Blog Wars

My head is drowning in blogs. For the past few days all I've been doing is reading page after page of posts. A couple of interesting things have come up over the past few days, though.

1) Far, far too many people are thinking about Oprah and her summer reading pick of three William Faulkner novels. The posts range from the sublime to the ridiculous. More on my personal relationship with Faulkner later.

2) I've been reading all about the "war" between Curtis Sittenfeld and Melissa Bank. Well, more like Sittenfeld's comments about Bank's new novel in the New York Times last week has erupted in a crazy-ass blog debate on the merits of chick lit and those who write it. This afternoon, Buzz, Balls & Hype alerted me to the fact that Jennifer Weiner has now entered the fray.

Technorati reports that there are a whopping 255 posts in the last little while in the "blogosphere" referring to Sittenfeld, the majority of which are either agreeing or disagreeing with her review and the subsequent fallout. Entertainment Weekly's review, written, again, by Weiner, gives the book an unmitigated "A." Now, remember, this is the same magazine that gave the truly audaciously bad Lords of Dogtown (see: my review) an "A" as well.

Yet Weiner is a self-proclaimed chick lit supporter, one whose books realistically and necessarily fit into the genre. It's no mistake that EW picked Weiner to write the review—a pop culture magazine needs a pop culture reviewer to read the book. There's no shame in that, there's no shame in ensuring that you're writing for an audience, a very particular audience that will be receptive to your point of view. And maybe that's where the NY Times went wrong, or right, depending upon how you look at it. Weiner's comments on Sittenfeld's review are on the mark, that maybe the negativity that so many people are reading into her words stem more from how Prep has been treated a) by its publisher (the white cover w/ the pretty pink belt, the free belt giveaways, the marketing of the book as chick lit) and b) by the legions of people who steadfastedly claim that it's not chick lit as they defend it open on their laps while on vacation in the Florida Keys.

Maybe having someone whose fighting against the chick lit label review a book so steadfastedly within the genre written by one of the originators of the trend wasn't the best way to go. And instead of making the fight personal, oohhh look at Sittenfeld attacking Bank, oohhh look at Bank rising above it all, maybe examine the debate from a different point of view and wonder why the NY Times asked her to write it in the first place. Who doesn't love a bit of controversy?

I read A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing and didn't really like it at all, felt it didn't contain a cohesive and/or coherent narrative, and I really didn't like the main character. But I'm willing to give The Wonder Spot a try, but I'll wait until it's in paperback. But let the blogs go on battling—it's making my day interesting...