It's like the WWF out there sometimes

In my daily (shoot, often hourly) perusal of a number of blogs I've gotten addicted to, I come to Bitch.Ph.D. Today's topic is Chick Lit: Bane or Glory and it links me to a blog where an anonymous guest writer is criticizing ChickLit. I think I may have read some ChickLit. Does The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank count? I liked it. I don't recognize many of the current crop of authors they mention. I recognize Helen Fielding and Nora Roberts (although I'd not put Nora in ChickLit, she's one of the Romance Royalty, right?). But that's it so I probably don't read ChickLit. Oooh -- I've read all of Esther Friesner's Chicks in Chainmail, etc. short story collections...they probably don't count, huh?

Anyway, over in this blog "Eight Reasons Why Chick Lit Authors Aught to Be Kicked Until They're Dead" there are some stellar comments. Lots of good back and forth, snark, and outright bile. I love a good fight, don't you? If so you should read them.

So I go back to Bitch.Ph.D and read the comments there. One in particular stood out: "This is what I don't get about the way intelligent women talk to each other. If we talk about how much we love stereotypical stuff like shopping and boys and our periods, we're dumb chicks. If we talk about things other than shopping and boys and our periods, other women call us misogynists. What the hell? Elise asked a question, and I answered it, truthfully, from my own perspective of what literature I choose to read, and immediately I am accused of misogyny.
carrie | Email | Homepage | 08.21.05 - 1:54 pm | # " I hope carrie doesn't mind me quoting her.

I think I'd like carrie. I have no close personal real life friends and perhaps I should be thankful rather than sad about that. Apparently grown women are no different than the girls I knew in High School? God, I hope not. But reading some of this stuff makes me think that maybe we've not come such a long way baby. Let's for just a moment forget about all the stuff that men do to us and think about what we do to each other. We need to honor each other and the choices we've made. If we can do that and role model it for all the daughters out there then we'll be ready to take on and defeat the sh*t men want to dump on us.

Back to the comments and I may be mixing up the ones from Bitch and the other site, sorry. Someone (maybe more than one) said that anything that gets people reading is good and another said that we (women) should all be thrilled that more women are getting published and making good money from it. I say amen to both.

I've really tried to read literary fiction. I've bought the stuff that has one or another prize winner/honorable mention/nominee for some big award blurb splashed across it, stuff that was reviewed in the NYT.

Many times I've not enjoyed the book at all. That's because I have my own tastes. And other people all have their own tastes. I adore all science fiction, Stephen King (even at his worst I love him), Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. I might enjoy chick lit -- IF it transports me into a fun and funny 'other world' even though that other world is probably modeled closely after the real world that somebody endures daily. The point being that it doesn't resemble MY world at all. It's escapist. I'm ok with that. I need escape. And because I get that my tastes won't always be the universal arbiter of what is a good book I don't criticize what's popular or what other people like. You like ChickLit? More power to you.

Of course that also means I shouldn't criticize someones criticism, huh? Dang.

Posted by Dawno at August 21, 2005 12:25 PM