Chick Lit, Revisited

In the November 4th edition of the Globe and Mail, before the Giller prize was awarded to Vincent Lam for Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, there was a “Giller Debate” between Andrew Gorham, Sandra Martin and James Adams. They discussed the merits of the shortlisted books and debated which one might win the largest annual prize awarded for fiction in Canada.

Out of all the books on the shortlist (De Niro’s Game, The Immaculate Conception, Home Schooling and The Perfect Circle all lost out), The Perfect Circle appealed to me the most (see "I'm Reading..." in the sidebar of this blog). What was interesting in the Globe article though, was the fact that the two men didn’t see the book as a contender:

“Andrew: Now, let’s talk about Quiviger’s The Perfect Circle. First off, and maybe this is sexist, I feel that half the reading population is removed because it’s very much a female love story.

James: You mean, it’s chick lit.

Sandra: It’s not chick lit.

Andrew: It’s great chick lit.

Sandra: It is definitely not chick lit. It’s not chick lit.

Andrew: It’s a love story and, as a man, I prefer something with a little bit more…

Sandra: Action.

Andrew: Contention.”

Mr. Gorham implies that a book dealing with relationships does not have enough substance to qualify for literary recognition.

Really?

In a previous post, I tried to delineate the dismissive term “chick lit” and decide why Sophie Kinsella is stamped with the label but Margaret Atwood is not. The difference, I found, was the inclusion of “weightier” topics within the female experience of love.

But can we really discount love as a trifling subject? Women and men have written about it through the ages – it is the most popular topic in poetry and song. Humans make their living arrangements and reproductive choices (usually) based on love. And when love is taken away, we plumb the depths of emotion.

Michael Ondaatje, widely considered a “serious” author and also the winner of the 2000 Giller Prize (for Anil’s Ghost), writes the most unbelievably amazing prose describing romantic love in the chapter entitled “Katherine” in his novel The English Patient – which won him the Booker Prize. (If you haven’t read it, go read it right now. If you have, re-read it.) The English Patient is thick with the nuances of demarcation and national identity, but it would have won on the merits of its prose alone. So why does Gorham discount The Perfect Circle based only on its subject matter?

The truth is, it is only one man’s opinion. The Perfect Circle made it to the shortlist for the Giller on its literary merits, regardless of subject matter. Quiviger’s words are evocative; her style both languorous and obsessive, like those first heady weeks of a love affair. And what is great literature, but the containing of human experience into a few well-chosen words that make the reader think, ah yes; that IS how it feels…