George Orwell painted an unappetising picture of the typical book reviewer:
It is the job of this bedraggled creature to invent reactions towards ‘books about which he has no spontaneous feelings whatever’.He is bald, has varicose veins and wears spectacles, or would wear them if his only pair were not chronically lost. If things are normal with him he will be suffering from malnutrition, but if he has recently had a lucky streak he will be suffering from a hangover.
I’m not sure why Orwell’s hapless reviewer came to mind while I was reading The Wives of Bath. ‘Chick lit’, a new and popular genre, apparently invented in Britain, is not aimed at balding, varicose, depressed men. It is aimed at women, like me, who have more than a passing interest in romance, dieting, babies, shoes, marriage and hand-bags.
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