Today in New York Times Navel-Gazing
From Ginia Bellafante's review of Game of Thrones, an upcoming HBO adaptation of a book by the fantasy writer George R.R. Martin:
The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of [the show's sex] has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin's, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to "The Hobbit" first. "Game of Thrones" is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population's other half.
I have no stake in defending either the fiction of George R.R. Martin (which I have not read) or the miniseries it inspired (which probably isn't the sort of thing I would enjoy). But speaking as a former Borders clerk: The idea that women tend to avoid this genre is ludicrous. It may well be true that the evidence of their interest has not penetrated the book clubs frequented by the friends of a New York Times critic. Bellafante might want to consider the possibility that the world is larger than her social circle.
