Jenny Diski
Jenny Diski is so smart and honest. I only found her blog recently. Her most recent entry is about awards in publishing, and publishing practices in general. Not fun for writers to read, I think. But good to read nonetheless. Even if only in a sort of bucket of cold water over the head sort of way.
6 Comments:
Yo no se cuantas veces empece a leer " Cien Anos de Soledad."
Es el libro mas vendido en todo el mundo?
A mi no era interesante, durmiendo en la libreria.
Posible que mas vendido no es igual que mas leido?
Tonteria?
Fusakota
Yes, I remember the good old days of browsing the interesting books on the new books table. In January. Just before I left Seattle. I doubt things at Elliott Bay or Bailey & Coy have changed that drastically in just nine months.
It's true that getting your literary novel on the "New and Notable" shelf at the Lincoln, Nebraska Barnes & Noble now costs your publisher money. On the other hand, before that Barnes & Noble was built, was anyone in Lincoln, Nebraska going to carry your book at all? Maybe the university bookstore, if you were lucky (but then they've probably still got it, and it's not displayed any more or less prominently). The B. Dalton out at the mall almost certainly didn't have it.
I guess what I'm not clear on is when exactly the golden age was when writers who wanted readers didn't have to care about capitalism.
David, the thing I brought out of reading that particular post of hers wasn't that writers never had to care about capitalism so much as perhaps there was a time when writers didn't have to put themselves on display for money as well as their books. The contests and hype and rock star book tours, etc. Diski seems like someone who would rather stay home and write and let the books sell however they will than put herself out in the commotion of commerce along with her books, and I think there are a lot of writers like that, and it's unfortunate for them really that so much these days don't depend on the book so much as the author's sociability level and willingness to work an audience, not just their readership.
The major awards competions in England are, I bellieve, far more instense and commercial than they ae here. Bookies place odds on the Booker short list entries. This may be some of what Diski rebels against. But the very act of refusing to allow your books to be placed in contention can be a publicity ploy. "And now for another view of literary awards here is Ms. Jenny Diski who refuses...". This only works if your have achieved a certain level of prominence. And it can be just as gamey as writing a story in a set perioud of time in the window of a big city department store. Certainly writers should write and publishers should promote the books. But if the books don't sell the publisher will go out of business and the author will go unread. Diski obviously gets read. I'd be interested in how much promotion and what kind she does.
rick
Posible que mas vendido no es igual que mas leido?
Seguro, pero los mas leidos tambien tienen que vender un cierto número de ejemplares, no?
I think there are a lot of writers like that, and it's unfortunate for them really that so much these days don't depend on the book so much as the author's sociability level and willingness to work an audience, not just their readership.
Yeah, it's only the knowledge that worrying about that is pointless when I still have 70,000 words of my first novel to write that keeps me from looking forward to that with dread. :) (On the other hand, it might be worth developing a serious psychiatric drug habit if that would turn me extroverted enough to develop a fan base like Scott Westerfeld's.)
Still, I wonder how much better things really used to be. My impression of the lit-fic world in Ye Olden Days -- which could be completely wrong -- is that maybe you didn't have to schmooze your audience, but instead you had to schmooze a bunch of tastemakers in New York and London literary circles. I'm not sure the current situation is really that different, and if it is different, I'm not sure it's really any worse. (But like I said, I could be totally wrong in my picture of the way things used to be.)
And yeah, Rick, I have the same impression about the British prizes. But, heck, I pay a lot more attention to the Booker than the Pulitzer, and I've probably read more Booker winners than fiction Pulitzers or even Nobels. Though maybe that's just 'cause they tend to get made into artsy big-budget movies starring Ralph Fiennes.
David:
Partly with the Booker the centralized/small world aspect of British publishing means that the writers are more clearly defined as personalities. People who know little about literature get into the soap opera. A once divorced B who then lived in sin with C and what did D say. For good or ill, there used to be a whole bunch of American writers with outsize personalities. Mailer, Capote, Vidal, Helman, McCarthy. They'd be at each others' throats on late night TV.
In terms of 19th century literary self-promotion versus writing for writing's sake, the mostly simultaneous careers of the self-published, very public Whitman and the private Dickinson most of whose stuff wasn't published in her lifetime are the classic illustration. Whitman made himself known, Dickinson lived and died obscurely.
Rick
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