chick lit…or literature?
Recently I was looking through the house for a book to re-read. I love re-reading some of the same books over and over (I’d rather do this than read a new book most times…I suppose I am cognitively lazy in this sense), and settled on The Mermaid Chair (by the same person who wrote The Secret Life of Bees…but I don’t remember who that person is right now. Sue something. OK FINE, I’ll google it. Sue Monk Kidd.). And then I re-realized, that the reason I like this book is that it falls into my favorite genre, which is, I am pretty sure, an unnamed genre…therefore not existing. But it probably should.
OK, so I think this genre can be defined as…female main characters who are having an internal conflict, as in “woman vs. herself.” These women are all dissatisfied with their lives, particularly their significant others, and set out to find themselves. Most often they end up killing themselves (but through death feel some sense of victory over their lives) but sometimes, they actually find happiness (this though, is rare)!
I told Jim about this and he nodded and gave me this look that said both “that explains a lot” and also, “you aren’t telling me anything new, I knew you were [insane, depressive-tendencied, bred to be unhappy in all your relationships].” It was a unique look. I kinda agreed….
BUT now…I’m working under a new hypothesis to explain my literary preferences and/or tendency to lean toward depression. My first love of this genre was in high school when I fell for Tess of the D’urbervilles, quickly followed by The Awakening. (In high school people…before I was allegedly crazy (I think)). Before this I had read a bunch of Shakespeare, meeting Romeo and Macbeth and King Lear and all these other dudes…and Juliet and Ophelia. I loved Ophelia more than the others (and almost named Isabella this but Isabella’s winningly sweet and optimistic personality led her to a more traditional princess name).
ANYWAY…my working hypothesis is, maybe there are NOT strong, interesting female main characters out there. If there are, maybe I have not come across them in my literary affairs…or if I did bump into them, perhaps I was not attracted to them.
But if I had been attracted to these non-existent strong, happy, well-rounded female characters from the tender age of 14 onward…well, what then? Who would I be today?
By the way, some books in my favorite genre are…Tess of the D’urbervilles, The Awakening, The Mermaid Chair, and Eat Pray Love. The latter is the most read by me (I read it about once a month) and is by far the most uplifting and inspiring.
Do you know other books that fit into this genre? Or books that show likable main female characters…that aren’t chick lit? Is any book with a female main character chick lit? How often do guys read books with female main characters…and vice versa?
2 years ago • 0 notes