From "What Is ‘Weird Girl Lit,’ Anyway? Romantic delusion. Social alienation. Body horror. Just a few of the elements celebrated online — if not always by the writers who earn the label" (NYT).
Yeah, what is a normal girl supposed to read or write?
From the comments over there: "A lot of fiction is about weird people. Many have been male. Holden Caulfield, most of Philip Roth, most of Thomas Pynchon, Ignatius in 'A Confederacy of Dunces,' Sherlock Holmes, the whole Karamazov family. You could argue that Elizabeth Bennett is a weird girl, considering Regency norms. Oh, Lady MacBeth, Medea, definitely weird. It's an advantage to an author to have a weird character or two. It's like Tolstoy said, 'All happy families are the same.'"
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22 comments:
I'm interesting.
You have quirks.
They're weird.
They want weird strung out women the clancey coven
Another proof that the Singularity is already here, that we are so wealthy and idle that we have to imagine non-essential things to do to occupy ourselves. Women, in particular, released from child bearing and rearing, don’t know what to do with themselves.
I remember the chocolate wars in middle school a caulfield knocoff
Gosh. I best go buy the book to better understand this important issue.
To think of Wednesday Addams as weird was to miss the point entirely.
I would think the adjective “weird” would be a compliment for any type of artist. The whole point is to provide a personal and/or unique view of anything. If she writes about “weird” girls, she’s doing it on purpose. She should simply embrace the attention with gratitude imho.
Women read a lot of smut dressed up, shirtless of course, in the clothing of deniability. Because they dominate the market for books, men are left to read stuff written long ago. I just noticed that Francis Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe" has been downloaded 2000 times in the last month or so from Gutenberg. It's a good read about contention for resources by two great empires. Plus ca change. I am sure that women would find it as boring as men find reading about some girl's erotic obsession with airplanes.
"Poor little bunny! Poor little wabbit!" - Elmer Fudd
In Bizzarro World Weird Al is bigger than the Beatles.
They call it "weird girl lit" because they wont call it what it actually is.
I used to read novels. Not so much any more. I'm not alone in that.
There are good novels just not modern ones specially in the ya section
Right now women in the US are taught to actively combat responsibility.
This is self reinforced by "creatives" that write book porn for women.
Generative AI has exploded the number of books "written."
Much of the "growth" is in "comfy" romance usually with a cross genre so "romantasy" or romantic thrillers with a literal happy ending. They are purposely formulaic and predictable.
It's called fiction for a reason. It resembles real life, but it's made up from bits of real life experience mixed with imagined things.
Or, think of it as the regular daily mind of any progressive on the street.
Upon further investigation.
Ai says "No, even in a backward-facing Bizarro World where up is down and logic is inverted, The Beatles remain an unstoppable global phenomenon, meaning "Weird Al" Yankovic is still not bigger than them."
Weird girl lit herself on fire for the cause.
I guess the term is overloaded now. "Weird" fiction is already a widely used term for horror writing influenced by HP Lovecraft and the other writers from Weird Tales magazine. The "New Weird" writers are fairly popular in certain circles. Some of those "weird girl" stories might actually overlap the pre-existing "weird" genre, I suppose.
If any of this weird girl stuff written today is still around in ten years, I will be surprised, that is, if I am still around in ten years, I guess. Then again, maybe publishers have a financial interest in not producing lasting fiction that will then only cannibalize their current offerings.
The entire book industry is run by feminists and women. This "weird girl lit" category was created by mean girls. Feminists, as far as I can tell, drive men away. And then they sub-divide and start attacking each other.
I don't want to call Althouse a "weird feminist" but she attracts men to her blog. I think she uses red meat for bait. Anyway, she's all right. She's a man-approved feminist. This is an unusual feminist blog and a great blog blog.
"I think she uses red meat for bait."
It's like staking a live bunny near your camera to get a good shot of an eagle.
Sherlock Holmes was eccentric. He wasn't "Weird". And if all you think about Lady Macbeth is she's "weird", well you're making one word do a lot of work.
If people want to read trash, whatever. They always have and they always will. The MSM doesn't discourage it, or mock it, but encourages it. Maybe because they are the "weird" ones.
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