Lipstick Jungle

Lipstick Jungle
by Candace Bushnell

May 21- 22, 2007

This weekend, when I arrived at Andrew's place, he had a book for me. It was Candace Bushnell's Four Blonds. He had gotten it off one of those ever-present and super addictive bargain tables somewhere for me, mostly because he is wonderful. (At some point he and I had talked about me letting myself read more silly girly books, since I do find them rather relaxing. He always remembers these things and does something about them. It's really rather amazing to me.)

Anyway, I finished the entire thing this weekend, either in the car on our way to and from the Tennessee Renaissance Fair (more fun than you would imagine) or just hanging out around the apartment (more cozy than you would imagine). I liked it, but I couldn't really tell you why. I may or may not get to writing a whole entry about it, we'll see.

Anyway, when I was in the airport trying to kill some time before going through security so that I could finish my juice, I saw this book. It was one of those cheap, small paperbacks, and somehow, I justified the purchase. (Something along the lines of, "It's only eight dollars, and it's pretty late, so I'll be happy to have something mindless to read on the plane. Besides, I am sure that I can paperbackswap it away and get something good once I'm done.")

I swear, I am going to read 10 more books before I buy another one. TEN!

Anyway, from the moment I opened it waiting to board the plane, I couldn't put the damn thing down. It's over 500 pages long and I only started reading it last night at like 7:30... clearly today was not as productive as one might have hoped.

This book is the story of three women in their 40s in New York: a fashion designer, a movie producer, and a publishing exec. They all have tons of money and despite their already fabulous jobs, are headed for even bigger and better things. Sure, there's drama: corporate backstabbing, a failed business deal, a divorce even. But they live in a world where things turn out fabulous. That is what makes this relaxing girly fiction.

Yet I cared about them, in a way that I did not expect to. Perhaps that is why Bushnell has been so successful. I thought that perhaps they were going to piss me off (all four of the blonds certainly did that) but for some reason, I found myself rooting for these girls (women?), in sort of the same way that I liked the women on Sex in the City (and no, I haven't read that yet, but I think that I'll take a break from Bushnell.) Throughout the whole book, I was on their side. I wanted them to kick butt, to show all those silly men that were trying to get in their way who's boss.

This was, for sure, one of those female empowerment books where women show the men who's in charge. These characters have stay-at-home husbands or no husband at all. They take jobs away from men. They repeatedly say that nobody could understand their careers or talk about money like their girlfriends. It's almost overwhelming, all the empowerment. If they weren't somehow still likable characters, I think I would have put the book down. A girl only needs to be reminded so many times that she can do anything at all, (and without the help of men!). After reading something like this, I feel sure that I am supposed to believe that all a lady needs is some close female friends, some money, and a whole lot of power. We can do it gals!

I suppose that's a good thing... but it gets old.

It did make me think about something again though. The characters in this book start out pretty close to the top, end up pretty much actually at the top, and most of the book is about that striving: climbing the corporate ladder, making it in the fashion or movie industry. All making millions to start, and all ending up with more at the end.

And what does that mean? Is $250,000 a year not successful enough anymore? What about a million? As I plunge into the application process all over again, I have to wonder a little bit what it means that I was concerned that these women would "fail" and end up dead ended as the editor-and-chief or something of the sort. That wouldn't have been enough. I mean sure, that's not bad, but who can settle for not bad when they want to be the best, the top.

And we want that too. "We" being myself and many of my friends. As Charlene said while she was doing all her apps, "I wonder what would it be like to just want to be normal?"

But I don't know the answer to that question, because I, like the women in this book, want very much to be exceptional. There is something in me that has been trained, by a combination of personality, culture and education, to believe that nothing less than extraordinary will do. I want to pull this same sort of thing, to be at the top of my field, to work very hard and see very great rewards. And like these characters, despite all my doubts and fears, I believe that I will be able to do that. (And maybe even be able to have a family too.) Sure, I don't know how, but how much does that really matter at this point? As we learn in books like this one, the hows work themselves out.

And that's interesting to me, because reading this book, at first I felt like these women were extreme, with almost crazy hopes and goals, that people don't need that much money, that much power. And maybe I don't want to be the president of a movie studio or CEO of a magazine division. But really, when I think about it. I want to be successful like that, I want to be outstanding. And usually, I believe that I can be outstanding.

I guess all that empowerment worked after all.

Something Borrowed

Something Borrowed
by Emily Griffin
c. 2004
St. Martin's Griffin, New York
322 pages

This is beach reading at its best (or maybe it’s worst). Something Borrowed is quick and relatable without much meat to it, and certainly no words that you don’t already know. This was vaguely satisfying in a voyeuristic sense. The characters are not overly complex, but you care about (two of) them enough to want to know what happens, and that gets you thorough it without much effort.

The main plotline of the book is this: Rachel (our heroine) sleeps with and falls in love with her long time best friend Darcy’s fiancée, Dex. The two hide their affair over the course of a summer in New York City. Rachel wrestles with the loyalty vs. following your heart question as she spends time planning the wedding as the maid of honor all the while sleeping with the groom.

(SPOILER ALERT!)

In the end, Dex calls off the wedding, doesn’t tell Darcy why, and tells Rachel he loves her. (Well I didn’t see THAT coming.) As they are stripping for some good old fashioned celebratory sex, Darcy shows up. Dex is hiding in the closet of Rachel’s apartment while Darcy confides in Rachel that she has been cheating on Dex and is (gasp!) pregnant with Dex’s best friend Marcus’s baby. She plans to marry Marcus and move forward with her life. (Oh, the plot twists!) Of course, after the confession is complete, she sees Dex’s watch on the nightstand, and all is found out. End of friendship, start of beautiful life for Rachel and Dex (and maybe Darcy and Marcus, but who really cares?) end of novel.

There were questions at the end of the book (for book club discussion) and the majority of them seemed mindless. I’m not sure that novels like these really have some deeper meaning, that the author even intends that. Isn’t it possible that the intent in simple entertainment, without really talking about the nature of friendship or the balance of relationships. Maybe? I don’t know. I feel like this was not so much a literary accomplishment as a successful diversion, the same way that Legally Blonde can be witty and entertaining without ever coming close to the realms of cinematic masterpiece. This book too is good at what it does without making you work for it. There is certainly a place for that.

If her intent was high art, the author has failed. But perhaps more realistically, I do think that the author intended for you to care about Darcy, to feel bad for her, at least a little bit. Sure she’s high maintenance, more than a little ditzy, and thinks the world revolves around her. Sure, her best friend is betraying her, and that’s rough. Still, I never liked her, never felt bad, always wondered why either Rachel or Dex put up with her crap for even five minutes, let alone long enough to become lifelong friends or an engaged couple. She’s annoying, and she agonizes over annoying things, like which is the right color of lipstick. Argh!

The end of the book included an excerpt from another book, one written from Darcy’s perspective and seeming starting off where this one left off. If the author intended for me to care enough about Darcy to buy another book, she has failed completely. Even here, where I was reading from inside her mind, at the point where she should have been most human (the story picks up her perspective at the moment she finds out just how badly she has been betrayed) I still found her unrelatable and one dimensional, selfish, self-centered, manipulative, and barely tolerable. I’m not neutral, I dislike her. I don’t care about her happiness, she deserves what she got. Interestingly enough, I do not dislike her enough that I want to read this next book in hopes that it contains the details of her downfall, as some good villains can make you feel. I just hate her. I want her to go away. Thankfully, the excerpt is short and she does.

Now maybe this comes from some measure of the distain I feel for the traditional "pretty girls" of which Darcy certainly is one. But even with that in mind, I can’t separate her from that type, in part because she has been so solidly written into it. She wants to be the center of attention even in her downfall. She’s manipulative to the last. It’s entirely obnoxious. (I suppose that the author might be able to claim credit for making me feel so strongly about a character, but again that is questionable when she’s written a book from a prospective that I find entirely loathsome and will certainly avoid.

The other thing that I found interesting was the gradual building of Rachel’s confidence. She seems through the book to sell herself short, especially in the presence of Darcy, (who again with the obnoxious apparently stole her first crush, and claimed to have gotten into Notre Dame where Rachel failed.) At the same time, Dex, who is clearly (aside from the whole infidelity thing) written to be every woman’s dream, (sexy, smart, successful, dark curly hair… that last one might just be me) sees Rachel as a sexy and obviously has since he first met her. I feel like, as the book develops, we as readers are meant to see that Rachel, while she is frequently hard in herself and sometimes has shockingly low self-esteem, is really rather fabulous, prettier than she thinks, sexier than she thinks, all around better than she thinks. There are times when you begin to think that despite the fact that she has spent her whole life living in Darcy’s shadow, that maybe, just maybe, she really is the "better girl" that maybe outsiders might she her as the pretty and unattainable one while Darcy is overcompensating by being obnoxiously outgoing and social.

To me, this characterization, this gradual development, feels like a fantasy. I think that this might be what makes this book sell, and what makes the author’s portrayal of Rachel so likable even as she betrays her best friend (which I suppose should not elicit too much compassion, even when the friend is so easy to dislike.)

What women doesn’t want that to be her reality? No matter how hard we are on ourselves, I think that a lot of us are hoping that people on the outside looking in think that we are lovely. Maybe, sometimes, on our most hopeful days, we think that’s the truth, the from the outside, all the faults are imagined, and in reality, it’s not a friend, but ourselves that is the "pretty one" at least in the eyes of the guy that you most want to think that way. This is the same strange thinking that keeps girls from killing themselves in volient ways. Even at the last, they want to be thought of as beautiful, they hope that they will be seen as pretty and tragic, as if they will get to enjoy that.

It’s like a Cinderella or an ugly ducking story. And that’s why those are so appealing. It’s a nice idea to have the dashing prince come up and sweep us off our feet. It’s a nice idea to have the underdog win, the nice girl turn out also to be the pretty one, the smart girl to get the guy over the dramatic party girl.

And so this book works, despite the predictability of the story line (of course he leaves Darcy, I mean really here people) and the forget-ability of the secondary characters (who are these people anyway? why do I care?). I did read the whole thing in only a couple of days. I did care about Rachel enough to want to read about her happiness when the inevitable left her with the sexy man by her side. It’s good stuff.

So, if you like girly romantic comedies where the right girl always gets the guy, and if you like the idea of the not-as-pretty girl turning out really be the pretty-girl, and if you don’t mind (or find satisfying) the downfall of the occasional shallow super-pretty girl, than this is the book for you. I maybe wouldn’t recommend it as reading for anyplace that isn’t sunny enough to get a tan, or to readers with Y chromosomes, but it’s fun in the dumb girly movie sort of way that can be very nice sometimes: brainless, but very nice.

Then again, I just wrote a whole lot on something brainless, so look who’s talking.