28 March, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I am reading contemporary fiction by men these days. As part of my PhD, I have to write a critical commentary on my own novel. I have to start with what inspired me. So what was the inspiration for my decidedly feminist book? Fight Club. Yes, that’s right. In 1999 I was living in Brooklyn and one evening I went to see the movie adaptation of Fight Club. As I came out of the theater, I felt elated. I’d never seen anything like Fight Club before. I walked home through the streets of Park Slope (I can still remember this so vividly) and I knew that Gen-X women needed their own Fight Club — and I was going to write it.
By this I don’t mean that I wanted to write a book about women beating the crap out of each other. Fight Club very explicitly deals with notions of masculinity and what it means to be a man today. It does this in a bold, political way. The message of the movie and the book is convoluted and a bit of a train wreck, but I admired what it was trying to do. It was attempting to say something about the screwed-up world we live in and a man’s place in it. I wanted to write a book about what it means to be female with the same political in-your-face vigor that’s present in Fight Club. I just did not see any books by Gen-X women that were even attempting to do this. Nearly a decade later, I still don’t see any.
The book Fight Club was published in 1996, the same year Bridget Jones’s Diary was published. Helen Fielding’s book launched the phenomenon of chick lit and her book was taken to be a statement of modern-day womanhood — women were obsessed with getting a boyfriend, getting married and losing weight. Sure, BJD was funny (the book and the film), but comparing it to Fight Club just highlights how lightweight so many books by contemporary Gen-X women can be. They don’t aim high, they don’t aim to say anything about the world that we live in. So many plots of contemporary novels by women just deal with the same things we see over and over again in Cosmo.
So in thinking of how to write about gender in a more political way, I turn to men. [I am also going to explore novels by non-English speaking women, which may offer more of what I am looking for.] I just finished Atomised by Michel Houellebecq, which was a bit pornographic for my tastes (*sigh*), but still I admire the way the book attempts to say something about the world we live in, about the mess that is Western civilization and about men. Today I am starting American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. These books are all a bit bleak, to be sure, but so far very enlightening. [Any recommendations welcome!]
As for my book, after seeing Fight Club in 1999 it took me a couple years to develop the idea. I also abandoned the project for a few years and returned to it in earnest only last year, once again revamping the whole plot. It’s been a long torturous process so far and it continues. But my mission is the same and re-reading Fight Club and re-watching the film recently has reminded me of the passion behind my original idea. Seeing that film provided a spark: I knew I needed to write about femaleness, about how it is constructed and what it means to me. No easy task, that.
Anglofille said @ 9:51 am | literary |
- Comments RSS | TrackBack URI
-
Great posting.
I’ve lost my passion for my novel, but thankfully I have my short stories to work on right now and I am pleased to say the writing has been going well.
This posting has me trying to recall what inspired my novel in the first place. I remember a few movies- lots of Ingmar Bergman films as being an inspiration. Perhaps I should watch them again upon my return to the States.
Also, I like that exercise of writing a critical commentary on your own novel— perhaps I should do this too for mine.
Thank you for these ideas! I needed this guidance in regard to my novel!
(btw: I’ve never seen Fight Club!!!)
-
Anita Says:
March 28th, 2008 at 9:53 amFor an interesting look at how women view and live their lives, I recommend Mary McCarthy’s “The Company She Keeps.” It was a daring book. Still is. One can even say that McCarthy makes a bold political statement. Highly recommend that you put it on your TBR list as part of your phd research.
