{"id":10351,"date":"2007-02-12T07:47:53","date_gmt":"2007-02-12T14:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/02\/12\/pretty-in-pink-3.html"},"modified":"2007-02-12T07:47:53","modified_gmt":"2007-02-12T14:47:53","slug":"pretty_in_pink_3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/02\/12\/pretty_in_pink_3.html","title":{"rendered":"Pretty in Pink"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate<\/a> points to a truly goofy Maureen Dowd column<\/a> (and a nice response <\/a> to it), the gist of which is, “Good heavens, upon entering a bookstore I discovered
\na plethora of low-brow, so-called ‘chick lit’ on the bookshelves, truly a sign of the End Times and the utter stupefaction of American culture in general, and the literary world in particular. Gads.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Or, in Dowd’s own words on her visit to a Borders:<\/p>\n

\n

Suddenly I was swimming in pink. I turned frantically from display table to display table, but I couldn\u2019t find a novel without a pink cover. I was accosted by a sisterhood of cartoon women, sexy string beans in minis and stilettos, fashionably dashing about book covers with the requisite urban props \u2014 lattes, books, purses, shopping bags, guns and, most critically, a diamond ring.<\/p>\n

Was it a Valentine\u2019s Day special?<\/p>\n

No, I realized with growing alarm, chick lit was no longer a niche. It had staged a coup of the literature shelves. Hot babes had shimmied into the grizzled old boys\u2019 club, the land of Conrad, Faulkner and Maugham. The store was possessed with the devil spawn of \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada.\u201d The blood-red high heel ending in a devil\u2019s pitchfork on the cover of the Lauren Weisberger best seller might as well be driving a stake through the heart of the classics.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Or, to quote fellow lit snob who was accompanying her, Leon Wieseltier:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThese books do not seem particularly demanding in the manner of real novels,\u201d Leon said. \u201cAnd when we\u2019re at war and the country is under threat, they seem a little insular. America\u2019s reading women could do a lot worse than to put down \u2018Will Francine Get Her Guy?\u2019 and pick up \u2018The Red Badge of Courage.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Because, of course, if only all those girly-girl pink-bound slightly-more-respectable-than-bodice-rippers were to be cast upon a bonfire somewhere, all those insular, escapist, girly-girl women buying the stuff would instead turn to true literary classics, like The Red Batdge of Courage<\/em> or Nostromo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Riiiiiight.<\/p>\n

The fact is, 99% of women (and men) have either never read The Red Badge of Courage<\/em>, or were required to read it in high school and never want to read it again. The presence of “chick lit” in its various incarnations, breaking out of the genre ghetto, isn’t a sign of decline in anything (indeed, it actually indicates that folks may be going into bookstores and buying books<\/em>, surely not a bad thing). And the reason that Borders is giving as much space to it as “Conrad, Faulkner and
\nMaugham” is that, really, the audience for those authors isn’t getting smaller, it just was never that large to begin with.<\/p>\n

Should<\/em> folks read the classics? Probably, though I’d probably worry about someone who only read them and eschewed any lighter-weight entertainment. But shoulds<\/em> and oughts<\/em> and I-say-rathers<\/em> are a different proposition than asking “Is chick lit evil and intellectually degrading?” <\/p>\n

Escapist, fluffy, entertaining fare has been a staple of literature since the the printing press (and, of course, long before). For every Shakespeare (himself accused of low-brow masses-pandering) there were hundreds of playwrights who simply gave the “hoi-polloi” what they wanted — simple tales of good and evil and bawdiness and laughter and escapism. For Dowd and Wieseltier to pooh-pooh such things is snobbery of the highest water, and to comment that in a time of war and threat folks really ought<\/em> to
\nbe reading tales that take serious looks at such things flies in the face of reality (cf. the vast majority of motion pictures made during WWII). And, of course, there have always been plenty of folks — “critics,” we often call them — who have turned up their noses at such things, feigning horror and gleefully noting how plebeian the plebes are.<\/p>\n

I am not, myself, an aficionado of “chick lit” (if I understand the term correctly), but I do enjoy other genre fare, much of which would seem “not particularly demanding” to the NY Times or New Republic literary audience. <\/p>\n

Gee, sorry about that. Guess I should break out the Hardy and Hemingway and Homer and feel properly put in my place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kate points to a truly goofy Maureen Dowd column (and a nice response to it), the gist of which is, “Good heavens, upon entering a bookstore I discovered a plethora…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-books","category-fourth-estate"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49310,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/21\/a-plethora-of-lightsabers.html","url_meta":{"origin":10351,"position":0},"title":"A Plethora of Lightsabers","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 21-Jan-15 11:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I would love to think that the creative team behind the new #StarWars intentionally dropped that pic of the hilted lightsaber in the teaser trailer just to get people doing this sort of stuff and keeping the movie in the public eye. I doubt it, but I'd love to think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/e7.gifimgmax%3D660.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10972,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/05\/05\/one_would_hope_that_would.html","url_meta":{"origin":10351,"position":1},"title":"One would hope that would narrow the field some …","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 5-May-07 10:02am","format":false,"excerpt":"... but, no doubt, it won't.\u00a0 Republican candidates indicate if they don't believe in evolution. In the \"don't\" column (right there, raising their hands on national TV and everything):\u00a0...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/voting-butterfly.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24591,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/16\/zero-tolerance-as-a-form-of-ritual-purity.html","url_meta":{"origin":10351,"position":2},"title":"Zero Tolerance as a form of Ritual Purity","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 16-Dec-11 7:45am","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes you can't even make this stuff up. A (very standard) Bible, colored pink because a fraction of the purchase went to the Susen G. Komen foundation to help battle breast cancer, is apparently tainted (TAINTED, I TELL YOU!) because Susan G. Komen has provided money at some point to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14065,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/03\/08\/margie-gras-weekend.html","url_meta":{"origin":10351,"position":3},"title":"Margie Gras weekend","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 8-Mar-09 6:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Whoosh! Endless fun this weekend, finally ending ... Friday \u00a0 The plan was to watch Watchmen with various folks, which turned out to work pretty darned well. Lee, De, and Jackie came over to the house to drop of their respective kids, for which we'd arranged sitting along with Katherine.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Food & Drink"","block_context":{"text":"Food & Drink","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/food-drink"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18816,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/10\/04\/tweets-from-2010-10-04.html","url_meta":{"origin":10351,"position":4},"title":"Tweets from 2010-10-04","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 4-Oct-10 11:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And so another week begins: got to bed at a decent hour, but weighed in higher than expected. Bleah. # Putting on my wish list ... RT @doycet: Badonkadonk. http:\/\/amzn.to\/cuBI4C -- The reviews are what really sell it. #holidayshopping # Okay, been using Office 2007 since mid-July, and I STILL\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4745,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/14\/note_to_self_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":10351,"position":5},"title":"Note to self","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Jan-04 9:07am","format":false,"excerpt":"While setting up appointments for phone calls in Outlook is a truly fine idea, and it's great to go to all the detail of identifying a good time in the...","rel":"","context":"In "Job Jollies"","block_context":{"text":"Job Jollies","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/job-jollies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}