14. Candace Bushnell (1996), Sex And The City

[strange_complex]

This is the sort of book that I would probably never have read if I hadn't spotted it for £1.25 in a local charity shop. But I have always been curious about the origins of the TV series, and at that price it seemed foolish not to have a closer look.

The link between the two is recognisable, but nothing like as straightforward as I'd assumed. For a start, Carrie Bradshaw is not the narrative voice - although she is a journalist, and one of the most frequently-recurring characters. The fabulous foursome at the centre of the TV series is also absent. There are characters present in the book called Charlotte York, Miranda Hobbes and Samantha Jones, but their jobs, backgrounds and personalities don't match the HBO characters at all. Besides, they only crop up a couple of times each, and never together.

That means that one of the most comforting and alluring aspects of the TV series - the emphasis on supportive female friendships - is totally missing from the novel (or the newspaper columns which it collects). As in fact, are many of the other elements which give the show its veneer of glamour - the fabulous frocks, the cocktails, the shoes, the parties. Mahnolo Blahniks get mentioned all of about once in Bushnell's novel, and then only really to act as a symbol of empty consumerism.

In short, the novel is darker. The characters (both male and female) come and go without ever establishing any emotional connections with one another; the only thing they really care about is constantly outdoing one another; and the world in which they move is brutal and unforgiving. There are no happy endings here.

This rather took me by surprise, as I had been expecting brainless, fluffy chick-lit. I'd assumed that the TV series with its confident, liberated women and witty lines was cleverer and more highly-developed than the book, but that isn't really true. In many ways the book is much more hard-hitting, and much better at exposing modern illusions.

That doesn't mean there isn't a place for both of them. The TV series certainly still acknowledges the inequalities and insincerities of the world that Carrie and her friends inhabit - the difference is just that it is more optimistic about their ability to overcome these things and enjoy happy and fulfilled lives all the same. Meanwhile, the book is more honest about the darker side of modern life - but arguably paints too negative a picture when it suggests that none of the people caught up in it have any warmth or kindness or generosity about them whatsoever.

It's a question of what you prefer, really, as well as what is appropriate to each medium. Bushnell's dark vision of 1990s New York probably wouldn't have made a very popular TV series. But it definitely deserves a lot more credit than I had assumed as a strong piece of writing in its own right.

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Comments

[kantti.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I was given the book as a gift, read it once, and was slightly baffled by how different it was from the TV series, and never re-read it. But I should probably re-approach it as something completely independent from the show and just consider it on its own merits.

(On the other hand, the show itself isn't very much like the show for the first season, particularly the first few episodes. The opening sequence is the vignette about the British journalist who moves to New York, who is never seen again, and it takes quite a while for the irritating little vox-pop clips to go away and for the central four to be established as either main characters or as more than casual acquaintances.)

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

No, yes - you're absolutely right about that first series. It is a lot more like the book, right down to the much more grungey colours and glamourless settings.