Author of My Brilliant Friend explains her anonymity in Paris Review

[John Bailey]

It does tie into the death of the author but I've never heard an
actual author protest that their work is a product of "a collective
intelligence" rather than their own. That's fascinating and seems
genuinely self-effacing, rather than using the whole anonymity thing
as just another brand hook.

On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 5:56 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Isn't the complaint about the media yet another clever spin on the death or
> disappearance of the author? One that, in protesting preserves the author
> privilege while suppressing the real meaning of his death or disappearance?
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 12:40 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I like all this and think TRP might agree. look what publicity has
>> done for-to-Franzen, just for one example.
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > "Elena Ferrante" is more Pynchonian than Pynchon.  Now considered
>> > leading
>> > Italian novelist of her era.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > INTERVIEWER
>> >
>> > Many American reviews seem to make a direct connection between the work
>> > you
>> > do writing—its sincerity, its honesty—and your keeping out of the public
>> > eye. As if to say, the less one appears, the better one writes.
>> >
>> > FERRANTE
>> >
>> > Two decades are a long time, and the reasons for the decisions I made in
>> > 1990, when we first considered my need to avoid the rituals of
>> > publication,
>> > have changed. Back then, I was frightened at the thought of having to
>> > come
>> > out of my shell. Timidity prevailed. Later, I came to feel hostility
>> > toward
>> > the media, which doesn’t pay attention to books themselves and values a
>> > work
>> > according to the author’s reputation. It’s surprising, for example, how
>> > the
>> > most widely admired Italian writers and poets are also known as scholars
>> > or
>> > are employed in high-level editorial jobs or in other prestigious
>> > fields.
>> > It’s as if literature were not capable of demonstrating its seriousness
>> > simply through texts, but required “external” credentials. In a similar
>> > category—if we leave the university or the publisher’s office—are the
>> > literary contributions of politicians, journalists, singers, actors,
>> > directors, television ­producers, et cetera. Here, too, the works do not
>> > find in themselves authorization for their existence but need a pass
>> > that
>> > comes from work done in other fields. “I’m a success in this or that
>> > field,
>> > I’ve acquired an audience, and therefore I wrote and published a novel.”
>> > It’s not the book that counts, but the aura of its author. If the aura
>> > is
>> > already there, and the media reinforces it, the publishing world is
>> > happy to
>> > open its doors and the market is very happy to welcome you. If it’s not
>> > there but the book miraculously sells, the media invents the author, so
>> > the
>> > writer ends up selling not only his work but also himself, his image.
>> >
>> > INTERVIEWER
>> >
>> > You were saying that the reasons for staying in the shadows have changed
>> > a
>> > bit.
>> >
>> > FERRANTE
>> >
>> > I’m still very interested in testifying against the self-promotion
>> > ­obsessively ­imposed by the media. This demand for self-promotion
>> > diminishes the ­actual work of art, whatever that art may be, and it has
>> > become universal. The media simply can’t discuss a work of literature
>> > without pointing to some writer-hero. And yet there is no work of
>> > literature
>> > that is not the fruit of tradition, of many skills, of a sort of
>> > collective
>> > intelligence. We wrongfully diminish this collective intelligence when
>> > we
>> > insist on there being a single protagonist ­behind every work of art.
>> > The
>> > individual person is, of course, necessary, but I’m not talking about
>> > the
>> > individual—I’m talking about a manufactured image.
>> >
>> > What has never lost importance for me, over these two and a half
>> > ­decades,
>> > is the creative space that absence opened up for me. Once I knew that
>> > the
>> > completed book would make its way in the world without me, once I knew
>> > that
>> > nothing of the concrete, physical me would ever appear beside the
>> > volume—as
>> > if the book were a little dog and I were its master—it made me see
>> > something
>> > new about writing. I felt as though I had released the words from
>> > myself.
>> >
>> >
>> > http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6370/art-of-fiction-no-228-elena-ferrante
>> >
>> >
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l