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A book is like a garden
carried in the pocket.
~Chinese Proverb
BookLeak
In the Mood for Romancing?
Romantic novels have changed a lot in the past 200
years, not necesseraly for the better. But we’re not
here to argue how much superior Pride and Prejudice
is to any of the vampire fantasy romance and ladies’
books of the last couple of years. We’re here to give
you a selection of romantic pulp fiction that might be
responsible for your belief in ‘the look of love’ and in
The One. Provided you’re a girl. Otherwise you only
have pop music to blame.
Hungarian little girls were fi rst initiated into romantic fi ction with the ‘Dotted Books’
series. The collection (still available today) ranged from stories of orphaned children
to the fi rst school crushes, slowly building up the anticipation for more hardcore
stuff. After our fair share of ‘Striped Books’ (for a bit more mature little girls)
came the Canaan of everything from Sweet Valley High to the cheap and short
Denise, Romana, etc. booklets. And to make spending your pocket money on rubbish
easier, you could by your monthly fi x of these at any newsagent’s.
With copies still available on auction sites for less than they cost in the ‘90s,
you might spot old ladies on the bus sighing over a colorful booklet. Each title
was color-coded to highlight the theme, the target age group and the raciness
level of the contents. Denise was the series in pink for adolescent girls. There
were dozens of issues published, but only the names differed, the plot was the
same without fail: girl meets boy in school, she thinks boy has a girlfriend (the
prom queen), never believes boy when he says he wants her, then yes, she
believes, and they kiss. That’s where all Denises ended the saga of 6-foot-tall
boys and beautiful-but-thinks-she’s-an-ugly-duckling girls. And to give a touch
of reality to the magic of love at fi rst sight, you could enter the competition to
become the Denise cover girl. The lucky winners got a makeover, and their
heart-framed faces adorn collectors shelves to eternity. The covers change
...girl meets boy in school, she
thinks boy has a girlfriend...”
as we enter ‘adult’ territory: you can almost here the lean and obliging female
character sigh as the handsome fella (half naked, six pack showing) breathes
a kiss on her neck. The spot to be kissed varied, the lean, obliging and sixpacked
features of the models did not. The dark blue Tiffany series was basically
the same with adult characters, but it usually ended with the 2.5th sex
scene. Red Julia took it further, the coveted characters were always rich, the
covetees not so much. But after a series of wining, dining and bedding, the Julia
stories usually ended with a ring and popping The Question. Green Romana
took all this to exotic locations, where sex scenes were always introduced with
the mention of fragrant, caressing ocean breezes.
The second half of the ‘90s brought along loveable idiots on the romantic fi ction
front. Bridget Jones and her Magyar counterpart, Terézanyu were every
woman’s reassurance that no matter what a retard you feel sometimes, true
love will always fi nd you. And this is the message that still makes me end up
browsing the romantic section of bookshops…
Aranka Szabó
BUDAPEST FUNZINE 17