5

Yet authors crave something deeper. “We shouldn’t have to defend” romance novels, says Sarah MacLean, author of “Knockout”. “Love is a powerful feeling. I wish that we could all see our way past thinking that those emotions are somehow less valuable than emotions that are built out of pain and sorrow.”

— From Romance (as a category) is far from dead

“see our way past…” here is very hard for me to understand. I’ve turned to dictionaries but ended up failing to take it through. Does the speaker mean that we should realize that the emotions arising from romance novels are less valuable than those built out of pain and sorrow?

Improve this question
5
  • 2
    "see our way past" is a variant of "see past", which is in all good dictionaries (since nobody's yet provided any references).
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jul 15 at 9:03
  • See also merriam-webster.com/dictionary/…
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jul 15 at 16:58
  • @StuartF I would understand 'see our way past' and 'see past' quite differently.
    – aantia
    Commented Jul 16 at 10:14
  • 3
    @aantia, there may be cases where those two phrases could have different meanings, but here they mean the same. If you replaced see our way past with see past in the OP it wouldn't change the message of the paragraph at all.
    – Peter Kirkpatrick
    Commented Jul 16 at 12:32
  • Please don't be distracted by the context. Drop the rest and how is the meaning of '… see our way past… ' changed? Further, '… see our way past… ' in this context isn't significantly different from '… see past…'.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Jul 27 at 19:10

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
8

Quite the reverse. She says that we should not think that love stories are less valuable than tragedies.

Critics should find a way of metaphorically going past (and leaving behind) the common idea that romance novels are trivial, according to the author.

Improve this answer
5

Here, by “see our way past” she means go beyond. She’s saying that love and associated feelings are no less weighty than more negative emotions are, and so we shouldn’t allow our thinking to be snagged on what she thinks is a flawed belief that the former feelings are less worthy material for literature.

Improve this answer
4

'See our way past' can be easily understood by considering the literal meaning: to find a road past something.

Maclean is metaphorically saying that the idea 'those emotions are somehow less valuable than emotions that are built out of pain and sorrow' is an obstacle, and she wishes we could find a metaphorical road around that. The end goal - where the 'way' in question would lead - is to value love as an emotion as much as darker emotions, and therefore give romance novels the respect she feels they deserve.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .