(Untitled)

[wwidsith]

What is going on with the current fad for books about horrible, abused childhoods?  My local Waterstones now has a whole section labelled Tragic Life Stories: I can't even begin to list in how many ways this is wrong.  The memoirs all have respectably blurred photos of crying children on the front cover, and preposterous titles like Daddy, Don't

Comments

[commonpeople]

I agree wholeheartedly. It must say something about British culture, though.

[wwidsith]

And whatever it is, it's being said with a small vocabulary and a total lack of irony. I guess it's part of the same trend that gave us reality TV - this idea that everyone now thinks they are inherently fascinating and that they have a sort of right to broadcast their experiences and opinions.

[commonpeople]

Yes, but what about the hundreds of thousands buying the books?!

[wwidsith]

I know! I'm just mystified. All of them like to say that they're "life-affirming" - whatever that means exactly - but to me they're just really depressing.

[commonpeople]

It makes me wonder if the numbers of people who have suffered abuse is actually higher than we know. The only reason I can think of someone wishing to read these books - especially if they are so poorly written - is because it strikes them close to home. It's not like reading crime fiction, for example, where you are at a distance, and it's for entertainment value; this is about people's real lives (and perhaps how they differ/equate our own?)