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I generally ignore the chick-lit critics banging on about how awful the genre is. It's gotten old, and is usually just an attempt by the critic to show off how terribly intellectual she is.

But, as of late, the screeching has been getting a bit more shrill, and a bit more desperate.

Take, for example, the recent release of the anthology THIS IS NOT CHICK LIT. The title was obviously chosen for its unmistakable sense of self-importance and smug condescension, and one can only assume that its all-black block-print cover is designed to convey the gravitas of Serious Fiction.

It reminds me of those pale teenagers you see at the mall, the ones who dress head-to-toe in black, even when it’s ninety-five degrees out, terribly anxious that someone might fail to notice that They Are Different. They are somehow oblivious to the fact that in their Different-ness, they behave precisely alike.

Although there is some good contemporary literary fiction out there, there is also a large percentage of it that is every bit as formulaic as chick lit is alleged to be. How many Serious Literary Novels follow the same pattern?

1. Take a downtrodden character, preferably one adversely affected by racism/classism/sexism/anyism.

2. Very bad things happen to this already-downtrodden character. (A rape thrown in somewhere is pretty much a given.)

3. For a brief moment, things seem like they might get a little better . . . but then they get much, much worse.

4. The End.

Oh, and when a book is described on its dust jacket as having “lyrical prose”? That’s code for “the plot is shit.”

And then there is this recent column written anonymously by a woman claiming to be a former editor of women’s fiction. (One need not read very far to understand why she’s no longer an editor.)

“Chick lit is hurting America,” she announces.

And, no, she's not being ironic.

And just how is chick lit hurting America? Because it’s taking up shelf space in the bookstore that rightly belongs to Serious Literary Works! You, the reading public, Ms. Anonymous Ex-Editor insists, should not be reading what you want to read. Oh, no. You should be reading what she says you should read!

“In our culture, there is no longer a difference between snobbery and discerning taste,” she continues.

And by “discerning taste,” she means her taste. Not yours, the reading public, since clearly you’re too dumb to pick out your own reading material.

And don’t even think of calling her a misogynist! Because, hey, she says she’s not. (This might have been a bit more believable had she not then called a female political writer with whom she disagrees a “cunt bag.”)

It’s easy to dismiss Ms. Anonymous Ex-Editor as unhinged, but then again, there are people out there who really think this way – that they, and not you, should decide what book you’re going to curl up with at night. For all her ranting about the dark age of intellectual fascism that has descended upon America, she seems awfully comfortable with the idea of being appointed as the official arbiter of literary taste for us all.

UPDATE: Ron Hogan also has a good rebuttal to the column up at Galleycat. And he's trying to get the drop on who Miss Anon is . . .

Posted 01 September 2006 at 01:18 PM