reaching
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  Speaker 2: for these books. Because I think, certainly in a microcosm,
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  Speaker 2: as they expressed to me for this story that I wrote,
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  Speaker 2: life and love is not enough. They're exhausted by dating
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  Speaker 2: apps and disappointment. They were telling stories about you know,
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  Speaker 2: men trying to indicate that they were attracted to them
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  Speaker 2: on social media. And one of these women at the
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  Speaker 2: book club said, well, why can't they be like this
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  Speaker 2: character in this novel and just come up to me
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  Speaker 2: in person and tell me to my face this is
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  Speaker 2: what they feel? You know, again, contributing to this is
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  Speaker 2: the de-socialisation of human beings via social media, and that's
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  Speaker 2: coming in as well, providing barriers and walls to for
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  Speaker 2: people to do what they've done forever, and that is
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  Speaker 2: to meet each other and look each other in the
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  Speaker 2: eye and talk. And I think the grasping for this
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  Speaker 2: genre is a reflection of a lot of things that
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  Speaker 2: aren't working for people at the moment. And they're trying
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  Speaker 2: to grab a monkey bar for some senility, security, and hope, basically.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Matt, I look forward to your next book being something,
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  Speaker 1: something and fury. Thank you very much.
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  Speaker 2: My pleasure. Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Matthew Condon is an author, journalist and regular columnist at
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  Speaker 1: The Australian. There's a link to his feature in our
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  Speaker 1: show notes. You can read his work anytime at theaustralian.com.au.
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  Speaker 1: This episode of The Front was hosted by me, Claire Harvey,
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  Speaker 1: and produced by Jasper Leake. Our team also includes Kristen Amiott,
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  Speaker 1: Liat Samaglou, Tiffany Dimak and Joshua Burton.