Friday night, I went to a birthday party at a swanky Fifth Avenue apartment (Phil Donahue lives next door). The party was fun, the champagne was flowing, and the view of the Park was breathtaking. Sometime during the evening, my friend Leah and I were checking out the host's bookcase when this guy came over to us and asked us what we were looking at.  I observed that this was clearly a guy's bookshelf, given all the "President" books (bios of Kennedy, Truman, Nixon galore).  The newcomer asked me what kind of books I liked - specifically, he asked if I was into literary fiction or chicklit.

Now, I have to admit that the mere question - or the condescending tone in which it was asked - riled me up right away.  But I told myself that I was reading way too much into the question and just said that I was much more into novels than nonfiction.  At that point, the guy told us that if that was the case, I had to have James Joyce on my bookshelf because Ulysses was, without a doubt, the greatest book in the world.  I told him that Joyce was a really popular choice among men - much more so than among women - and I had a theory about why this was the case: Joyce, like most men, had a particular preoccupation with bodily functions.  I said this half-jokingly, but the next thing I knew, the guy had launched into a fifteen minute lecture about why it was that Ulysses was the greatest book ever written and if I didn't think so, I clearly didn't get it.

At first, my friend and I were more stunned than anything that someone was actually lecturing us about Joyce in the middle of a cocktail party.  But as he continued blathering on, we became increasingly annoyed - especially when he ignored our diplomatic response that we were all entitled to our own views.  Fortunately, my friend suggested we get some more champagne, and we quickly escaped to the bar - and from what would no doubt have degenerated into a knockdown, drag-out fight over Molly Bloom.

Okay, so I know I shouldn't have let this guy bother me, but I couldn't help it. As it happens, I actually do have Ulysses on my bookshelf (I was an English major and actually wrote no less three papers on Joyce).  But that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a good chicklit novel - obviously, I enjoy chicklit so much that I wrote one myself.  I don't think that reading the classics and chicklit are mutually exclusive - but apparently, a lot of people do.  I think that's what bothers me most about these anti-chicklit writers out there.  The fact that they're holding themselves out as superior because they write "serious" fiction smacks not just of intellectual snobbery - but of insecurity as well.  Because if you're truly a lover of books, you can see the beauty in a book of any genre - even if it's not part of the Western Canon.

PS: As I was leaving the party, I was waylaid by the Joyce lover.  Apparently, someone had told him I was a writer, and he wanted to know when my book was coming out so he could read it.  Who knows?  Maybe there's hope yet.

 

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