Does ChickLit owe its origins to Jane Austen’s novels?
ChickLit books such as Bergdorf Blondes are homages to Jane Austen’s novels, according to a review in the Sydney Morning Herald :
Although it’s clearly inspired by Jane Austen’s novels, it lacks their crucial tension. Underlying Austen’s comedy was always the grim truth that to her heroines, marriage was a matter of life and death. For these modern Park Avenue princesses, nothing is at stake apart from perhaps securing next season’s signature Manolos or their favourite table at Da Silvano. Moi and her friends desire marriage simply to improve their complexions.
Bergdorf Blondes’ author, Plum Sykes, doesn’t seem to take herself or her book too seriously.
Sykes confesses she wrote Blondes because she couldn’t find anything cheerful to read following NYC’s darkest hour. “I wish Jonathan Franzen could be a bit more superficial at times,” she told The New York Times recently with tongue only half in cheek.
