Comments on: Figuring Life Out

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 21:32:42 +0000

Call me ignorant but what exactly is chick and pray tell, dick lit? Are we talking romance novels or trash?

By: joseph rainmound

joseph rainmound — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 20:05:51 +0000

I imagine Poppy Z. Brite would say the same thing about having her works classified as simple horror. The best authors, of course, are those who transcend genres - who can take science fiction and make it literature, or who can take Chick Lit and make it into science. Ah… one day I’d love to teach literature to Deaf kids.

By: Allison Kaftan

Allison Kaftan — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 17:57:58 +0000

No, you miss my point. There ARE books that ARE chick lit. Nothing wrong with them. Only that not everything women write IS chick lit. And certainly nothing Sittenfeld has published so far is chick lit.

By: Erin

Erin — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 17:56:06 +0000

I can’t disagree with you about hating that books are categorized as Chick lit or something other. Because those authors write amazingly & give us the opportunity to idenitfy with their characters. but I can’t help but categorize it as chick lit (maybe out of habit) although i don’t perceive it as degrading simply because of their quality of writing. I kind of perceive it as being put into a category of “romance novels, murder mysteries, science fiction” but I suppose you could just put those books under the category of fiction.

By: Allison Kaftan

Allison Kaftan — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 16:58:43 +0000

One more thing - Sittenfeld’s “Prep” is an equally enthralling read.

By: Bobby

Bobby — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 16:57:15 +0000

Ooh, burn! =)

By: Allison Kaftan

Allison Kaftan — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 16:40:33 +0000

That’s one of Curtis Sittenfeld’s pet peeves: when people call what she writes Chick Lit. She’s right - it isn’t. Chick Lit, like Dick Lit, is formulaic.

Jennifer Weiner said it best when she was lamenting how people just lump fiction written by women into the chick lit category. “You know what we write? Books.”