Editorial
I am technically a "Chick". Yet I am fairly sure if I were ever to write a piece of "Lit" it would not involve the wacky life and times of a "gal about town". Jane Austen's heroines didn't work in PR and Jane Eyre didn't head for the Chardonnay every time Rochester spurned her. I understand that both Bronte and Austen were writing in a time devoid of such enviable "girl power" and there are many contemporary female authors who write novels that do not include amusing leg-waxing incidents. However in recent years the publishing floodgates have seemingly opened to let in a deluge of "Chick Lit" novels. Quite frankly their lurid pink presence on bookshop shelves irritates the hell out of me. This is a fairly irrational hatred but I will attempt to explain why I could cheerfully garrotte the publishers of such novels.
I do not dismiss these books on a snobbish intellectual level. Trashy novels are a pure, unadulterated escape from the scary world of essay crises: a temptation to which I succumb. The genre has - however - become a source of ridicule; creating clichés that tend to portray women in an unflattering or one-dimensional manner. I am pleased that women writers no longer struggle to be accepted in a previously male dominated profession, but why should a substantial portion of their success be due to novels which provoke such an exasperated reaction from readers both male and female. I also accept that I am including in my all-encompassing criticism some well-written and insightful novels, not least the eponymous "Bridget Jones's Diary". We can perhaps attribute the re-invigoration of "Chick Lit" to this creation. This fictitious woman is living in a society where everybody knows her name. Ironic really when the character herself is haunted with the thought of dying alone, unknown. Yet has Helen Fielding really done a service to the genre? Mention dear Bridget and the image summoned up causes an almost unanimous groan. Overweight. Self-obsessed. Chain-smoking. Insecure. Overexposure has led to a sickening feeling in the stomach whenever we think of this type of novel. However if we read the novel without this pre-conceived notion we find a well-observed and genuinely witty piece of work. Bridget's worries are identifiable and written with a self-deprecation worryingly lacking from the novels I am criticising. I loved "Bridget Jones's Diary" yet am frustrated with what it has spawned - a mutant breed of paperbacks set to take over our bookshelves and our lives. Their titles are pun filled, their heroines are the wrong side of a size 14 and have a loveable band of chums who can always be relied on but will inevitably be unceremoniously dumped when the heroine eventually gets their man. "The independent woman's search for love". The stereotype has become boring ... even nauseating. Another chorus of "I Will Survive" anyone?
Many of these books are silly, tacky and just plain bad. One gets the sense that almost no thought has gone into their conception: the author has merely followed the rules of "Chick Lit" and not bothered to make the work their own. For example, Amy Jenkins was responsible for the inspirational and three-dimensional characters of Milly and Anna when she created cult show "This Life". What did she follow this ballsy success with? Yes ... the truly horrible "Honey Moon". WHY? Please, please, please … no more Bridget Clones, no more formulaic trash. Be original, clever, funny … not pathetic Helen Fielding wannabes.
8th Nov 2001