Stupidities and irritations in novels

There is a lot of froth about. I know I shouldn't, but I do tend to blank out those chick lit books with pink covers. Some might be very good for all I know but I just can't be bothered to waste my limited book reading opportunites on it because it has been lumped into a type. Aimed at me supposedly.

During the summer (camping/choice limited) I read a Freya North book for the first time. It was predictable and pants. Imo.

Maybe the Dashiell Hammett tough-guy type of story, but not the classic country-house Christie/Ngaio Marsh/Margery Allingham sort.

In fact in my experience as a librarian the only genre that was pretty much exclusively read by men was the cowboy novel, which was maybe the masculine equivalent of M&B.

i know, very sexist, but that has been how it was viewed, a male dominated genre. in fact, publishing is quite a male dominated industry, even though far more women read than men ([particulalry in teens & twenties). and there are just as many women attampting to write as men there are men. perhaps, actually, that's what makes me most annoyed of all about any book. ever.
9have to go out now, will cathc up later)

"there was no 'female' equivalent to easy-but-fun stuff like detective stories for boys/men"

Why would you say that detective stories are for boys & men? - they are read, and many of the best were written, by women.

Lol at froth for roth's sake. I just saw that line in threads i'm on and wondered what the precise nature of the froth in Portnoy's Copmplaint might be

yep, i have no problem with froth for roth's sake, but there is more of it than there used to be, and it is actually hard to find a 'woman's book' that isn't chic lit without turning to the classics.

if you watch booky programmes, where editors etc are interviewed, the growth in recent years has been in froth, not so much substance, so something original/independent has to be amazing in order to break thorugh.

having said that, i still think it's good that chic lit emerged - what else was there for women before that? m&b is like a comic book, there was no 'female' equivalent to easy-but-fun stuff like detective stories for boys/men. just as long as it doens' become the only things on the shelves. but then, publishing is market driven, just like any oghter industry. if we consume it it, we have no-one toblame but ourselves.

ps agree those frothy books fulfill needs for an audience who otherwise might not be reading (mild PND sent me reading shite such as 'my life on a plate' and a book by that woman who wrote 'in her shoes', funny don't recall much of either but it worked for me at the time.

Not wrong threadworm, just another genre. I myself cannot abide but science fiction (with one or two exceptions) but wouldn't deprive the world of it

Yes, agree BBee, you are right.

(i am going to do some of that parenting stuff that we are supposed to do now)

but highbrow though to dismiss them as frothy and somehow not worthy. it depends what you read for and if the book fulfills that need.

your need to read is filled by a certain kind of book and others by another - better, worse, frothier, not worthy of.., lazy - whose to say? all subjective.

books are not ranked in cleverness or goodness really otherwise we would not need all these different books.

but then mumsnet is for middleclass hard talking harridens or whatever the independent sadi we were.

Is it wrong for there to be such a thing as 'women's fiction'? There are distinctive female voices and experiences that can and ought to form the substance of some books, surely? So long as no writed is pidgeonholed or no book denied certain other statuses in virtue of possessing the 'women's fiction' status what is the harm?

Being female isn't incidental to the authorship of Austen or George Eliot or Angela Carter or any number of other writers.

No, there's always been froth UQD. Ten years ago there was froth too.

It's always been difficult for literary lists to make money, and they've not been expected to. Now they are, the cross-over commercial/literary book is like gold dust isn't it? I think there is a big difference now that writer's aren't grown, which is a great shame. It's do or die on their first book. Much more product-led. But original voices still fight through, I do believe that.

I think one of the reasons 'chicklit' can be so farking annoying is that it was originally supposed to be more 'realistic' than Mills&Boon yet still fulfill the (intended) readers' wishes for lurrve overcoming hassles and a happy ending. SO most chicklit is basically M&B with a few drug references, a death or two and maybe a date rape.
Having said that, the good stuff (which IMO is the stuff that the authors have had some fun writing, rather than churned out to a deadline) is just as enjoyable as a big box of chocolate when you're in the mood for it.
I also love fantasy/sword and sorcery and hate it in equal measures: I can disappear happily into the tales of some or other magic-wielder battling the forces of evil yet about half the books in this genre I pick up, read the back blurb, heave and put them back down again.

Oh and BTW UQD: no, never actually written for Black Lace - I did have a novel published by Chimera about 10 years ago and earned oooh, about £2000 off it.
I am now going to CAT you as not only do I want to know who you are but I want to gossip about Black Lace editors as well .

I don't think publishing is airheady or frothy either tbh. Lots of good and interesting and complex books are bought and published. But it's not a charity, and they are right to also publish books which are commercial and popular and which people might enjoy reading.

I think they probably don't have the talent or the desire to write the Big Difficult Book, because otherwise they would have.

ooh, i went through a phase of finding books where basically there was a family setting, something happened(like moving house, new job)to make one or both parents reacha mid life crisis. one or both of them would have an affair, then it would be made alright after the inevitable showdown. joanna trollope was one of these, can't remeber the others. thing is, none of them seemed to head that way when reading the blurb!!

really annoyed me - an affair is not the only thing that middle aged couples get up to, or am i too trusting of dh?

Well perhaps what you consider lazy others consider dramatic?!

God knows. I imagine all genre publishing has a degree of formula about it because that's the point of it.

It's not something I could get cross about tbh. There's lots of non-genre books published too. If that's a term, non-genre.

'Women's fiction' - hmmm. Well depends what you consider women's fiction doesn't it?

Yes, there's Chick Lit, which is a genre in which I imagine certain things are supposed to happen - as in a crime genre? Don't know though, have never read it, just imagine this is the case with Jocasta and her shoes and her handbags and her dreamy husband? That is my impression of the genre but might be wrong.

Women's fiction though? What is that do you think? It could be Kate Atkinson and Rose Tremain and Anne Tyler. Though presumably they'd all frown and be cross at being called 'women's fiction' - with good reason actually.

UQD, there are lots of vacuous and formulaic novels. From Mills&Boon through chicklit through boylit through detective stories through porn ... the list goes on

You are a decidedly more sniffy about Trinny and Cordelia novels than any other formula though - bit chippy?