Welcome, reader! According to Antony Hegarty in this second decade of the new century our future is determined. What will it be? Stays all the same and do we sink away in the mud or is something new coming up? In this blog I try to follow new cultural developments.

Welkom, lezer! Volgens Antony Hegarty leven we in bijzondere tijden. In dit tweede decennium van de eenentwintigste eeuw worden de lijnen uitgezet naar de toekomst. Wat wordt het? Blijft alles zoals het is en zakken we langzaam weg in het moeras van zelfgenoegzaamheid of gloort er ergens iets nieuws aan de horizon? In dit blog volg ik de ontwikkelingen op de voet. Als u op de hoogte wilt blijven, kunt u zich ook aanmelden als volger. Schrijven is een avontuur en bloggen is dat zeker. Met vriendelijke groet, Rein Swart.

Laat ik zeggen dat literaire kritiek voor mij geen kritiek is, zolang zij geen kritiek is op het leven zelf. Rudy Cornets de Groot.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas.

Het is juist de roman die laat zien dat het leven geen roman is. Bas Heijne.

In het begin was het Woord, het Woord was bij God en het Woord was God. Johannes.



zaterdag 19 maart 2011

Documentary: Guilty pleasures (2010), Julie Moggan (GB)


‘Real life starts where a book ends, but you can also start another book.’

The title of this documentary sounds like a pornographic or erotic movie or book, but 
it is about Harlequinbooks published by Mills and Boon in London and are all about dreams and love and desire. 

In this documentary we follow author Roger Sanderson who writes under the name of Gil Sanderson. Next to him we see other persons, like the young Japanese woman Hiroko who is not happy with her married life and reads Harlequinbooks to dream about another life. She wants as much as romance in her life as in these books, but her husband cannot fulfill her needs, so Hiroko starts to take private dancinglessons by the handsome and goodlooking teacher Ijima. When she cannot afford these lessons anymore, she convinces her husband to take grouplessons together and finally they win a contest and her dream becomes reality. 

The British Shirley and Phil Davies are less lucky. Phil is suffering from a bipolar disorder and thinks about suicide. Shirley reads Harlequinbooks to espace from their painful reality. Sometimes they have a romantic dinner together at home to make life a bit more comfortable and then they listen to the song from The Carpenters ‘It only just begun.’

The Asian Shumita has had a entangling relationship with her friend, as that friend puts it, who loves his Porsche more than her. She flies away in Harlequinbooks. The friend doesn’t like her reading on and on. Shumita doesn’t find what in reality what she reads about. Real life starts where a book ends, but you can also start another book, she sighs. She finally goes to a fortuneteller who advises her to let her lover go, live her own life and wait.  

The American Stephen Muzzonigro is a male model with a lot of muscles and a big chest (see photo). He wears not much more than sunglasses and takes his speedboat over the lake. He can be admired on the cover of many Harlequinbooks. After his divorce he looks for his twin flame, a kind of intimate soulmate, but he has not found her yet. He looks despite of his wealth very lonely.    

Roger Sanderson writes Harlequinbooks for Mills and Boon. All kinds of types: historic, romantic and sexually a bit more explicit. Before a sexscene used to start with dots.
He goes with his notebook to a coffeeshop and writes down what he hears around him. Sometimes a story rolls on like a train but other times it is hard work. It is like a marriage with up and downs, he says. His personages are stereotypes, the man has to be tall and slim, but his caracters develop, he stresses. He loves happy endings, but the persons have to accomplish something before they find love. love, love. 

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