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Good Male Written Romance Books for Study

I'm looking for male written romance novels as the title suggests, female written is okay if its really above and beyond. I'm hoping for things like Francois Mauriac and Nabokov, with weird and deviant pairings and a greater focus on the mental state of the couple and their sexual dynamics. Anything specifically SciFi or Fantasy would be great, though I would prefer that the romance was the center stage storyline. As an aside, what do you guys think makes a romance story good and what would draw you too one if you're not interested in romance normally?

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  • The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest (1630, Spanish) by Tirso de Molina (or maybe Andrés de Claramonte)

  • The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774, German) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  • Ivanhoe (1819, English) by Walter Scott

  • The Betrothed (1827, Italian) by Alessandro Manzoni

  • The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831, French) by Victor Hugo

  • Eugene Onegin (1833, Russian) by Alexander Pushkin

  • Don Juan Tenorio (1844, Spanish) by José Zorrilla

Oh, what's that? Not the kind of "romance" you meant? Too bad. Put down the genre fiction and read something worth a darn. :marseypathetic:

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True romances are stuff like the Arthurian poems by Chretien de Troyes and other chivalric works as the word "romance" was used to denote compositions made in "vernacular" languages like Old French, Medieval Castilian, Norman-French :#marseybigbrain:

!linguistics !bookworms

But basically OP is referring to "love stories"

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Are you like the argentinian GOOD WILL HUNTING or something? How do you know all this, at the same time read about history and at the same same time study mathematics?

@ObamaBinLaden SAY THIS AS A FEMINIST ALLY

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I have a great memory for useless info. As for math I'm still struggling with basic proofs because I'm an engineercel and the past weeks have been my first exposure to analysis and it takes time to get use to it, but I'm not in a hurry (it's not like I have to take a test) and I'm realistic about taking a good time to get it.

GOOD WILL HUNTING

My dad loves that film btw, he made me and my sister watch it with him more than once.

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This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you :kiss:

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The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

200 pages of obsessive unrequited love wrapped in 600 pages of neurodivergent ranting about Gothic architecture.

I fricking love Hugo

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200 pages of obsessive unrequited love wrapped in 600 pages of neurodivergent ranting about Gothic architecture.

I didn't want to read it before but now you've piqued my interest.

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Francois Mauriac and Nabokov

weird and deviant pairings

Anything specifically SciFi or Fantasy would be great

I would prefer that the romance was the center stage storyline

So you want transgressive literary fiction that's also a scifi romance? :marseypregunta:

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transgressive literary fiction that's also a scifi romance

!bookworms, that's at least half of Heinlein's bibliography. :marseysipping:

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What Heinlein is good? I've only read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

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Double Star is arguably the prototypical Heinlein novel, with most of his later novels falling into that mold to some extent, so start there if you want to see what he's all about. You should definitely read Starship Troopers, if only to better mock the sort of half-wit that's constantly going on about "media literacy". Honestly, I have mixed feelings about Stranger in a Strange Land, but it was insanely influential, so it's an absolute must. And aside from The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Methuselah's Children and the various other appearances of Lazarus Long are the one's that best fit the description of "transgressive literary fiction that's also a scifi romance". :marseyreading:

As for short stories, pretty much anything in his Future History series is of interest, though a lot of it is obviously dated. Outside of that, my personal favorite is "'—All You Zombies—'", but I'm probably the only person (:marseycarlos:) that would put that at the top. "By His Bootstraps" is sort of the predecessor to that one, so give it a look as well. :wolfbootlicker:

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:marseynotes:

I'll have to work through this at some point. Outside of Bradbury I've not read much classic science fiction, but I did enjoy The Moon so I'll plan on doing a theme month or something next year.

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Not necessarily scifi, I just wanted to throw it out there it case anybody knew a book that fit the bill.

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  • Love in the Time of Cholera

  • Still Life with Woodpecker

  • You're an Animal, Viskovitz is a surrealist riff on Metamorphoses, but in a good way. Not really a romance, but it's fun and on topic

  • Extinction Journals by Jeremy Robert Johnson isn't a romance, but has themes of posthumanism and odd couples and might get close enough to what you're looking for

  • The Big Rock Candy Mountain is a 50 page classic romance followed by an epic novel about a miserable marriage set against the modernization of the North American West

  • This one also isn't a romance at all, but Fram by Steve Himmer is a gloomy little book about loneliness and marital decay that's disguised as sort of a farcical postmodern adventure story

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>Nabokov

>"romance"

Lmao, his books are not romance, except maybe "Ada"?

Just read Tolstoy or Flaubert if you want !classics style romance.

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I was specifically thinking Ada and Lolita(I know its not technically romance but you get what I mean) when I mentioned him. Either way, thank you for the recommendation.

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Lolita is a subversion (an actually meaningful subversion btw, not the kind redditors and video essayists jerk off to when a work doesn't stick to standard tropes) of a romance. The narrator is constantly trying to reframe events to make it seem like a beautiful romance but the truth bleeds through, often very comedically.

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Nabokov was an amateur entomologist and lepidoptera collector, but he never learned to drive so his wife would take him on field trips to go catch butterflies :marseyembrace:

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Lolita ain't no romance but I still recommend it. Great character study from the POV of a psychopath and beautiful florid language. Even if Humbert comes off as super goss he still has many funny lines.

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Lolita is not a romance, unless you're talking about how it's Nabokov's love letter to the English language.

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https://i.rdrama.net/images/1726615362389048.webp

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This neighbor really said "realistic complex characters" when talmbout foid sci-fi authors lmao.

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I'm hoping for things like Francois Mauriac and Nabokov, with weird and deviant pairings and a greater focus on the mental state of the couple and their sexual dynamics.

:#marseyveryworried:

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:#marseywoodchipper2:

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If you want trash tier romance (you know what I mean) as opposed to high romance written by male authors I recommend the works of Robert W. Chambers (the dude who wrote the King in Yellow).

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The Witcher had a hilarious s*x scene between Geralt and Yennifer in a library.

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The Rum Diaries

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I don't usually like romance stories. My favorite smut website shut down, and since then the closest I've come is Blue Core. I didn't like the s*x scenes, so I guess that what would draw me to romance is if the rest of the story is good enough to outweigh how unnecessary and bad romance is. :derpthumbsup:

Wait, what makes something a "romance story?" I read plenty of stuff with romantic subplots but without any s*x scenes, can that count?

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Actually a story without any overt s*x would be better for my purposes.

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I've got nothing then.

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In case of an investigation by any federal entity or similar, I do not have any involvement with this group or with the people in it, I do not know how I am here, probably added by a third party, I do not support any actions by members of this group.

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