More on Gossip Girl
A very interesting article on YA chick lit, containing this pearl of wisdom from Nick Hornby:
“In a way, I think all books should be teen books. I can read them quickly without getting bogged down, and feel I’ve read something that was meant in the way literature’s supposed to be. They’re very digestible, designed not to bore people.”
And it gets better! Here is my favourite bit:
For the non-prep-school-bred college co-ed, or winsome preteen, or yes, working woman on the subway, it’s just as good escapist literature as anything. Borges’s theory on magical realism in so-called Third World literature explains that the magic enables the standard Western reader to access the fiction-form of a place otherwise too “different” for the readers to comfortably embrace. The magic makes it at once more accessible while still maintaining a distance.
Manhattan socialite life is far from Third World, but for most people, it’s just as foreign.
