The Arrogance of the Celebrated
One is an acclaimed writer of avant gard fiction, the other the prime minister of a fair-sized country. Both have reason, given their status in life, the importance of the tasks they set themselves, to feel fairly good about themselves. Each has responsibilities; one that of a celebrated, and award-honoured writer, the other as an intellectually-inclined and determined first minister of his country.
The prime minister is busy looking to the affairs of the nation. The writer is busy looking to his affairs, and finding novel means by which he is able to draw attention to himself.
Publicity, any kind of notice on a popular scale, cannot harm the sales record of one whose literary output is admired and respected. Publicity goes a long way to generating interest in anything new that the writer is engaged in, and if it's a play, then more people may be attracted to viewing it; if a book, this translates into additional sales.
Publicity of most kinds is a deterrent to the obligations of a country's prime administrator; it generally means something has gone awry and requires rectification, taking the man's attention away from other, more vital problems.
Yann Martel, however, feels justified in setting out to prove something; exactly what, isn't clear, unless it is that he demonstrates unmitigated gall in insisting that he can teach a man whose obligation to the country as a whole is otherwise engaged, while Mr. Martel wishes him to focus on the world's literature. To which end, Mr. Martel has taken it upon himself to mail off a book every two weeks to the prime minister with an injunction to read that book and learn much about the world.
If this doesn't reflect an act of stellar arrogance, what then? Mr. Martel claims otherwise; he insists that a website he has launched to chronicle his antics for the purpose of alerting Stephen Harper to the world of literature serves a good purpose - ostensibly other than harassing an already-harassed public figure and in the doing bringing admiration to himself and his own award-winning fiction. Quite the device, actually.
"I told the person at the Prime Minister's office, forget the spin that's been given on this, that I'm educating the prime minister. Go back to my first letter. It's not so confrontational. It's not buddy-buddy. But come on, you can't expect total obsequiousness," said the author. Well, I for one did read the published (and publicized) text of that first letter; it comes across as a snotty diatribe hidden in a patronizing review of Leo Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyich"; the couth lecturing the uncouth.
Surely, according to Mr. Martel, there is room for dialogue between himself and the prime minister. Is Stephen Harper not given any choice in the matter? Why, after all, would he wish to bother bantering with someone who sees nothing amiss in treating the Prime Minister of Canad
If someone approached my personal taste in literature by presuming to send an unsolicited book to me I'd be rather affronted by the arrogance of the sender.
I love reading, cannot imagine how bleak life might be without the tempting promise of a good book, being able to immerse oneself wholly into a line of thought and perception, allowing the skill of a good writer to take me to places my own imagination never presented to me. My husband, over a period of 53 years of marriage, has a fairly good idea of my reading tastes, but no one else really has; history, religion, psychology, autobiography and biographical books as well as novels of any and all types.
Let someone I don't know, even someone who thinks they know me take it upon themselves to gift me with a book, with conditions such as Yann Martel has imposed upon the prime minister and I'd consider them to be beneath my notice. Yet Yann Martel, clever man that he is, insists "I'm a well-known writer. I'm writing him letters that are not insulting in any way. So, at one point, he should get me in a dialogue." Not insulting in any way? I beg to differ.
Were Stephen Harper given to the kind of expression that another former intellectual prime minister of Canada was capable of expressing, the only kind of dialogue that should logically ensue from this absurd charade might be "fuddle-duddle".
And there's an end to it.
The prime minister is busy looking to the affairs of the nation. The writer is busy looking to his affairs, and finding novel means by which he is able to draw attention to himself.
Publicity, any kind of notice on a popular scale, cannot harm the sales record of one whose literary output is admired and respected. Publicity goes a long way to generating interest in anything new that the writer is engaged in, and if it's a play, then more people may be attracted to viewing it; if a book, this translates into additional sales.
Publicity of most kinds is a deterrent to the obligations of a country's prime administrator; it generally means something has gone awry and requires rectification, taking the man's attention away from other, more vital problems.
Yann Martel, however, feels justified in setting out to prove something; exactly what, isn't clear, unless it is that he demonstrates unmitigated gall in insisting that he can teach a man whose obligation to the country as a whole is otherwise engaged, while Mr. Martel wishes him to focus on the world's literature. To which end, Mr. Martel has taken it upon himself to mail off a book every two weeks to the prime minister with an injunction to read that book and learn much about the world.
If this doesn't reflect an act of stellar arrogance, what then? Mr. Martel claims otherwise; he insists that a website he has launched to chronicle his antics for the purpose of alerting Stephen Harper to the world of literature serves a good purpose - ostensibly other than harassing an already-harassed public figure and in the doing bringing admiration to himself and his own award-winning fiction. Quite the device, actually.
"I told the person at the Prime Minister's office, forget the spin that's been given on this, that I'm educating the prime minister. Go back to my first letter. It's not so confrontational. It's not buddy-buddy. But come on, you can't expect total obsequiousness," said the author. Well, I for one did read the published (and publicized) text of that first letter; it comes across as a snotty diatribe hidden in a patronizing review of Leo Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyich"; the couth lecturing the uncouth.
Surely, according to Mr. Martel, there is room for dialogue between himself and the prime minister. Is Stephen Harper not given any choice in the matter? Why, after all, would he wish to bother bantering with someone who sees nothing amiss in treating the Prime Minister of Canad
If someone approached my personal taste in literature by presuming to send an unsolicited book to me I'd be rather affronted by the arrogance of the sender.
I love reading, cannot imagine how bleak life might be without the tempting promise of a good book, being able to immerse oneself wholly into a line of thought and perception, allowing the skill of a good writer to take me to places my own imagination never presented to me. My husband, over a period of 53 years of marriage, has a fairly good idea of my reading tastes, but no one else really has; history, religion, psychology, autobiography and biographical books as well as novels of any and all types.
Let someone I don't know, even someone who thinks they know me take it upon themselves to gift me with a book, with conditions such as Yann Martel has imposed upon the prime minister and I'd consider them to be beneath my notice. Yet Yann Martel, clever man that he is, insists "I'm a well-known writer. I'm writing him letters that are not insulting in any way. So, at one point, he should get me in a dialogue." Not insulting in any way? I beg to differ.
Were Stephen Harper given to the kind of expression that another former intellectual prime minister of Canada was capable of expressing, the only kind of dialogue that should logically ensue from this absurd charade might be "fuddle-duddle".
And there's an end to it.
Labels: Human Fallibility
posted by Pieface | 5:44 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home