On John Murray’s radio show on RTÉ 1 this morning, Sheila O’Flanagan posited that if Colm Tóibín’s novel Brooklyn was written by a woman it would be categorised as chick-lit. 
Really? I don’t think so, mainly because it’s not like chick-lit at all. I didn’t particularly like Brooklyn, I found it too episodic and the main character was an irritating wuss, but it patently doesn’t have the ingredients of chick-lit: stock characters, clichéd language and predictable plots.
Why are chick-lit authors so defensive? They are generally upfront about the fact that they are in the business of providing light entertainment, and yet they want to be taken really seriously. Do other writers of light books – humour etc. – want to be taken so seriously? Chick-lit authors’ books sell in their millions – surely they should find deep satisfaction in the fact that they have millions of appreciative readers and they earn a good living from their writing. Why the need to earn critical acclaim on top of all that?
As a female writer in Ireland (of literary fiction) perhaps my biggest difficulty is with the wholesale promotion of chick-lit. The problem I find is that in Ireland – despite Irish-woman Anne Enright winning the Man Booker Prize; Emma Donoghue being shortlisted this year, and iconic writers such as Edna O’Brien – chick-lit is held aloft as the women’s genre, as if no Irish women writers were writing books of worth.
Literature often reflects the cultural assumptions and attitudes of the time it represents, including attitudes towards women: their status, their roles, their expectations. But if that literature is dominated by the chick-lit model of woman as greedy, empty-headed, needy consumer, in pursuit of a man-saviour, where are the role models for younger women? For strong, independent, individualistic women? Where are the diverse faces of society, the poor, the intellectual, the lesbian? For me, and for many of my friends, chick-lit books don’t present a convincing picture of the world we live in. Most intelligent women readers do not find their own lives reflected in the pages of chick-lit novels because these books are peopled with conservative, conformist women whose main goals in life are shopping and man-hunting (with a view to a happy ending). The heroines may be sassy and they may hold down great jobs, but they rarely consider a life that does not involve man-as-minder.
These types of women must exist outside the pages of commercial women’s books but I don’t personally know any of them. I often think that the characters’ lives read like a schoolgirl’s fantasy of what it means to be an adult woman, rather than the actual reality of 21st century life. They are novels about rich women in the main – chick-lit books are not set on Council estates and they are not peopled by those who shop in lower-end high street shops or charity shops. The women in the books are driven by a rampant materialism; and, it seems, chocolate cake, an old movie and the love of a rich and handsome man are the answers to most of their problems.
In case you haven’t guessed, I’m not a fan of chick-lit or commercial women’s fiction; I’m not drawn to it because it doesn’t speak to anything in my life. I’m happy for its authors that they can earn a living but to expect to be lauded for great writing on top of all of that seems unrealistic at best.
Really well said. I can’t help following the Jodi Picoult/Jennifer Weiner/Franzen thing, and at end it seems that their complaint isn’t so much that female authors aren’t being accorded the same regard as their male counterparts, but that chick lit authors aren’t receiving such regard. As you say, chick lit is populated by stock characters; they’re escapist books, and they don’t have the artistic merit of books taken more seriously. Although there’s occasionally an author who achieves both commercial and critical success, it’s beyond me why chick lit authors expect that they should be these authors.
“As a female writer in Ireland (of literary fiction) perhaps my biggest difficulty is with the wholesale promotion of chick-lit. The problem I find is that in Ireland – despite Irish-woman Anne Enright winning the Man Booker Prize; Emma Donoghue being shortlisted this year, and iconic writers such as Edna O’Brien – chick-lit is held aloft as the women’s genre, as if no Irish women writers were writing books of worth.”
In this above statement, Nuala, I could not agree with you more.
One certain prominet chick-litter was proposed to be added to the
school curriculum (for jaysis-sake) , not a genre that I’d encourage
for childish reading!!!!! School study (as opposed to leisure-time
reading) should involve the intelligence and thought processes.
I’m afraid I’m with Sheila O’Flanagan on this one. I totally agree with you that it’s unfair and ridiculous that commercial fiction is seen as the sole realm of Irish female writers and it’s definitely true that many publishers try and present non-girly female writers’ work in a chicklitish way – Lionel Shriver recently wrote of her frustrating experiences with her publishers, who wanted to girly-up her book covers. And it’s unfair that writers who don’t produce chicklit-esque books are often not promoted or written about to the same extent as those who do.
But Brooklyn is basically an old-school Maeve Binchy book, except not as good. And it’s definitely true that when men write novels about domestic or emotional themes, it’s literature, but when women do it, it’s fluff. But what I disagree with most is that in this post you do seem to have constructed a total straw man version of commercial fiction by female authors as a way of dismissing the genre, and I do find that problematic. I’ve just had to read Sheila O’Flanagan’s new novel for work, and while it’s not really my sort of thing and I wouldn’t have chosen to read it, part of my job is judging a book on its own merits and its own terms, not on preconceived notions of its genre, and while this isn’t a great book O’Flanagan is a fluid writer with the (rare, in both commercial and literary fiction) ability to write more or less convincing dialogue.
And her book simply doesn’t match any of the clichés you’ve just described. It’s about a woman from a working class west Dublin family who gets pregnant at an early age and marries the father. Her now-husband is a builder who moves into property and gradually builds up a fortune. Meanwhile, the heroine has the baby and suffers from very severe post-natal depression, which is depicted pretty convincingly. Then her husband turns out to be a crook and runs off, leaving her penniless but determined to build a new life. When her husband shows up she takes him back but gradually realises she doesn’t love him and would rather be happily single and independent. The book ends up with her happy and alone in her own small rented house in Fairview, looking forward to her new life.
So how does that fit into your description of books about “women…driven by a rampant materialism; and, it seems, chocolate cake, an old movie and the love of a rich and handsome man are the answers to most of their problems”? It doesn’t, because not all books by woman with pastel covers are like that, and it’s unfair to suggest that they are.
Take Marian Keyes, a hugely talented writer, whose heroines have been alcoholics, serious depressives, accident victims, young widows – anything but stock. Many of her heroines are single at the end of the novel. The heroine of Rachel’s Holiday, who convinces herself and, until the very end, the reader, that she’s not a drug-addicted alcoholic, she’s just a bit of a party girl, is one of the best unreliable narrators in recent fiction. Keyes has the ability to mix real, messy tragedy and (very funny) comedy without anyone noticing the joins, and that is an incredibly rare gift that very few writers in any genre possess.
Or take Jenny Colgan, whose covers may have cocktails and shoes on them but whose recent novel Operation Sunshine is a very funny novel about a working-class girl who works as a cosmetic surgeon’s receptionist with several horrible brothers who realises that her bosses are working on a terrible project allowing incredibly rich people to get around the law on cosmetic surgery treatments and who becomes determined to stop them. What’s predictable about that? Whether one likes these individual writers or not, they don’t deal in cliché, their characters are witty and independent, they’re smart and funny, and they can string a decent sentence together. And they’re not the only writers of commercial fiction who can do this.
To lump all “chicklit” or commercial titles together and then dismiss them looks like straightforward genre snobbery. There are terrible chicklit books out there, indeed most commercial fiction is terrible – but then, so is a lot if not most of supposedly literary fiction, much of which is also incredibly classist and heterocentric. I have a huge problem with genre snobbery, because it willfully dismisses entire genres that will always contain gems. I’m not a big science fiction fan but I’ve read fantastic science fiction books (and I adore Kurt Vonnegut for always insisting on being classified as science fiction, even when people basically tried to tell him his books didn’t count as sci-fi because they were good). I don’t generally like mainstream fantasy but I’ve read some fantastic examples of the genre. And when I read Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove at the age of 17 I kept thinking “oh my God, I’m reading a Western – and it’s brilliant!”
And I actually don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking light fiction seriously on its own terms and paying homage to those who can do it well. Good comic writing is a fine and difficult art. PG Wodehouse, for example, is now widely and rightly recognised as an exquisite prose stylist – the most recent biography was by former Observer literary editor Robert McCrum.
Basically, I believe books are either good or bad, regardless of genre. And I also believe there’s still a bias against “domestic” fiction by women. Nick Hornby gets big reviews in the New York Times, but Marian Keyes, who is a funnier and more subtle writer, doesn’t. Now, I don’t think Sheila O’Flanagan, competent as she is, deserves those accolades. But if she ever produced a book that was that good, I’d like to think people wouldn’t dismiss it just because it’s got a pastel cover with some flip flops on it.
Like! Like! Very much like!
Very very well said.
I just wanted to mention here the beautiful quality of Mary Lavin’s
work in a similar context to those mentioned in comments above.
There is a vast difference between chick-lit and literary writing!
The most important difference imo being in *disposability*, I’d imagine.
I have never once bought a book of chick-lit, nor desire to. I have read
maybe two-three pages that I’d find in a friend’s house and cannot
get why anyone would kill a few trees to publish such tat!
Women’s writing like Lavin’s has a limpidity, a universal quality
and an intimacy that I like, appreciate, and collect. Books are expensive
items, to me buying something that hasn’t the qualities I would seek
is a wasteage- which makes me wonder about marketting ( especially in
relation to the aforementioned publishers attempting to sex-up covers)
There is room for all genres BUT I have to say as a consumer, a reader
and a writer that I get massive headaches looking at garish covers
in peuk-pink, adorned with legs, ballons, rainbows and heaving bosoms!!
Well done to writers who are about content, literature and prose.
evidently the market ignores the fact that lots of chicklit ends up in second
hand shops selling for 50 cents to a euro and doesn’t make it to some
bookshelves, where for the purset pleasure it can be shared and re-read.
So you’ve dismissed an entire genre on the basis of reading two or three pages of a couple of books?
Also, I should add that the books everyone seems to be dismissing are the ones that pay for literary fiction to be published. They’re what make money for publishers that allow them to pay more credible writers half-decent advances (which many of them never make back).
@anna Carey
I am pretty sure that publishers do similar on the basis of marketable quality also!
If the genre does not attract then there ain’t enough hours
in the day to bring me around.
I’d qualify that with the fact that I am working through Lavin
again and find it almost impossible to match her writing to anything that I have recently read. choice in reading material
is always personal, and I go through hell and high water
in terms of finding what I like to read in terms of genre.
+ expressing an opinion on the issue of taste is not a form
of genre-snobbery. The fact that publishers infantilise
women’s marketting manifestly is imo.
I agree with you there. But there’s no point in creating a straw man version of commercial women’s fiction and making a lot of generalisations about the genre without having read any of it. If this genre doesn’t appeal, fine, I don’t blame you, and I certainly don’t think you should have to give them a chance if you don’t want to – but as I said, there are plenty of genres that don’t appeal to me and I have to acknowledge that within those genres there will always be fantastic books. I just may not know about them. But I don’t dismiss them in advance because they’ve got stupid covers.
As for the disposability issue, the reason so many chicklit/commercial fiction titles end up in second hand shops is at least partly because way more of those books are printed (and sold) than literary fiction, so of course more of them will end up in charity shops. It’s not a reflection of the quality of the books. If ending up in a second hand shop is a sign of disposability, then a wide variety of authors in my library from Elizabeth Taylor to Germaine Greer are disposable.
Read this post twice now and am still a little confused. You wonder why chick-lit writers are incredibly defensive yet utterly slate them in the next pargraph. Surely even if the topic is not serious it shouldn’t mean that the ability of the writer to put together a light-hearted, often tongue-in-cheek piece of escapism isn’t of merit?
I didn’t hear the interview on John Murray’s show but I’d imagine what she’s getting at is that certainly in Ireland its probably easy to lump pieces of fiction by female writers under one heading, something that probably wouldn’t be the case if it were written by a man.
Surely even if the topic is not serious it shouldn’t mean that the ability of the writer to put together a light-hearted, often tongue-in-cheek piece of escapism isn’t of merit?
Exactly. There’s an art to writing good light fiction (not that all commercial fiction is light, of course) and I think it should be acknowledged.
I think you missed the point I was making, Nuala. I wasn’t saying that CT’s book should be classified the clearly derided and patronised genre of chick-lit; merely that if his name had been Colleen he would have had to deal with the consequences of having written a novel dealing with relationships.In that case it would have been dismissed as being a romance regardless of its literary merits.
My further point was that men who write novels about relationships and family are treated with more respect than women who do the same. In the Sunday Times piece which triggered the request to discuss the issue on radio, I mentioned that the plot of Nick Hornby’s ‘About a Boy’ would have had it reviewed as chick-lit if the author hadn’t been male .
My final point was that it is only in the literary arena that popular culture is looked down on as being without any merit and where books as entertainment are judged against literary novels. Nobody complains that Madonna, Lady Gaga or Beyonce aren’t Callas, Caballe or te Kanawa. Why should popular writers therefore be slated for not being a Franzen, Banville or Toibin?
Well said, and thanks very much for commenting, Sheila (and sorry for giving away the ending of the new book in my comment, but it seemed necessary).
I’ve spent a lot of my life hanging around musicians and while it seems like a badge of pride among writers to dismiss whole genres in a single bound, professional musicians rarely do so. Most seem to get more interested in other genres as they get older.
Lots of the literary fiction I’ve read involves humourless middle-class men getting divorced/having writers block/having affairs/worrying philosophically about their place in the world/being symbolic of a wider cultural malaise. I wouldn’t dismiss all literary fiction based on those sucky books and I certainly wouldn’t dismiss the whole genre if I’d “read a few pages” of it.
There is, of course, another point of view. I’ve a good friend who doesn’t read any fiction “because it’s all lies.” I think he’s probably the real enemy.
“Most intelligent women readers do not find their own lives reflected in the pages of chick-lit novels”
Wow. How patronising. You are dismissing the thousands of women who buy and enjoy this kind of escapist fiction (and yes they do know it’s not remotely reflective of “real life”) as stupid?
This kind of sweeping statement really grinds my gears. Possibly that was your intention – to write a deliberately provocative post. I hope so
But that’s a separate point. The more interesting one is the fact that women who write entertaining novels are shoehorned into the “chicklit” category and men who write similar works are not, as pointed out by previous commenters.
Of course there are plenty of rubbish women writers in the light fiction category. But there are also lots of brilliant ones too (Marian Keyes is a consistently underrated writer, I’m with you on that one Anna).
Now, this discussion has diverted me from my Proust. I must adieu
Most intelligent women readers do not find their own lives reflected in the pages of chick-lit novels”
Wow. How patronising. You are dismissing the thousands of women who buy and enjoy this kind of escapist fiction (and yes they do know it’s not remotely reflective of “real life”) as stupid?
actually I read the above as a criticism of market-domination
and concur with Nuala. The fact that many women read the tat
would point to time-management imo.
verbal candy-floss has its place, as everything does , but here
in Ireland some eejit thought to attempt to add it to the school
curriculum and ignore actual literature. This is a country where
chick-lit and ghost-written bios form enough craven approval to
get Arts Council referred art exemptions- thats as messed-up
as it gets imo.
If froth and escapism based in worn thin genres is allowed onto
the school curriculum , it represents to me a complete cheapening
of our education system and a market-driven infantilism which points
to cultural failure in what was a highly educated society that produced
giants in world literature.
we need the O donoghues, the lavins, the Mc Guckians, the Ni
Chonchuirs because they represent our arts- the fact that media
dominance and pictorial illiteracy dominates is a crying shame.
“This is a country where chick-lit and ghost-written bios form enough craven approval to get Arts Council referred art exemptions- thats as messed-up as it gets imo.”
Hey, don’t knock it! This is the only country with artists’ exemptions full stop. There’s nothing of the sort in the UK or the US or anywhere in Europe, as far as I know. That’s worth remembering while decrying our national illiteracy.
You can start policing who’s worthy of it a bit more strictly if you like, but given the An Bord Snip report last year, I’ve a feeling that that process might end with no artists’ exemptions whatsoever. Which could be a disaster for Irish literature, especially if you don’t like market domination, as you suggest above.
Sorry now, but who exactly are these ‘chick lit’ authors who are seeking critical acclaim and serious recognition for their contribution to the literary world? I’ve never once heard a Marian Keyes or a Cathy Kelly bemoaning their status on the authors playing field as that of an unfair or unjust rank. To not like chick lit is all well and good, each to their own and what not, but to cloak an arguement against it as a call to reality for these misguided authors is just unfair.
I wouldn’t knock the artist’s exemption, though as I understand it
the Arts Council recommend the work to the Revenue, this appears
to be based on selling quantities and thus a ghost-written bio
of Ahern is considered worthy of an exemption.
When did we reduce ourselves to defining art as a book about a man,
not (mind you) written by the man to be both art and exempt , therefore from
our taxing system. Regarding the issue of proposed novelists for the
Junior Cert curriculum , the daughter of the ex-taoiseach got her named lumped
in with Doyle and Bolger as adequate for our curriculum (Junior Cert).
The fact that whomever would consider that reading adequate to the developing mind
beggars belief, In this case Harper Lee, Mark Haddon, Toibin, Lavin and Ní
Chonchuir would provide good novelistic reading experience for the age group.
The issue was raised in the Irish Independent a couple of years ago. I get Bolger,
Toibin and Doyle and think they would provide interest to students but there is
something remiss about raising the Ahern opus to exempt status and indeed
to curriculum level and I would oppose it if it had a cat in hell’s chance of being
taken seriously. If kids are so inclined , then let them read it in their lisure time.
It’s be great to see reprints of Lavin’s early work and as much energy put into
selling Lavin as there is with chicklit! ‘In a Café’ and ‘The Patriot Son’ are
excellent reading and examples of short stories by Lavin.
though as I understand it
the Arts Council recommend the work to the Revenue, this appears
to be based on selling quantities
This isn’t true at all. Anyone involved in a professional creative endeavour, whether it’s visual art, scriptwriting or fiction writing, can apply for the artist’s exemption. It’s all done through the tax office, and I don’t know a single genuine artist or writer who wasn’t given it. Bertie shouldn’t have been granted it because it’s not meant to be given to autobiography, but that’s nothing to do with him being somehow chosen by the Arts Council.
The author applies to the revenue for it but the application of tax exemption status is up to the Arts Council. The Arts Council don’t recommend work to the Revenue off-hand, authors have to go through the exemption process themselves.
@ anna carey
I refer you to Paragraph 3 here
Guidelines have been drawn up by the Arts Council and the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, for determining for the purposes of Section 195 whether a work is an original and creative work and whether it has, or is generally recognised as having, cultural or artistic merit. The Revenue Commissioners may consult with a person or body of persons, such as The Arts Council, which may be of assistance to them in reaching decisions in relation to Artists Exemption.
from : http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/reliefs/artists-exemption.html
and to the change in the statute in 2003 under the Arts Act :
http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/bills28/acts/2003/a242003.pdf [PDF}
I mis-stated the issue but the AC would indeed enjoy an advisory role in exemptions, the
council being appointed by the Minister. There have been many discussions (specifically
in the Irish times 2003) regarding the changes to the council and the role of Govt in arts.
(sorry, If it appeared over-stated but it is from my memory of the Act, related discussion
and I also have a permanent link to the relevant pages in my blog. I understand that
the issue is not statutory but it is nonetheless a defined role imo)
*links again:
http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/reliefs/artists-exemption.html
http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2003/a242003.pdf
@Gobby, I think that what’s being referred to is this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-pinter/jodi-picoult-jennifer-weiner-franzen_b_693143.html
To be honest, I think that the Picoult/Weiner thing is interesting from the point of view of problematising the idea of “chick-lit” and also the idea of “literary fiction.”
“I often think that the characters’ lives read like a schoolgirl’s fantasy of what it means to be an adult woman, rather than the actual reality of 21st century life. They are novels about rich women in the main – chick-lit books are not set on Council estates and they are not peopled by those who shop in lower-end high street shops or charity shops.”
I just want to expand a little bit on what Anna was talking about a little earlier. I think that its interesting that the main point by which you dismiss chicklit is its lack of “realism” I suppose, and also your privileging here of”real” authentic experience and its representation in art. (and also the corollary that authentic experience is a *classed* experience, that is charity shops are more *authentic* than high end designers, but back to that in a bit). Its interesting that you use the word “fantasy” in this dismissal, because it reminds us that this kind of criticism excludes most genre fiction (fantasy, sci-fi, etc.) from the realm of validity.
Its interesting to note that fantasy and sci-fi in partic. have been useful to writers who are hoping to escape from pre-existing classed, gendered, racialised societal frameworks (I’m thinking here spec. of James Tiptree, Samuel R. Delaney for example). By insisting that “literary fiction” must be grounded in social reality, might be taken as an extremely conservative prescription for the contemporary novel.
It seems that chick lit feels particularly egregious to a certain sensibility because of the messy intersection of gender, populism and a particular type of consumerist aspiration. I feel like dismissals of “chicklit” wholesale are more grounded in a kind of distaste for the general aesthetic they signify and preconceived ideas of what is a legitimate goal for contemporary fiction than any real attempt to engage with chicklit as a genre. But then I’ve never really read any either so lol wtf do i know.
Not all chick lit is all that escapist. And not all of it ignores real issues. I have come across a lot of chick-lit with cancer survivors and way too many with cancer as the crisis du jour, which can be tedious. I’ve also come across books that actually deal with the reality of dealing with Chemotherapy and on that actually dealt with a woman NOT having breast cancer (or any other “female” cancer).
Yes there are a lot of terrible novels but the truth is that much fiction written by men is reviewed and lauded but SIMILAR, and yes mostly trivial, fiction by women isn’t. Men’s fiction is often treated as literature rather than the mass market fiction that they are. Also, because you write fiction, sometimes yours will be dismissed as chicklit, even if it is serious fiction, because of your gender. That is the true issue. That the gender of the writer is sometimes more important to reviewers than the actual content or merit. Somehow, even with many years of wonderful women writers we’re still dealing with a curious blindness towards women.
*Litwomen* –
*Womenlit*-
*Literary Women*-
who wants to be a chick , anyhoo ?
I’m just disappointed that my suggestion of an equivalent soubriquet for male-authored genre fiction, “dicklit”, never took off.
Interesting debate. I too struggle with the compulsion of people (Readers? Publishers? Marketing Departments?) to allocate books to strictly delineated genres. A recent and widely unwelcome proposal to strictly classify children’s books according to the age of target readers seemed just as daft. The brilliant Kate Atkinson visibly bridled yesterday at the suggestion that she used to write literary fiction and now writes crime fiction. “I write books” she replied.
I realise that it’s now very difficult to judge a book by its cover as publishers try to herd us towards varying degrees of pink glitteriness or sombre monochrome depending on how they have classified the latest offering of their star author. I once had to review a book called “Living with the Laird” by Belinda Rathbone for a woman’s magazine. I signed deeply as I opened the sparkly pastel cover. Inside I found a marvellously well crafted memoir written by an American woman struggling to adjust to life as lady of the manor in a draughty 400 year old stately pile in rural Scotland and save her marriage in the process.
I’ve read (& given up on) as much boring literary fiction as I have enjoyed gems in glittery pastel clothing and I’m determined to keep an open mind.
On a related note I was delighted to spy Marian Keyes out and about yesterday looking well and happy. There’s a woman who’s not afraid to tackle the big issues – in fiction and in life.
Let’s not get hung up on labels. At end, it’s all about marketing. Booksellers need guidance as to where to shelve books. It’s simply another category, and I don’t believe it to be pejorative.
Example of how booksellers can’t cope with books that don’t carry some kind of identifiable category – i once went looking for the great Tracy Kidder’s non-fiction book, House. It wasn’t in non-fiction. They had shelved it in DIY and Home Improvements.
Interesting debate. I agree with many posters that making generalizations about a writer because they have been classified in a certain way is dangerous. You can only really judge the quality of the writing by reading it yourself.
To give one example I think that Mandasue Heller is a fantastic writer but she is classified as a crime writer so would not necessarily reach the public who consume ‘literature’.
Another example is a book I just read by Gerbrand Bakker (who won the IMPAC prize this year). The book “Perenbomen bloeien wit” (“Pear trees bloom white”) was witten nearly ten years ago and was classified as youth literature in Holland. It was not a success here but it did really well in Germany where it was treated as a normal novel. After the success of “Boven is het stil” (EN “The Twin”) it was reissued as an adult novel and all of a sudden it was a fantastic work of literature according to many reviews (which it is by the way).
I feel the same way about music. Katy Perry gets destroyed in the intellectual media as though she is some bimbo whereas anybody who has seen her MTV Unplugged performance will appreciate that you shouldn’t judge an artist based on their commercial persona alone.
I’ve been away teaching and have just had a chance to catch up here.
Wow, comment explosion.
I stand by the fact that Brooklyn would not be called chick-lit if it were written by a woman. It entertains but not in the way that chick-lit is designed to entertain.
Chick-lit/commercial fiction is written to a formula – certain things are expected of it, even when it deals with weightier subjects – it has a light touch and an element of humour that characterises it. Tóibín’s Brooklyn may be a romance, a love triangle even, but it has depth, considered language and it simply isn’t formulaic, in the way that commercial women’s novels often are. Brooklyn is not a light entertainment novel – that is not how it was written.
It’s down to personal taste, as Poethead said. I just don’t like commercial fiction (I’ve yet to read a very commercial book that I found brilliant), neither do I like horror, romance, crime. I’m not required to like them and no one is required to like literary or historical fiction which are the genres I enjoy the most. (Publishers, incidentally, seem to be the biggest dislikers of these genres – for commercial reasons, by all accounts.)
So, while the genres I enjoy sell little in comparison to more commercial ones like chick- and lad-lit, thrillers etc., not all commercial fiction is buoying up literary fiction. My new publisher, New Island, for example, don’t publish chick- or lad-lit. So they take their chances on more literary books and on non-fiction.
@Anna – I read Marian Keyes’s ‘Rachel’s Holiday’ and found things to enjoy in it; there was weighty subject matter but it didn’t take itself too seriously. There was lots of talk in it about size 10 dresses, labels etc. though and that just isn’t what I want to read about in fiction.
I guess genres in general are problematic and are probably falsely imposed by publishers and PR teams. The whole business of covers, as mentioned, is a sticky one. We do judge books by covers and publishers know that – hence the ‘pinkicisation’ of much of commercial women’s fic, much of which may not actually fit there, as Anna says. But how am I, as someone who has tried reading chick-lit and found it wanting, supposed to be able to pick the gems from the dross? And I do agree, Anna, that some so-called literary fiction is really not that successful.
@ Sheila – re “it is only in the literary arena that popular culture is looked down on as being without any merit”. I’m not sure that that’s true – I think the same is also true in the case of music (boy bands VS bands like The Rolling Stones); film (rom coms VS drama); theatre (panto VS classic plays). There is usually a critical divide between what is seen as lighter entertainment and what is seen as more serious.
As to the Artists’ Exemption – it benefits those who earn huge amounts of money from their art. I think it has given artists a bad name and maybe the upper cap should be reduced downward to match wages in the private sector. Artists still pay tax on money earned from arts related activities (e.g. teaching, lecturing etc.) – the exemption is purely for single pieces of work, like a CD or book.
maybe the upper cap should be reduced downward to match wages in the private sector.
I completely agree. I am a big supporter of the Artists’ Exemption but as someone who believes very strongly that the comfortably off and the rich need to pay tax, I find the cut-off of 250,000 absolutely ridiculous. I think the AE is important because most artists are on low and unreliable incomes, and I think the cut-off should be high-ish, like about 60,000, because many artists (and indeed self-employed people) could earn a fair bit one year and then nothing the next, but there’s something disgusting about people earning over 200,000 and not paying any tax on it. A novelist friend did once describe the current financial situation of a very successful writer she knows with the words “He has to pay tax now”, which we both understood to mean “He’s loaded”. And he is.
Ddifferent genres of music or drama are, of course, critically reviewed from particular viewpoints, but you rarely hear musicians or actors suggesting that their colleagues should move from pop to opera for more credibility. Panto, being primarily aimed at children, is different but it has never been said that by taking the role of M in the James Bond franchise, Dame Judi Dench has lowered her status as an actor.
It is the quality of the work that matters, not the genre. However I can’t help feeling that many ‘literary’ writers don’t think that way.
In fairness, critics despair over the likes of Robert de Niro for doing mostly horror flicks and romcoms in the last decade. And there are examples of switching genre to get more credibility – Daniel Radcliffe doing Equus between Potter films and Robbie Williams becoming significantly rockier after leaving Take That (of course, he’s now gone back!). I agree that there is snobbery towards books-as-entertainment, but I think it has its equivalents in other art forms.
Critics despair De Niro for doing BAD romcoms and horror shows. There’s a difference.
I think Sheila’s point isn’t that there is no elitism in other artistic mediums, but that writing is the only medium where elitism is not only readily accepted, but actively encouraged to such a great degree.
A review of Robbie Williams’s music which stated “it’s good, but pales in comparison to Frank Sinatra’s classical, pre-rock-and-roll pop music” would be remarkably silly. But a review such as “Stieg Larsson spins a good murder mystery yarn, but falls short of becoming a modern-day Agatha Christie” would be perfectly acceptable. Why?
I mean, elitism will crop up anywhere. But in the writing world it’s so prevalent that it’s choking the life out of itself. For every 10 good writers, 9 of them will waste their talent trying to impress their peers with obscure literary references, mangled pacing and dull plot structure. And one will think for themselves and “inexplicably” become a best-seller.
JJ, Robbie did draw many comparisons with Sinatra, mostly unfavourable, when he did Swing When You’re Winning. And I think if someone wanted to criticise Stieg on literary grounds, they’d be more likely to compare him to someone like Le Carre – both write political thrillers but differ in stylistic approach.
And maybe that’s why there is a lot of tension between women’s fiction and literary fiction. Most genres are defined by subject matter but these two (if they are in fact true genres) differ only in stylistic approach, while frequently sharing subject matter and themes – love, identity, family, death etc. In bookshops they are both labelled ‘general fiction’ and fight with each other for shelf space. It’s maybe inevitable there would be rows!
>> But if that literature is dominated by the chick-lit model of woman as greedy, empty-headed, needy consumer, in pursuit of a man-saviour, where are the role models for younger women? <<
I'm sure there are plenty of chick-lit books out there with these kinds of heroines, in the same way that there are plenty of fantasy books where two-dimensional heroes fight dragons and do not much else for 300-odd pages. But most of the chick-lit I read – and it's far from all I read, as is the case with many women readers – does not feature consumerist/conformist/conservative heroines. Nor is there always a happy romantic ending. Or shoes. If I had to pick a way of summarising chick-lit, it'd be "young woman finding and developing her identity" – not materialism and man-hunting,
I’m also not sure how accurate the assumption is that commercial fiction always enables writers to make a living – I know plenty who don’t, and some ‘literary’ writers who (assisted by bursaries and residencies) manage to.
[...] debate continues in the world, including over at Irish feminist blog The Anti-Room. I think Anna Carey’s response says pretty much everything I thought when reading that post, but I’ve also been thinking [...]
Personally, I despise the pretentious bullshit that so-called “literary authors” peddle to aspiring writers. They’re a bunch of elitists who split their time between deciding on the “correct way to write”, trashing any writers who don’t conform to their idea of “good writing”, and then moping about how the general public is just “too dim-witted to appreciate their genius”.
And ironically, it’s completely their fault. If you create a divide between sellable fiction, and self-indulgent tripe, guess which side is more consumer-friendly.
I mean, even Shakespeare would include comical characters and witches and things to make his plays have wider market appeal. Do literary folks consider themselves above him, too?
Just as there is a big divide between the abhorrent shoe-lit that Nuala describes, and excellent women’s fiction as written by Marian Keyes, there is also a wide spectrum of literary fiction. Some of it I find depressing, impenetrable, pretentious, but there are also many literary books that are accessible, honest and yes, even have funny bits! Emma Donoghue’s Room is a perfect example.
One thing I think helps define women’s fiction, besides the pastel covers, is that it tends to have a certain formula, or rhythm if you prefer. Even when the subject matter of a book is very worthy and serious, there is a certain pulling-back or lack of risk-taking, or an attempt to balance out the serious bits with light humour to keep it from getting too dark. This review puts it very well:
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/review-pieces-of-my-heart-by-sinead-moriarty-2334561.html
I’m not sure if there’s a strict definition for what “literary fiction” is, but personally I think it shouldn’t be considered a ‘genre’. Literary fiction, I believe, SHOULD be so-called for its inherent literary merit. Not because of its specific style.
Calling one’s own work ‘literary’, is in my opinion, the highest form of self-aggrandisement. I read it as saying: “my writing is an artform, which transcends the scribblings of other writers who are merely pandering to the grubby masses”. Whether the title is apt or not, I find it an extremely distasteful attitude to take.
Instead of saying “be happy you make lots of money and stop trying to hog the glory of us TRUE writers”, I think they should be asking themselves “why doesn’t my work sell?”
Because here’s the horrifying truth: there IS no “big divide”. Literary authors pander to fellow elitists, just as commercial authors pander to the public. They give their target demographic what they want, and they’re rewarded for it. One side is just a bit more self-deluded about the whole process.
Where does all this leave Jane Austen? Heroine meets morally upright and apparently stuffy hero, disliking him at first. Heroine’s flibbertygibbet sister runs off with morally deficient but handsome cad. Stuffy hero secretly clears up ensuing mess, but is inevitably outed, whereupon heroine marries hero, having realised that you cannot judge a book by its cover. Pink glitter, anyone?
JJ, you talk as though the plain people of Ireland have no interest in literary fiction. That’s not my experience. Most fiction readers I know, myself included, read a healthy smattering of both literary and commercial.
I agree with you about the awkwardness of the term literary fiction. It’s basically a bunch of disparate books with not a whole lot in common apart from stylistic ambition. And maybe that’s a reason it doesn’t sell as much as other genres – it’s not a sure bet. Still, its sales are apparently on the rise in Ireland – along with fantasy and YA of all things.
I’m not sure what the definition for a “plain person” is, but the increasing sales of literary fiction are most likely indicative of the successful propagation of elitist attitudes towards reading and writing. Which is exactly what I’m complaining about.
Many writers or avid readers I know would look down on anyone who reads only commercial books. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pressure from various book clubs and writer’s circles would cause people to buy boring “literary” crap (and even force themselves to like it) just to fit in and appear well read.
I’m not saying all literary books/authors suck. I’m just saying that when you reject fantasy/sci-fi, chick-lit, thrillers, true crime, fast pacing, colourful characters, engaging action and smooth readability as “too low brow”, what does that leave you with? Watching paint dry? I mean, you might be able to write a beautiful, moving masterpiece about watching paint dry, but drying paint shouldn’t be the foundation for an entire genre (especially when writers in that genre believe that ALL novels should focus on the drying of paint)
I just think it’s a very narrow-minded, short-sighted attitude to be set in.
JJ, I don’t know what ‘literary fiction’ you’ve encountered, but to assume that as a genre it precludes “fast pacing, colourful characters, engaging action and smooth readability” is to display a viewpoint as narrow as the one you seem to despise. It’s ridiculous to claim that when you take away all the genres you mention what you’re left with is watching paint dry. Furthermore, book clubs are generally made up of people who want to challenge themselves to break out of reading habits and expand their horizons, i.e. do exactly what most people taking part in this discussion are advocating when it comes to reading. No one is forced to join such a group, and no one can “force themselves” to like a book, no matter what they might publicly profess to think of it. If sales of literary fiction are on the increase, perhaps it’s precisely because such clubs are encouraging people to stretch themselves a little more, and not because of some ‘elitist’ plot to take over the world.
VIDA discussion on the Chick-lit issue >
http://vidaweb.org/what-we-talk-about-when-were-talking-about-the-count