This is my promised response to an earlier blog post by Sara Gran. I love her books I just don’t always agree with her blog posts is all. I linked to it yesterday so please read it first.
Chick-Lit vs. Romance
I don’t agree with the way that you are using the terms Romance Novel and Chick-Lit interchangeably. They are distinct genres; a quick visit to Wikipedia bears that out.
1) “A romance novel is a novel from the genre currently known as romance. The genre has two strict criteria:
* The story must focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people [1];
* The end of the story must be positive, leaving the reader believing that the protagonists' love and relationship will endure for the rest of their lives.
If a novel does not fulfill those conditions, fans of the genre are likely to claim that it belongs to a related genre, such as women's fiction or chick lit, or that it is just a mainstream fiction novel.
Some romance novel readers would claim that the genre has additional restrictions, from plot considerations such as the hero and heroine meeting early on in the story, to avoiding possible themes, such as neither hero nor heroine committing adultery in the course of their relationship developing. However, these are not hard-and-fast rules, and some writers deliberately write stories that may put off some readers in order to push the genre's boundaries.”
2) "Chick lit" is a term used to denote a genre of popular fiction written for and marketed to young women, especially single, working women in their twenties. The genre's creation was spurred on, if not exactly created, in the mid-1990s with the appearance of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary and similar works; it continued to sell well in the 2000s, with chick-lit titles topping bestseller lists and the creation of imprints devoted entirely to chick-lit.
Chick-lit features hip, stylish female protagonists, usually in their twenties or thirties, in urban settings (usually Manhattan), and follows their love lives and struggles in business (often in the publishing, advertising, public relations or fashion industry). The books usually feature an irreverent tone and frank sexual themes.
They aren’t the same. Chick-Lit is a bit harder to define because it is newer but some examples are Megan McCafferty’s "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings"; Read Between the Lies; Mrs. Mourning Glo; Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City; The Girls Guide to Fishing and Hunting by Melissa Bank; Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary; Devil Wears Prada and Animal Husbandry. Whereas we all know what a Romance novel is, after all we have all seen the section at the bookstore regardless of the store.
So, with that said I don’t think that Romance novels will ever attain a level of critical acceptance or re-appraisal. I think as a genre it will always remain in the critical basement. I think that one of the biggest reasons for this is the Romance genres inability to produce what others outside of the genre or even those inside the genre would call a classic. All other genre fiction has laid claims on certain titles and authors who are regarded as classics.
Name me one Romance writer. You can’t. In fact the average persons knee jerk reaction to hearing the phrase Romance Novel is probably Fabio. That right there exists as one of the prime indicators of the superficiality of that genre when the most prominent figure is a male model who poses for pictures that are usually drawn, not even a photograph!
Lowest Common Denominator
Good fiction is good fiction regardless of genre. But just because a book is written by a woman isn’t enough of a reason to champion it. If that becomes your sole reason, or your top reason for recommending a book then you considerably lower your baseline for comparison. The bar becomes lowered as you play to the lowest common denominator. If you recommend a book to me simply based on the fact that a woman wrote it then that becomes the blind date equivalent of “Well, she’s nice…”
To hear your argument put another way just change the word woman to brown hair. So now you’re saying that a book should be read because the person who wrote it has brown hair.
In other words, quality needs to come into the discussion at all times. Quality doesn’t mean that the high walls of academia approve of it and let it romp freely inside their high walls. After all there are different types of quality, no one is going to say Ken Bruen writes like Dante but they both are quality writers.
"To suggest that another woman's ostensibly literary novel is chick lit feels catty, not unlike calling another woman a slut -- doesn't the term basically bring down all of us?" -- Curtis Sittenfeld in the New York Times [1]
Laughing All the Way to the Bank
Romance novels are most popular in the United States and Canada, where it is the best-selling genre. In North America in 2002, sales of romance novels generated US$1.63 billion and comprised 34.6% of all popular fiction sold - by comparison, general fiction comprised 24.1% and mystery, detective and suspense fiction comprised 23.1%. Over 2000 romance novels were published, and there were 51.1 million romance novel readers.
Romance novels are doing just fine the way that are and the above stated statistics bear that out. They don’t need our critical approval when they are getting our dollars. In fact given the inherent superficiality of the genre the statistics speak bibles full of truth about readers’ habits.
The 70’s Reappraisal
I’m not too sure even where to start with her contention that of the so called 70’ reappraisal of other genres of fiction. It feels mis-informed at best so it may aggravate me I’m not offended by it. She even admits her own un-interest in other genres. So it may warrant a response but I don’t feel it’s necessary at this time.
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