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I would like to offer some thoughts on the question in my previous post. I was curious to see if the appeal of these stories for other readers was similar to mine. Since the time I was quite small, I have loved books and I have read widely in many genres--Fiction and non-fiction. But I always come back to these books=these sixties and seventies gothic stories. Sometimes I literally crave reading one! I think there is something of nostalgia in it for me, a hearkening back to my youth, if you will. But in the stories themselves there is also a strong element of attraction. I think it is the righting of a universe gone wrong--a human desire for goodness, order and peace to triumph where there is evil, calamity and discord. Therefore the morally pure hero and heroine are most satisfying to me. When it all comes right for a likeable and admirable heroine it tilts the universe a bit more in the right direction. Perhaps it is the ultimate good and righteousness I rejoice in. Perhaps everything in us ultimately desires Him.
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I like to imagine myself as the herorine. I used watch "Fantasy Island" (1970's version) and if that was a real place my fantasy would to be to live a gothic romance novel....only I would not make the same silly mistakes that the girl sometimes makes in the books (like trusting the wrong person).
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I think nostalgia is the key, at least for me. It's probably not a coincidence that the mass-market flood of popular Gothic romances happened during the 1960s and '70s, a time of great societal upheaval. I enjoy being transported into an idealized time-that-never-was in which morality and love are pleasantly uncomplicated matters, a world in which the horrors and uncertainties of real life are removed to a safe distance or blurred away altogether. Even when these stories are set in the (relative) present, they still feel as if they take place in a faraway time. The dangers in a Gothic romance are just that -- romantic -- and even when the life of the heroine is threatened, we know of course that things will turn out all right in the end. It's the thrill of listening to a thunderstorm while safely bundled indoors by a crackling fire -- our fear buttons are pushed when the elements rage, but we're reasonably secure that the house will still be standing when the storm passes.
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I like that. It paints a vivid picture. Thanks for your thoughts.
