Empathy, Chick Lit Doesn’t Have It

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I hate to begin this post by making a stereotypical remark about women – for example, how they are the more empathetic sex. But, I do acknowledge that pathos matters in a work of fiction, and that characters, male or female, need to have a psychological life accessible to the reader – hopes and dreams, personal failures and feelings of inadequacy. I am realizing after reading Judy Blume’s “Forever” that empathy and pathos matters a lot in fiction, and that Chick Lit characters, for the most part, lack this aspect of pathos. The character to whom I related most closely was Nan, and out of all of the Chick Lit characters we have read, I find her to be the most fully fleshed out character who had an accessible internal life. But outside of her, the characters we have been reading are very superficial in terms of their emotional and psychological lives.

In “Forever”, the main character named Katherine narrates the novel, and she tells the story with a distinct and honest voice. This first person perspective lends sincerity to the character and it creates the gestalt of a real high schooler dealing with issues of sexuality and personal identity. From the first sentence of the book, I was drawn into her world. This is a very different experience than I have been having reading Chick Lit books, where I have been reading cliches and tag lines. I wasn’t being sold the lifestyle and image that is vital to the Chick Lit world and characters. I remember when reading “Lipstick Jungle” that I had a difficult time keeping the three main characters straight, and it seems that this was because although they were leading different lives on the surface, they had no internal monologue that distinguished one from the others.

The material aspects of life, such as movies, famous people, etc are important to Katherine the way they are to Chick Lit characters. And I admit that I cringed a bit when I heard these cultural references, perhaps out of fear that the book would descend into the name dropping world of “Sex and The City”. But Blume is able to maintain the integrity of her character even though she had these more superficial concerns (which all of us do!). The Chick Lit characters are like shiny, plastic mannequins. They lack grit and authenticity, and this makes it difficult for me to connect with them and to “feel their pain”. The superficial, almost pornographic quality of their lives holds the attention for only so long in a book, but it interestingly it does succeed where it should, on television.

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Filed under "Forever", Feminism, Judy Blume, Nanny Diaries, Pathos in book characters, Pornography, Working Women