The chicklit click

(TOI-Crest, today)
In 1996 a phenomenon hit the shelves at bookstores all over the world. Called Bridget Jones’s Diary, it told the story of an overweight, under-confident, (fairly) young woman who wanted what - the author and publishers presumed - every average young women wanted: a nice man to marry and a happily-ever-after kind of life. It may not have been high literature or, indeed, very clever or intellectual writing, but it worked. Backed by the acting talent of Renee Zellweger, the book translated well onto the big screen, as well as into so many different languages that everyone involved raked in the moolah and the age of chicklit was ushered in.

But it was not new. Those who have done academic studies of the subject insist that it all began a long time ago. Once upon a time there was Jane Austen with Emma, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice (which is said to have found a new avatar as Bridget Jones’s Diary), and the Bronte sisters - with books like Shirley and Villette from Emma, Jane Eyre by Charlotte and Anne’s Agnes Grey - who wrote about young women and their dreams. It was all, of course, not classified as such then.

The term itself, ‘chicklit’, started being used in 1988 as a bit of a joke – a word used slangily and perhaps semi-pejoratively as the title of an anthology of ‘female literary tradition’ called Chick Lit: Postfeminist Fiction. It stretched the concept to be more about the contemporary everywoman in her 20s and 30s, dealing with life not from the point of view of existential truth and angst, but also the more mundane worries of men, relationships, love, body image, career, shopping, fashion and, of course, sex.

Which led to a gentle segue into the more blatant tales of sexual encounters as experienced by Carrie Bradshaw and her soul (or should that be sole?) sisters in Sex and the City, Candace Bushnell’s book, which was followed up by Lipstick Jungle, both of which made it big on television and then wandered, heels a-click, on to the big screen. Melissa Bank wrote The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, HB Gilmour came up with Clueless and Sophie Kinsella prolifically produced the Shopaholic series. There were plenty of wannabes and a few who made it. And then there was Kavya Vishwanathan, the young woman who nabbed an enviable contract and many kudos with her How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life…and then got canned after it was discovered that she had ‘borrowed’ substantial parts of her creative expression from elsewhere.

By then, the Indian chicklit factory had started production. But perhaps further encouraged by the seeming though ephemeral success of young Vishwanathan, there was a sudden geyser of writers on the local literary scene. Of course, keeping in context, the topics of womanly angst and interest were more ‘Indian’, in a way even more straitlaced and prudish, less sexy and far less explicit where sex and rampaging hormones was concerned. Parents arranging marriages – or at least meetings with potential grooms – was a unifying theme, and even as the young woman in question made it all happen for herself in the big city working world, she always yearned for the ‘right’ man, with whom a mangalsutra and babies was a given, with astrologers, fervent prayers and the trials of learning how to cook being part of the process. Piece of Cake from Swati Kaushal, Almost Single by Advaita Kala (who is now writing a Bollywood script, an indicator of her popularity), Rupa Gulab’s Girl Alone and Rajashree's Trust Me, the biggest-selling Indian chick lit novel yet, have heroines who are not all ‘good girls’, but deviate from the traditional image to live alone in a city not their own, drink, smoke, have boyfriends over at home, cannot drape a sari and spend all night working on corporate presentations that, eventually, win them the coveted promotion, if not the man of their admittedly steamy dreams.

Today, chicklit is devoured by young women all over the world, by their mothers who are trying to understand them, by their male friends and family members who sometimes hide the usually pink or red covers displaying graphics of lipsticks, high heeled shoes and shopping bags behind newsprint camouflage and by reviewers who like trashing the writing and the plot but have to admit that the books are a quick, easy and often fun read. And the bug is slowly spreading – for instance, the Chick Lit Media Group produces and promotes trends for young women, there are chicklit blogs, clubs, online groups and forums, increasing numbers of publishers and imprints of the genre, all of which are linked to merchandising in myriad forms, and thus to increased sales and thus, profits. As long as there are young women with dreams, there will be people who want to know them!