* Yawn * Candace Bushnell's 'Lipstick Jungle' (With Some 'Sex in the City' Observations Thrown In at No Extra Charge)

Do you remember Tom Wolfe's ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ where he talked about certain Wall Street moguls being ‘masters of the universe?’  Candace Bushnell’s ‘Lipstick Jungle’ is like that except the ‘masters’ in this case are three women at the top of their professional game.  For some of you not fluent in female pop culture, Candace Bushnell was the inspiration for the ‘Carrie Bradshaw’ character in ‘Sex in the City.’  Like the first few seasons of ‘Sex,’ ‘Jungle’ displays the same sort of non-descript characters who are more walking stereotypes than actual people a reader would want to meet.

One woman is a clothing designer (who starts dating a character suspiciously like ‘Mr. Big’) another runs a film studio, and the other is in publishing - all semi-glamorous professions that Malibu Barbie would have aspired to.  Within this sisterhood, two of the characters are married and mothers, one is having an affair with a male model, the other is supporting her husband while he makes her feel as if she isn’t doing enough.  I would add their names but I have already forgotten them.

Do you remember how ‘Sex’ always had Carrie type out questions that were going to answered within the show?  They would either be vulgar or insipid.  You know, ‘Is anal sex the new blowjob?’  ‘Are men just accessories to match shoes?’  Which leaves this reader/writer in the Midwest to inquire, ‘Are all women who live in New York this boring and dumb?’

Granted, I adore fashion, but never have I thought it was central to human development.  I wouldn’t snub a potential friend because I thought her shoes were ugly, but I always get the feeling (after reading a lot of chick lit in this regard) that had I been unfortunate to have been born on the East Coast the quality of my friends would have left something to be desired.  The more fabulous Bushnell tries to make New York and its social swirl sound, the less impressed I am.

Perhaps I am unfair to Bushnell, because the book did demonstrate wit at certain points.  One particular character has to deal with her husband leaving her and taking their four kids with him.  She is put into a situation of having to choose too many times between work or family.  In fact, if Bushnell had stuck exclusively with that woman’s tale, adding a few tidbits about her friends, the book would have worked for me on a whole new level.

The problem I think Bushnell has is that she has bought into all the clichés of current female pop literature.  I call the phenomena ‘Charlie’s Angel’s feminism’ of which I have bought into and in many regards still buy as a belief system.  It is the type of philosophy that motivates women to be as competitive with men in the workplace while at the same time looking no more than 27…35 tops.  As a girl, I wanted a full head of hair that would elevate me to the image of Goddess while chasing the bad guys with a gun.  The problem with this philosophy is that it doesn’t take into consideration that goddess hair takes time to create (more time than most women have in the morning) and that there aren’t really too many bad guys out there that need you sticking a gun in their face in order to fix them.  This is the quagmire that Bushnell finds herself in.  I think it is safe to say that she is this generation’s Danielle Steel. 

Further, there are all these glamour novels hitting the market that set the bar at having women wear the latest clothes (usually way, way too expensive from what clothing should cost in a world in need of resources). Overall, I think fashion and such is only fun when it allows some sort of escapism from the real issues of our lives.  Few people want to read a tome about succumbing to cancer as a way to relax at the end of the day, yet there has to be some sort of balance between that and a character bitching that her boyfriend said something that really pissed her off (Oh, how could he!).  Sure, there are books on the market about bad first dates and such, but I have the impression that Bushnell wants to be more than a Plum Skyes.

I’ll admit for the longest time I didn’t like ‘Sex in the City.’ If Carrie whined one more time that Mr. Big didn’t ‘get it,’ which always gave her an excuse to do some shoe therapy (usually setting her back at least four hundred dollars) I was going to say something really mean about that mole on her chin that she needed to get removed.  The show only got interesting for me when Miranda had a baby, Samantha survived breast cancer, and Charlotte married outside her religion.  It still had the fashion, but now most of the characters had true blue lives that didn’t center around if they were single or not.

‘Lipstick Jungle’ isn’t as bad as the early episodes of ‘Sex’ but it isn’t as brilliant as the later seasons either.  There are too many stories, too many non-essential details, and too shallow character development for me to recommend this book as a read.

This story is dedicated to Dannielle S.