Ten Things I Love About You: The Significance of Sebastian Grey

Lest you think that romance novels are not worthy of academic study, here is Professor Eric Selinger from DePaul University on the romance novel-writing hero of Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn.

Professor Selinger says:

I’ve read a lot of novels where the heroine is a novelist, often as a way to let the author explore the history or the aesthetics of romance fiction.  Quinn does that through Sebastian, but also something new, by having her novelist character be the hero, not the heroine. Sebastian begins writing because he is suffering from the effects of war, he’s unable to sleep and writing helps—specifically, writing about women. He’s a male character working through trauma by putting himself in a woman’s point of view.

Sebastian’s novels ARE love stories, but we don’t read about that part of their plots very much.  What we hear is more about the resilience of his heroines. They overcomes obstacle after obstacle—and though Quinn plays this for comedy, Sebastian’s books seem all about women’s resilience and triumph over adversity. This suggests that Sebastian is not one of those writers in love with the idea of love, but that he can genuinely identify with women. It shows his emotional sympathy. In a very personal sense, he’s a feminist:  he likes women, he’s comfortable with them, he admires them for their flair and strength, as well as their beauty.  He notices some of the same things about Annabel that all the other men do—her round, sensual figure, for example—but he sees much more as well, and part of that insight seems to come from his writing, or at least to be strengthened and deepened by it.  

There’s a line when Annabel says “you’re an easy man to love, Sebastian Gray,” and I thought you know, it’s true. He’s a good guy! He has an interesting mix of traits I haven’t seen before in romantic fiction, and so does Annabel.  That’s part of what makes them such a good fit as a couple.

Annabel isn’t giddy over the novels. She likes some parts, doesn’t like others, and that’s part of the fun of these two together. She gets to say things about his work that critics have said about the prose in romance fiction for ages, like “it has too many adjectives.”  Wonderful to hear that coming from a female character, and to see the man who loves his adjectives bristle a bit at the editing.

Quinn could have easily made the story hinge on the revelation of Sebastian’s identity, or of the money he’s earned as a novelist. But she doesn’t. It almost comes as an afterthought—part of their private life as a couple, not their public life in the ton or out on the marriage mart. And that’s what makes their marriage seem like a true love match.

There’s this idea that male writers and readers are not interested in romantic love, and there’s a lot of pressure on adolescent boys (and even younger ones) that tells them this isn’t a subject men care about.  A hundred years ago, this wasn’t the case—and the farther back you look, the odder this notion seems.  Even in modernist literature there are plenty of male authors deeply invested in love:  Neruda, Montale, all the Surrealists, William Carlos Williams…  Since the 1980s I’ve noticed more and more insistence in American society that men and women are radically different–from Mars and Venus, we’re told.  I don’t buy it, in part because I know that it wasn’t always this way.

Eric Murphy Selinger is an Associate Professor of English at DePaul University, where he teaches courses on modern poetry and popular romance fiction. He is the Executive Editor of the Journal of Popular Romance studies; and his books include What Is It Then Between Us? Traditions of Love in American Poetry and the edited collection New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction, forthcoming from McFarland Press. He was one of the organizers of last April’s Princeton University conference on Romance Fiction and American Culture, and of the first international conference on popular romance studies, held in Brisbane, Australia, last August.