Saturday, May 08, 2004
Catching up
I've been lax in posting here recently. In looking at my referrer logs, I notice that a lot of people are searching on Genevieve Antoine D'ariaux, probably because there's a new book in the chick lit genre that's built around Elegance. I haven't read it yet, and I'm not going to link to it unless I do. I may not; I have a deep and abiding hatred of chick lit, but I do realize that there's a lot of potentially good writing by women that gets packaged as chick lit because that's what's selling right now. But anyway, since it's Saturday morning and I'm not really doing anything, I thought I'd find some good stuff from Elegance to post here.
You know what? I can't blog Genevieve anymore, now that someone else has used her as a literary prop. This isn't to say that I don't think that a character who tries to make herself over according to Genevieve isn't a great idea, and one I tried myself, in 1984. But now it feels like I'm copying, as though I were writing spam poetry or something.
I'm not going to delete all that typing I just did, though.
I've been lax in posting here recently. In looking at my referrer logs, I notice that a lot of people are searching on Genevieve Antoine D'ariaux, probably because there's a new book in the chick lit genre that's built around Elegance. I haven't read it yet, and I'm not going to link to it unless I do. I may not; I have a deep and abiding hatred of chick lit, but I do realize that there's a lot of potentially good writing by women that gets packaged as chick lit because that's what's selling right now. But anyway, since it's Saturday morning and I'm not really doing anything, I thought I'd find some good stuff from Elegance to post here.
FOLKLORE
Oh, how great is the temptation to buy a gondolier's hat in Venice or a cowboy's in Texas, the skirt of a Flamenco dancer in Seville, or the apron of a peasant in the Austrian Tyrol! A friendly word of advice: Control yourself. First of all, you will make yourself ridiculous in the eyes of the native population (which is not really so serious since you do not even know them); but afterward, if you insist on bringing these picturesque articles back home with you and if you do not immediately make a present of them to a child under ten years old, you will make yourself ridiculous in your own eyes, a much more uncomfortable situation. [There's much, much more about making placemats out of saris, and some rather condescending remarks about how "exotic ladies are a thousand times more alluring when dressed in their own native garb." Generally I try not to impose today's sensibilities on yesterday's writers, but I have a feeling Genevieve would have sounded kind of insensitive and snobbish even in her own time.]
You know what? I can't blog Genevieve anymore, now that someone else has used her as a literary prop. This isn't to say that I don't think that a character who tries to make herself over according to Genevieve isn't a great idea, and one I tried myself, in 1984. But now it feels like I'm copying, as though I were writing spam poetry or something.
I'm not going to delete all that typing I just did, though.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
So let me get this straight...
The secret to bookselling success is a pretty cover, not much depth--or many words, either--and appeal to old people.
Sigh.
The secret to bookselling success is a pretty cover, not much depth--or many words, either--and appeal to old people.
Sigh.