Now Sylvia Path is 'Chick Lit'.

So previously we weighed in on the issue of 'chick lit' and how it tend to be demeaned by the wider literary community.  Now Sylvia Plath is involved. Personally, she is not my favorite writer, I enjoyed 'The Bell Jar', but I know people who hold her as something of an idol. So now that Sylvia Plaths' novel 

The Bell Jar has had a 50th anniversary makeover, many of these people have been in up roar at what they see as a belittlement of Plaths' talents. Plath's fans guard her legacy fiercely and many believe that this new cover turns her book into 'chick-lit'. Said incriminating cover is a bright bubblegum pinky red (above), contrasting with a 1950s style photo of a young woman patting powder from a compact onto her face, with her lips reflected in its mirror. It's color's seem traditional to those associated with chick lit, so many have calling it an insensitive choice for a book ground-breaking for detailing the suffocating power of gender stereotyping.

 Jezebel writes: “If Sylvia Plath hadn't already killed herself, she probably would've if she saw the new cover of her only novel The Bell Jar. For a book all about a woman's clinical depression that's exacerbated by the suffocating gender stereotypes of which she's expected to adhere and the limited life choices she has as a woman, it's pretty fucking stupid to feature a low-rent retro wannabe pinup applying makeup.”

Sorry Jez, I normally quite enjoy your wit, but I think your wrong, In defense I think it captures the essence of the book well. At the beginning of the book, The Bell Jar’s protagonist Esther Greenwood is working as a writer on a New York magazine; she and the other girls are given  freebies which include cosmetics such as the compact on the cover; and they are living and working in an environment concerned with glamour and fashion. So really the cover art is relevant to the book's content.Plus, the entire book deals with appearance and reality; Esther's outward appearance belies what is happening within. Knowing that she has to look and behave in a certain way. The woman on the covers powder and the lipstick are a mask, an image that is projected to others irrespective of inner turmoil'. The fact the mirror is in there invites you to reflect, as she does making up. Why is she fixing her face? Is it right that she feels that she has to do this? These sort of questions.

It is a disturbing image because of the placement and angles of the picture, the colour saturation and the expression on the woman's face viewed in the mirror, it's not a meaningless image. In fact the mouth is almost a sneer. Just like how be analyze more traditional art, why can't we analyze this book cover beyond the simple colours and make up? I can't help but think that sexism is evident not in the choice for the cover image, but in the public refusal to believe cosmetics and fashion are worthy subjects of a literary novel.

 In the 50s and early 60s women's behaviour was governed by certain social rules and they were valued mainly with regard to looks rather than intellect  The photograph on the cover captures this too. Nowhere do we see perhaps a pen or a notebook, the really important things in the protagonists life, instead we see the things that society viewed as important. The woman featured is firmly underneath the patriarchal thumb, toeing the line and looking just the way society says she should. Perhaps the cover can be interpreted deeper than simply cosmetics and a pout.

Regards,

Dorothy.

'Chick Lit' is Psychologically Damaging

With Daphne and Dorothy

Chick Lit seems to be looked down on by  the literacy community, but also now, it turn out it's psychologically bad for you also. In a recent The Pacific Standard a new study that suggested chick lit is causes women to feel shit about themselves. The study, published in the journal Body Image, asked a group of 159 women to read one of two excerpts researchers manipulated in terms of the character’s weight, wardrobe and kinds of comments she makes to herself, and others, about her body. Afterwards, participants answered questions having to do with their own weight and sexual allure.

The results were that women felt considerably more crappy about their bodies when their protagonist was overweight and making negative comments about herself. Hence the idea that, “Chick-lit is hazardous to women’s health.” But I think a major problem with this is that the study was an except, not the ending of a chick lit book, which in said genre is invariably satisfying, and may make you feel positive about your well being, as you will still be relating to the character you having formed a connection with them. So really, I think this study was a little bit bullshitty. 

In my own life however, I find that I'm embarrassed to read such books, psychologically damaging or otherwise. I like to read 'chick lit', and enjoy balancing it out with 'heavier' books plus I find a good, relatively light book, such as those of Sophie Kinsella, Meg Cabot, Lauren Weisberger and such a to be a nice contribution to my reading life. But I get embarrassed when I read these books in public. The Chick Lit books that I read defiantly fall under 'read in the privacy of my home, or on a kindle' section, (the shame of reading a book with the word 'shopaholic' in the title I suppose). Why am I ashamed?  The genre is called a 'guilty pleasure', a term so often used by people in relation to the trashy novels and t.v shows we actually love, but shouldn't really be admitting to enjoying. It’s because we’re made to feel like we need to be consuming things that are more 'intelligent'. I don't want people presuming that because I'm reading that 'fluffy' book today that I am not intelligent, reasonable person. I promise, I'll be able to tell the difference between tortoises and  turtles and still enjoy books with satisfying endings.Not to mention sometimes you don't want to wade through eight chapters before anything really even happens (only so many times you can describe a rolling hills kind of landscape really aren't there?).

In my studies I have to write critical essays on 'heavy tomes' and I do genuinely enjoy reading such books. But sometimes Chick Lit is a refreshing antidote to my crushed brain, sometimes I don't want to slog though any more heavy thought provoking prose. You want to turn your brain off and fantasise about Prince Charming, fairy tales for grown up little princesses really. 

The book cover doesn't help. The  recurring pattern of pinks and swirly writing, all with similar covers this causes a whole range of authors to be clumped together. Or an artsy picture of an accessory, shoes, necklaces or bags.  The book jackets are decisions made by publishers. We decide what a book looks like and this is a complicated decision, influenced by what we think looks good, what we think will position the book most clearly in the marketplace, and how best to signal quickly to both retailers and readers what kind of book it is. In many ways the only thing that “these books” really have in common is that they’re written primarily by women and about relationships. 

This is from Jessica Rudd, who wrote Campaign Ruby and Ruby Blues : 'I’d much prefer my work to be devoured by many than nibbled by few. Sophie Kinsella, Candace Bushnell, Helen Fielding, Marian Keyes—they all write the lives of contemporary women and their books will be thumbed for generations to come....Herein lies the answer. I reckon if these were the stories of men—and dare I say written by men—they wouldn't be tagged as frivolous.' They (the characters  also all have excellent jobs and tend to be pretty ambitious, journalists, graphic designers, architects and just generally women that have it all. Plus many of these authors aren't 'idiots', Sophie Kinsella is an Oxford graduate for instance, on one of the most competitive course: Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE).

There are blokes who write for blokes but their work is not sneered at by the 'la-di-das'. we don’t call books by men and about men ‘dick lit’, even if they are commercial minded (we really should though!). You could argue that crime and thriller has a larger male audience, but they don't carry the same connotations that female-orientated genres do. Because we still live in a society where "women's interests" are given a lower ranking. I still hear comments from guys about girls getting "too emotional because it's that time of month" and frankly, it makes my blood boil, perhaps Chick Lit is looked down on because it's too openly emotional?

Sure, the plot can be a little formulaic and dull, but so can books of any genre. It's simply snobbish to presume that all the books of a certain genre have nothing to contribute. I like to think I have wide-ranging and eclectic tastes, although what I'm coming to discover is that genre isn't really that important to me, it's the quality of the writing and the portrayal of realistic and well rounded characters that draw my attention. This is true, if Fifty Shades of Grey had an inkling of decent penmanship, that extends beyond what I imagine would happen if you let a talking walrus write a book about S&M using only his flippers, then I imagine we wouldn't show so much disdain towards it. Yet it is being lumped in with all female oriented books and frankly it has launched a sub-genre of chick lit, where anything flies, that drags the genre down as a whole. 

I like to think I have wide-ranging and eclectic tastes, although what I'm coming to discover is that genre isn't really that important to me, it's the quality of the writing and the portrayal of realistic and well rounded characters that draw my attention.

I like to think I have wide-ranging and eclectic tastes, although what I'm coming to discover is that genre isn't really that important to me, it's the quality of the writing and the portrayal of realistic and well rounded characters that draw my attention