When I found out Janey Wilcox, one of the blondes of 4 BLONDES, was the protagonist of Candace Bushnell's next book TRADING UP, I was not looking forward to the ride. Indeed, we pick up while she is engaged in nearly the same activity -- hunting rich men in the Hamptons -- in the opening of the book. Hearing about a model's struggle to survive and attempts to be taken seriously just didn't appeal to this non-model nerd.
Well, TRADING UP isn't my new favorite book still, but I think I underestimated Janey. I had written her off, but if I could compare her to one character in literature, she's really a Scarlett O'Hara type. (I'll pause while my sister, who loves GONE WITH THE WIND, decides what she wants to throw at me.) Janey may appear oblivious to everything but she's thrashing and kicking like crazy underneath to improve her social standing, marry a millionaire (which she does, even though he's completely wrong for her) and to appear untroubled in everything. Central to her plan is cozying up to a socialite named Mimi, something she comes to regret when they both fall for the same man. She also has to support her sister Patty, a minor character in 4 BLONDES whose marriage to a rock star leads to a tabloid ambush.
Lie, cheat, steal or kill, she won't let herself go and she won't move back to wherever she's from. And like Scarlett, sometimes all I could feel towards her was relief that I don't live in that world.
Earlier: Eleven Years After "Sex" and 2 Blondes 2 Many
Tomorrow: I find out what the heck a LIPSTICK JUNGLE is. Sunday: A Filmbook review of "Sex and the City," the movie, with special spoilery comments in case you cannot be bribed to see it.
2 days ago
2 comments:
I felt the same way, glad I didn't live in the world. My question was about Candace Bushnell. The book felt almost like a satire because the depiction of that world was just so ridiculous, and then there was Patty who served as sort of a barometer of the ridiculousness of it all, and wondered why everyone threw around the word "darling" all the time. But then I noticed the dedication of the book, which was to Candace Bushnell's husband, I think, and she called him "darling." So then I thought maybe she WASN'T being ironic? It changes the whole book for me.
Jess - I would be very, very surprised if Bushnell didn't have at least a little irony about her situation. I mean, she names a PR person Roditzy. Every time I saw that I giggled.
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