Roger Pires April 19, 2012
When he's not offering his take on daily life, Roger Pires spends his days as a computer systems analyst. It's not exactly a glamorous calling but hey, it pays the bills. He enjoys hockey, canoeing, snowshoeing, and spending as much time as he possibly can outdoors. He lives in Udora with his wife and two kids, who are his prime inspiration for Ravenshoe Ramblings.
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In the Steele of the night
Some mysteries are better left unsolved. I came to this rather mournful conclusion one day when I wandered into our home library looking for my next dose of literary gratification. Our “library” consists of an IKEA shelving unit (the Sven or the Ollie or something) and various companion pieces from the Garage Sale Collection. It is fully stocked with books from just about every literary genre: humour, history, biography, science and nature, classic fiction, science fiction, pulp fiction. There are books cataloguing the flora and fauna of Ontario and others that show the greenhorn how to rewire his house without burning it to the ground. We even have a section for books that are just plain goofy. My favourite is the “Doubleday Cookbook, Volume 1, c. 1975”, with recipes for pan-seared muskrat and braised woodchuck, complete with illustrations.
Off to one side is an entire unit housing a genre of literature whose appeal has always escaped me: romance. I usually pass them without noticing. That is, until I tripped over a box of Harlequins waiting to be uncrated. Not a book or a bag of books, mind you, but a BOX of books. They were my wife’s latest acquisitions. Given her ability to get through one of these things in an afternoon, they would probably never hit the shelf.
I’ve always wondered why anyone would want to read these things. They may have been rejected by the Dewey Decimal System but you can’t deny their popularity. Harlequin boasts annual sales of over 130 million units, which would be enough to clear-cut all of British Columbia and parts of the Pacific northwest.
I know very little else about Harlequins except they originated in Winnipeg and are extremely flammable. This latter tidbit comes courtesy of college weekends spent at my buddy Ian’s cottage. On rainy days we would lug armloads of his mother’s Harlequins – pilfered from old boxes, naturally – down to the fire pit for kindling. When doused in gasoline and lit ablaze they burned with a pulsing, green glow. The resulting plume of acrid smoke contained more neurotoxins than Three Mile Island. And over this we charred our chicken wieners. In all those years of sacrificing Harlequins, I never once thought to open one up and read it. In fact, I didn’t even regard them as something you read.
Having nearly broken my ankle over them however, I, Roger Pires, lover of hockey and consumer of all things medium rare, decided to unlock the mystery of why the romance novel is the queen of all book sales. So, like a kid who’s discovered a stash of girlie magazines under the basement steps, I peered around the corner before diving into my illicit thrill. I was about to gingerly coax one of the books from its hiding place when I faltered. I just couldn’t do it. Instead, I reached for one of the Danielle Steele novels - you have to draw the line somewhere - that occupy their own wing of the library. This woman must release a new book every five minutes – and my wife has all of them. The blurb on the back told me that over 600 million copies have passed through trembling, expectant fingers. Well, that should about do it for the rain forests. Judging by their glossy covers they would appear to have similar fire-starting abilities to Harlequins.
I opened it up. I don’t recall the title but I think it had “Naked” in it. The story made a lasting impression on me; I can still recall every detail. From page one, I was drawn into the author’s web of intrigue. The words leapt from the page and pinned my imagination in a Bulgarian headlock. The story begins in a café in the City of Lights. Our heroine Mindy (or Mandy or something) finds herself in Paris as love’s loser. She is coming off a painful breakup. Her boyfriend of several hours, Chadd (or Blaize?), ran off with her archrival, Zirconia. First, she stole the head cheerleading role from under her nose and now this! She escapes her career as a doctor (lawyer? circus performer?) in Bootlick, Alabama to ease a broken heart. While sipping a café-au-lait she meets Brick (or was it Clay?). She gazes into his limpid eyes and gawks at his granite biceps. He admires his reflection in the shop window. She is immediately drawn to his sensitivity. And on it went for page after page. She orders a croissant. He strokes his chest hair. She leaves with the waiter. He oils his biceps and smiles at the reflection in the window.
After three weeks of intense concentration I finally did it. I finished chapter one. I took some time to reflect on my accomplishment. I felt I had crossed some sort of boundary. When I woke up the next morning, would I still scratch myself in the usual places? Would I still be able to walk into a hockey dressing room? And more importantly, would I still long to grill steaks the size of hubcaps just because I could? I needn’t have worried. I answered yes to all of the above. I’m a pioneer, a renaissance man. As far as the mystery of romance? I think it went down with the Titanic.
