Saturday, 26 January 2008

Is chic lit the new fairy tales?

PS happy new year, blogworld.

I've been thoroughly enjoying the television twists on classic fairytales lately. I've also, fairly uncharacteristically, bought and read some chic-lit. And found it surprisingly enlightening. Well, enlightening for someone who knows next to nothing about the niceties and throwbacks of human relationships. I do so hate recognising myself in these things, but it's also a wakeup call, a reminder to reconsider. And an old theme emerges. Chic-lit can be shallow, vacuous, meaningless, trite. But underneath all that boy-meets-girl-runs-away-is-captured-by-girl-in-the-end sometimes lie some eternal truths and warnings. Like fairystories, which read in the right light are a careful set of warnings from way back in time; the sexual predator as big bad wolf, the infanticidal needs of a new wife (aka wiked stepmother) staking her children's claim to their father etc. And maybe these types of truths also persist in the otherwise-fluffy genre known as chic lit. Perhaps in these torrid tales of romance and resolution lie the same cautionary overtones that sat within 'don't go into the woods' and 'avoid the pretty fruit'; perhaps they can be seen as moral tales, even if unintentional (some stories are told and retold, and a lazy author won't ignore a good plot if it already exists) ones. Maybe I read too much into these things, maybe I'm just a little too naive and prone to oversimplification, but it would be interesting to distill enough chiclit to see if universal themes emerge.

Enough... I have a theme of my own to contain.

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