“I think I’m the voice of my generation. Or… a generation.” So rallies Lena Dunham in one of her character Hannah’s blithely arrogant moments, afterwards undercut by familiar refreshing insecurity. It’s this kind of comedic, self-effacing wit that has made Girls recognisable, cutting and indeed satirical about the lives and loves of a set of twenty-somethings in New York. Easily comparable to Sex and the City, Girls has none of the airbrushed, superficial glamour of SATC – the sex is sometimes bad, often undignified and squelchy, the careers are more menial than meaningful and the men are sometimes homely rather than hunky. Which is why we love it.
Sex and the City began life as a chick-lit novel, aspirational in tone, frankly another thinly-veiled daylight robbery from the intellectual tomb of Jane Austen. The series was a fleshed out series of characters, deeply different in personality who were sexually liberated and ambitious women, each carving her niche and making her Mark, Steve, Aidan, whoever. It, like Girls, reflected the needs and wants of an age group that had previously been forgotten by television– Sex and the City highlighting that you didn’t have to be a spring chicken to get laid and Girls occupying the difficult ‘tween period between young adulthood and grown-up status. The age where people trust you with a rental contract but you still can’t work out your washing machine.
Such is the popularity of Girls, Lena Dunham’s show about four young women living in Brooklyn, that it has already led to a copycat reality television show (in production) and a bus tour, again echoing the fortunes of Sex and the City. Now though, a new novel, Brooklyn Girls, whilst not based on the show’s characters, has aped the premise of a group of new graduates attempting to establish themselves in their careers and sex lives in the Big City. You can almost smell the cynicism on it, of a publisher quickly churning out product in order to capitalise on the market. Whilst Sex and the City began life as fluff and found substance through the character exploration enabled by six seasons of television, Girls began as Lena Dunham’s attempt to depict her life and the lives of those around her honestly. Girls deserves better.
The central character in Brooklyn Girls works in a glamorous PR job, very much unlike the waitressing and temp jobs that Hannah takes after her parents stop her maintenance. Whilst she does lose this job and start a food van, you can almost hear the cognitive process of another integrity devoid chick-lit author trying to depict life that is still aspirational. You can’t help but wonder if the non-stop procession of chick-lit characters working in magazines, PR, publishing and other female-driven, toil-free professions is due to the paper-thin characterisation in these books. If the main character is utterly personality-less, then you can keep the reader by at least ensuring that life they lead is worth a gander at.
The themes throughout the book are unlikely to echo the often dark moments of Girls. Hannah indulges in sadomasochistic sex unlikely to make its way into the novel, though who knows after the success of Fifty Shades’ inaccurate and shallow depiction of BDSM. Hannah also has mental health problems, the crux of which was reached in the second series after she accidentally mutilates her own eardrum in an obsessive fit which was brutally shown and yet sensitively handled. Bad parent-and-child relationships are explored through the other characters as well as the crushing disappointment of having graduated into a market that has no place for you or your ambitions.
Lena Dunham is hardly going to add the work credence by picking up a copy. In an interview with the New York Times, she expressed a dislike for this kind of fiction, preferring literary fiction like Vladimir Nabokov, and tellingly, the biographies of successful women. It would appear that her penchant for confessional writings echoes in her tastes as well as her output.