Russell Smith on dick-lit

Hm.



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Chick-lit king

And this ain't about gum.*

On a recent sultry Thursday evening in Manhattan, when the summer weekend had already started sucking out the city's energy, Mr. Dickey drew a mostly female crowd at Barnes & Noble that included mothers with babies, older couples and Bergdorf blondes.

God, I would just so love it if that paragraph finished, "And the tiger traps worked like a charm."



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Inside Saddam's (dick)head

I imagine it's about as clean as that "spider hole" he got hauled out of. Saddam the author examined in relation to dick lit.

It is easy to see why the CIA, MI6 and Mossad have analysed these outlandish tales of heroism and sacrifice in detail. Avi Rubin, an ex-Mossad agent, believes that Saddam's past is at the core of his anger against seemingly broader targets such as western civilisation and Jews. "In reality," Rubin argues, "he is speaking about the pain of his own childhood and upbringing."

(From ALDaily)



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Edited by author 05-31-2004 10:35 PM
Black Chick-Lit

With a rise in demand for books with black characters, settings, and themes, I suppose this was inevitable.*

Like its white counterpart, black chick-lit often centers on single women with dream jobs, precariously balancing the personal and professional. Similarly, too, these new authors write with insiders' knowledge about the glamorous worlds they chronicle.

Neither racially charged nor didactic, these books seem meant to be read on sandy shores from Sag Harbor to St.-Tropez. The protagonists, educated and decidedly middle to upper class, effortlessly mingle with both black and white characters. Love, not privilege, is the only real speed bump.

Oh, so it's fantasy, not romance...



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Edited by author 05-23-2004 10:45 AM
On the topic of (d)Ick Lit: apparently the trend has already been declared dead. Link below...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/books/review/23COLUMNM.html

Edited by author 05-17-2004 09:05 AM
"It became clear that men were going to get more women if they had a little culture, moussed their hair and read a book now and then," Thompson says.

That statement warrants this mans' immediate termination by Syracuse University.

"Thompson says the genre appeals to women because they're more comfortable dealing with emotions.

And they're interested in understanding a guy's psyche."

Correction. Not only should Thompson be terminated but he should be flogged as well.

I'm looking forward to the renaissance that will be the suburban-dad genre of literature. Then my charming, emotionally sensitive novel about the trials of toddlers, yard work and beer bellies will find its' niche.

Maybe Professor Thompson would like to propagate it for me? That is, after I'm done beating him with a Palahniuk novel. Make that an Irvine Welsh, novel; Chucks'books lack the necessary bulk to inflict any real damage.

Turns Out All Ick-Lits are for Chicks After All

I wondered about that, but was shouted down at the annual meeting.

Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, says lad lit was inevitable.

Gender roles have begun to blend, he says. TV's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy shows the equalization of the bathroom vanity, where makeup, mousses and hand creams overflow on the guy's side as well as the woman's.

"It became clear that men were going to get more women if they had a little culture, moussed their hair and read a book now and then," Thompson says.

Yet most men are still guy's guys, and so far, the people reading these titles are the same ones reading chick lit: women. Booksellers, publishers and some authors doubt whether lad lit will attract male readers or have staying power.

What about us select red-necks who read and write poetry and do cuddly things like play with babies and kittens??



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"Did the women's movement ever happen?"

More chicklit stuff. '"To feel that every piece of literature has to empower women to come out on top, well - what I write is just real life, about those days when you aren't empowered and winning corporate wars or whatever. You're losing your pantyhose and you're lusting after a bag you can't afford. I mean, there's room for both," says author Sophie Kinsella, 34, best- known for her amusing trio of novels known as the "Shopaholic" series.'



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[I didn't know where to put this!]

"I wish Dr Whitehead no harm: I have no idea what the pay is like up there at Keele University, but it could surely do with a boost from the proceeds of a self-help best-seller. The book itself sounds like fodder for at least 15 minutes of armchair entertainment, as women jovially attempt to shoehorn their men into unappealing categories such as "Trainspotter" and "Neanderthal", while men campaign to be seen as "Achilles", the flawed charmer, or the sexy-but-dangerous "Backpacker"."

"What worries me, however - all the more so since Dr Whitehead is a member of the rather grand-sounding Cabinet Office Forum on Gender Research - is the idea that anyone might actually take this pop-anthropology seriously, and seek to apply its dictates to real men. Sadly, there is no more fertile territory for the proliferation of lucrative nonsense than the muddy ground between the sexes."



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More 'Ick-Lit

Well this article is icky, anyway... Just write the facking story and let some grad student with nothing better to do label it.



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Would it be too much to suggest a similarity between Ms. Ahern and young Ben Mulroney?

If not, what does the fact that the former has written a book and the latter has hosted Canadian Idol say about their respective native cultures?

I had some of my first-ever attempts at poems published, and I curse the editors for it to this day. Ugh. The only consolation is that I doubt anyone actually read them.

Oh, and the whole "letter from the grave" thing was in a Michael Keaton movie from about eight years ago, not to mention the recent "My Life Without Me," starring Sarah Polley, a genuinely smart, pretty young woman.

Thanks for this, Ninja. I was walking around Toronto on that beautiful last Friday, and I caught sight of this "writer's" photo on the cover of The Sun. There was some tag expressing delighted surprise that the daughter of the Irish PM would turn out to be a talented novelist, and not just the sparklingly pretty daughter of privilege.

I suppressed my gagging and told myself it would be unfair to pre-judge.

On the other hand, when was the last time a Canadian first-time novelist had her face in newspaper boxes all over the place?

If she is as smart as it takes to "have a degree," she's going to be awfully embarassed one of these days. Imagine, having your first-ever attempt at a novel actually make it to publication.

The horror. The horror.

PS, I Love You follows 30-year-old Holly Kennedy in the 10 months after her husband Gerry's death from a brain tumour. Gerry has left behind envelopes for Holly, one for each month, which are filled with reassurances and advice. No wordy Abelard, Gerry's letters urge her to bid goodbye to his old clothes, to learn to love again, to buy that bedside lamp they really needed, to face her fear of karaoke and so on. Each note ends with the postscript "I love you."

Survey says? BLAAHP! "Ahern tells me the book only took her three months to write. And the publishers bought it after the first several weeks, solely on the basis of her first 10 chapters. (The finished book has 51.) I ask, in as neutral a tone as I can manage, if this quick success surprised her. "I was surprised that everyone else was surprised," she says, adding in a tone that will be familiar to anyone who has ever interviewed a recent college graduate for a job: "I was 21. My friends and I were all like, are we really all supposed to be that stupid? I didn't know 21-year-olds weren't supposed to be writing books. You know, we do all have degrees."' BLAAHP!



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