Post by tomwilliams on Apr 2, 2012 11:08:17 GMT -5
Bridget Jones's Diary marked a new age of acceptance for chick lit. With its knowing references to Jane Austen, it made no apologies for itself. It was funny, sassy and well written. It raised the bar. Chick lit novels can now be taken as seriously as any other genre.
The essence of the romantic novel is that two couples overcome the obstacles to their love and ultimately realise that they are meant for each other and live happily ever after. The reader, unless very naive, will soon realise who is going to fall in love with whom and that all will end well. The drama comes from the nature of the obstacles to true love and the way in which they are overcome. In Jennifer Probst's The Marriage Bargain, the couple, Alexa and Nicholas, have known each other since they were children. Nicholas had stolen a kiss from Alexa when she was just 16. Now 30, he has been left a bequest on condition that he marries. His own unhappy childhood has convinced him that he could never be a satisfactory husband and father, so he looks for a woman who is prepared to marry him and remain married for one year with a clear understanding that this is a business relationship. In order to keep things straightforward, the bargain includes an agreement that they will not have sex. Alexa desperately needs $150,000 to pay her parents' debts and save their family home. Nicholas offers her the money, on condition that she enters into the sham marriage.
Although some authors might be able to keep the plot bowling along frothily enough to glide over some of the more obvious implausibilities, Jennifer Probst doesn't really have the lightness of touch needed to do this. If the marriage is completely a sham, why do they have to live together? Why does Alexa have to convince her parents that the marriage is for real, when she will have to explain to them in just 12 months that she and her beloved are getting divorced?
The biggest problem, though, is that, from the first, the reader is told that Alexa and Nicholas are hugely sexually attracted to each other. Alexa knows that she wants Nicholas, but cannot believe that he wants her – despite the fact that he seems almost unhealthily priapic whenever they are alone together. Nicholas wants Alexa, but has convinced himself that she is just doing this for the money and is therefore a heartless gold-digger, who could never love him.
There is room to get some interesting character development here. Nicholas can't believe Alexa loves him because his own father's rejection of him makes him feel essentially unlovable. This makes him act in a way that convinces Alexa that he does not love her.
Unfortunately, we are not allowed to explore these aspects of the main characters' personalities. We are just told (repeatedly) that he lusts after her and that she lusts after him. Later, we meet his father and the roots of his relationship issues are spelled out, but there is no subtlety in any of this. For example, early on in the story, as he finds "a dangerous longing" inside him, Probst writes: "He quickly squashed the emotion, but the idea that he still retained some sick ray of hope for a normal family history pissed him off." We see no exploration of his inner conflict or how he seeks to resolve it, just a blunt statement from the author.
With no psychological depth and no real conflict to overcome, the story meanders lazily through clichés of the romance drama. He's a billionaire and his luxury lifestyle, beautiful house and lovely clothes are all described in gushing detail. She runs a bookstore and writes poetry and collects stray dogs. She's beautiful, of course, and at regular intervals each will drool over the other. A word count suggests that he is fixated on her nipples and she on his butt, although raven tresses, golden chest hair, athletic legs, full breasts etc etc, are all duly recorded.
As a superficial story of two beautiful people making beautiful love in beautiful places, this passes a couple of hours quite satisfactorily. The characters are pleasant enough and you feel some sympathy for their problems. Jennifer Probst's prose is easy to read and there are moments of humour as the story moves smoothly, if predictably, toward its conclusion. In the end, though, Probst lets herself down. Having provided the family background her characters need to explain their motivations, she doesn't explore it in any depth. The days when chick lit meant Mills and Boon are long gone. Authors from Sophie Kinsella (Shopaholic) to Melissa Nathan (The Nanny) have shown that you can be romantic and write with style. Probst has settled for "good enough" in a genre where "good enough" doesn't really cut it anymore.
The essence of the romantic novel is that two couples overcome the obstacles to their love and ultimately realise that they are meant for each other and live happily ever after. The reader, unless very naive, will soon realise who is going to fall in love with whom and that all will end well. The drama comes from the nature of the obstacles to true love and the way in which they are overcome. In Jennifer Probst's The Marriage Bargain, the couple, Alexa and Nicholas, have known each other since they were children. Nicholas had stolen a kiss from Alexa when she was just 16. Now 30, he has been left a bequest on condition that he marries. His own unhappy childhood has convinced him that he could never be a satisfactory husband and father, so he looks for a woman who is prepared to marry him and remain married for one year with a clear understanding that this is a business relationship. In order to keep things straightforward, the bargain includes an agreement that they will not have sex. Alexa desperately needs $150,000 to pay her parents' debts and save their family home. Nicholas offers her the money, on condition that she enters into the sham marriage.
Although some authors might be able to keep the plot bowling along frothily enough to glide over some of the more obvious implausibilities, Jennifer Probst doesn't really have the lightness of touch needed to do this. If the marriage is completely a sham, why do they have to live together? Why does Alexa have to convince her parents that the marriage is for real, when she will have to explain to them in just 12 months that she and her beloved are getting divorced?
The biggest problem, though, is that, from the first, the reader is told that Alexa and Nicholas are hugely sexually attracted to each other. Alexa knows that she wants Nicholas, but cannot believe that he wants her – despite the fact that he seems almost unhealthily priapic whenever they are alone together. Nicholas wants Alexa, but has convinced himself that she is just doing this for the money and is therefore a heartless gold-digger, who could never love him.
There is room to get some interesting character development here. Nicholas can't believe Alexa loves him because his own father's rejection of him makes him feel essentially unlovable. This makes him act in a way that convinces Alexa that he does not love her.
Unfortunately, we are not allowed to explore these aspects of the main characters' personalities. We are just told (repeatedly) that he lusts after her and that she lusts after him. Later, we meet his father and the roots of his relationship issues are spelled out, but there is no subtlety in any of this. For example, early on in the story, as he finds "a dangerous longing" inside him, Probst writes: "He quickly squashed the emotion, but the idea that he still retained some sick ray of hope for a normal family history pissed him off." We see no exploration of his inner conflict or how he seeks to resolve it, just a blunt statement from the author.
With no psychological depth and no real conflict to overcome, the story meanders lazily through clichés of the romance drama. He's a billionaire and his luxury lifestyle, beautiful house and lovely clothes are all described in gushing detail. She runs a bookstore and writes poetry and collects stray dogs. She's beautiful, of course, and at regular intervals each will drool over the other. A word count suggests that he is fixated on her nipples and she on his butt, although raven tresses, golden chest hair, athletic legs, full breasts etc etc, are all duly recorded.
As a superficial story of two beautiful people making beautiful love in beautiful places, this passes a couple of hours quite satisfactorily. The characters are pleasant enough and you feel some sympathy for their problems. Jennifer Probst's prose is easy to read and there are moments of humour as the story moves smoothly, if predictably, toward its conclusion. In the end, though, Probst lets herself down. Having provided the family background her characters need to explain their motivations, she doesn't explore it in any depth. The days when chick lit meant Mills and Boon are long gone. Authors from Sophie Kinsella (Shopaholic) to Melissa Nathan (The Nanny) have shown that you can be romantic and write with style. Probst has settled for "good enough" in a genre where "good enough" doesn't really cut it anymore.