As part of the Virtual Book Tour, author Ethan Watters will be posting today at both Blogcritics and bitter-girl.com about topics that tie into his book Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family, and Commitment as a guest of Blogcritic Shannon Okey. See this Blogcritics post for details.
Shannon, bitter-girl.com: Reviews of the Bridget Jones' Diary reading guide calls it a "genre-defining novel." (Yes, Bridget has merited a full-length reading guide, formerly reserved for the likes of Austen and co). Helen Fieldings' Diary and its sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason directly influenced the current publishing trend which caused tables full of pink paperbacks to run amok in chain bookstores over the past few years.
There's The Devil Wears Prada, in which a fresh-faced college grad faces life in the big city without the benefit of an extended tribe, overextending herself emotionally and physically as a result. Bridget Jones and company form an exemplary "tribe", full of support and encouragement. They are a constant in each other's lives. I Don't Know How She Does It is an epilogue to the unmarried tribe life: Kate keeps her own tribe at work that pushes her to ever-higher career heights, but she's at the mercy of the stay-at-home mothers' tribe when forced to interact with them.
Are these books really a whole new genre, or do they merely reflect the influence of urban tribes on the lives of modern women? Is art imitating life or the other way around? Chapter 8 of Urban Tribes, "Love Versus the Tribe", seems to suggest art is imitating life. Would a real-life Bridget Jones' friends allow her to continue dating an "emotional fuckwit", or would they push her to find someone more suitable? In short, what's the lag time between social concepts and the novel / movie / made-for-TV miniseries version? And do the novels influence our personal choices in lieu of, or in concert with, our real-life friends?
Ethan Watters: I think these types of books have been so popular not necessarily because they've gotten this time period right but because there has been such a narrative vacuum. The marriage delay has cause a lot of anxiety, especially for women, because we haven't had the cultural stories to explain this time. That the first narratives to emerge would have neurotic characters like Bridget Jones makes sense. It's a case of art imitating anxiety.
My impression of real women living through the marriage delay are, in general:
- Less confused by and obsessed with their sex lives.
- More in control of their careers.
- Less flustered by the bumps and turns of city life.
Article comments
1 - jadester
ah, but in general men are more laidback than women, which is, i believe, the main reason we "have a hard time with that kind of range"
the average bloke is happy to sit back watching tv with a frosty beer (or cider) when the average woman would like to be socialising with friends or doing work or something more constructive anyway.