Top bestsellers rail against patriarchy
Without looking down the page or asking Siri or Alexa or the person sitting next to you on the ‘L,’ I want you to guess the best-selling book of the 2010s.
Remember when it wasn’t so convenient to look up any bit of trivia and have a definitive answer within seconds, when you could have a nice little debate with your friends or even inside your own head as you reasoned your way to an answer?
That’s what we’re trying here, and, seriously, you got this. Just think.
That’s right: “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James. Once you know the top-selling book of the decade, it’s easy to guess the second- and third-ranked titles (“Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed”). But can you go deeper than that?
I’ll give you some hints: Every book in NPD Bookscan’s top 10 was made into a movie, they all have female protagonists, and “girl” shows up with high frequency in the titles.
In order, the rankings after the “Fifty Shades” trilogy are: “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins; “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett; “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins; “Gone Girl” by (Chicago-based) Gillian Flynn; “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green; “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson; and “Divergent” by (Barrington native) Veronica
Roth.
I find the list fascinating for a number of reasons, particularly the shared thematic resonance of just about every protagonist doing explicit battle with a patriarchal society, be it a dystopian world in which teenagers engage in gladiatorial battle (“The Hunger Games”) or the Jim Crow South (“The Help”).
The outcomes of those battles vary greatly. Anastasia Steele of “Fifty Shades” reaches a kind of accommodation, living under the protection of her ruthless ubercapitalist husband while seizing some power for herself over the course of the three books.
Amy Dunne of “Gone Girl” ultimately forces her husband Nick to stay permanently silent about her actions by giving birth to his genetic progeny, securing her safety by becoming someone’s mother.
Lisbeth Salander, of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” exacts revenge on men who exploited her sexually and psychologically, becoming a kind of avenging angel on behalf of others who are abused.
You can find similar patterns in most if not all of these books, with the possible exception of “The Fault in Our Stars,” which regards humans as fundamentally well-meaning and kind.
Looking at the list of best-selling books of the last 10 years, perhaps we should have foreseen the #MeToo movement that would break at the end of the decade. Perhaps we would also not be surprised by justifiably disgraced men popping up in the media to attempt to claw back some portion of their relevance and power.
When the bestseller list was released, I heard some grumbling about how none of these books is for men, which is silly on several fronts. First, women buy the vast majority of books. If we’re going to declare that books with female protagonists are for women and those with male protagonists are for men — not that we should — it’s only sensible to cater to the larger share of the audience.
Second, there’s still plenty of so-called “male” books out there, if you believe war, golf and grilling are the exclusive province of men. (They aren’t.)
Third, and most importantly, there’s plenty of pleasure to be had by men reading books with female protagonists. The only books on this list I haven’t read are the two “Fifty Shades” sequels, and last I checked my “man card” is still secure in my wallet.
I wonder what the next decade will bring. John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”