Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
SBD 2: Bushnelled
Whenever Jake has Taekwondo, I have an hour of down time. Today, I went to our local megalomart in search of a good book. God forbid I should try to sit alone with my own thoughts for an hour. Anyway, here’s what I found:
I loved the TV show well enough to write a horror spoof of it (“Sex and the Single Wendigo”, waaaay up in the upper lefthand corner). So I should love the book, too — right? Well. I’m only 2.5 chapters into the book, so it would be unfair to judge it so soon, but so far: Meh.
The book and the show seem so fundamentally different. The women in the show approached relationships and sex with inexhaustible hope and gusto, while the men and women of Sex and the City le book have in place of hearts, lumps of coal. The show was a romance, the book, anti-romance.
But it was the Introduction to this edition (pictured above) which really grabbed my attention. The author herself wrote the intro, dated 2001, and oh boy is it an eye-opener. See, I always thought it worked this way:
- You write a book.
- If it gets published, and if it assumes some degree of social or literary significance, brainy types will pen brilliant criticism discussing your book.
It had never occurred to me that the author could pen her own brilliant criticism, but that’s what Candace Bushnell has done. From her Intro:
I suppose that’s why Sex and the City is such an unsentimental examination of relationships and mating habits. Although some people find its lack of sentiment and cruel humor disturbing, it’s probably only because the book contains some kind of universal truth.
What possessed Bushnell to write a new ending for SatC? No insight there, but she does reveal the ending. That’s right — she gives a spoiler for her own book. And then she analyzes the new ending and tells us what it means!
And so, at last, the book has a real ending, in which Carrie and Mr. Big break up. [WTF? That’s not how the series ended!] It’s a bittersweet ending [Really? You thought so? How good of you to tell us how to feel] — not just the end of Carrie’s relationship with Mr. Big, but the end of her dream of finding the proverbial Mr. Big — a man who doesn’t really exist [While you’re at it, please provide a list of all symbols used in the book and tell us what each symbol represents.] If you read closely [Are you listening, all you barely literate readers who fail to understand my all new ending?], you’ll discover that even Mr. Big himself points out that he is a fantasy in Carrie’s imagination, and that you can’t love a fantasy. And so we leave Carrie to enter a new phase of her life when she understands that she will have to find herself (without a man), and in doing so will hopefully be able to find a relationship.
Maybe I’m not as unsentimental as I thought. [But are you as arrogant as you thought?]
This is breathtaking, really breathtaking. I’m all snarked out.
D.
I read an interview with her in Redbook a few years ago and thought she was an arse. This just proves it.
The only time I ever watched an episode was under duress. You know, the “You’ve never seen Sex in the City?? You’ve GOT to watch this! Here! Let me play the videotape for you!” sort of thing?
Yeah. Didn’t change my mind about it then, either.
Also never read the book, and have no intention of reading it.
I’m perfectly happy to risk being told I “live under a rock.” What? It’s nice under here…
(Yes, I know this comment was completely out there…you can blame that on Kris + only 5 hours of sleep = BAD combination…)
I love this. Thank you.
Maybe she thinks it’s litterachure which you read because it’s the symbols and structure and language you’re after, not the plot.
Arse about sums it up, Lyvvie.
I’m still a fan of the show, Kris. You’ve GOT to watch the episode where — oh, forget it. The characters in the show were fun-loving. You would want to go out with them for a night on the town. The characters in the book, so far (now 4 chapters into it, reading it in much the same mood as I would take to a carnival freak show) need to be put out of their misery.
Yeah, Kate, I think it’s sad when an author has to argue her own case. Usually, when an author writes a foreword, she does it to reveal some cute/interesting story about the conception, writing, or post-publication life of the book. She doesn’t attempt an exegesis.
omg Head-shaking.
If you have to explain what your story means, either you’re arrogant, or you lack confidence in your writing.
I havent’ watched the show. I flipped past it a few times, but SJP sets my teeth on edge for no particular reason that I can fathom. I’m glad everybody got rich doing it, but eh, I just didn’t get it.
SJP sets my teeth on edge, too, but for professional reasons. I want to remove that thing from her chin.
I liked the series so I tried to like Candace Bushnell’s writing, but she and I are never going to be sharing lip gloss in the restroom on a Saturday night while out for martinis. I thought her writing was about as egoistical as it’s possible to be while still holding the word onto the page and not rising up to blow hot air up her own skirt. (Meow, huh?)
[…] I should begin by insuring myself against Beth’s oft-repeated (or at least, oft-thought) charge that I’m unclear on the SBD concept. Yes, I realize neither book is a romance. Not a typical romance, anyway, since neither ends with an HEA. Carrie loses Mr. Big in the end of Sex and the City (not that I have finished the execrable thing, but as I’ve written, Ms. Bushnell tells us the ending in her preface), and poor Gatsby loses everything by the end of his novel. But both novels are about love and desire and sex, and the main characters of each novel desperately want the same things romance protagonists want; and damn it, must every romance have an HEA? Yes, yes, we’ve covered that turf before, and I knuckled under to your collective wills. But I’m having a devil of a time slotting these two into any other genre. […]