From "How a Highbrow Novel Became Celebrity Gossip 'Life of M,' Rachel Cusk’s new book, has a protagonist with an uncanny resemblance to Natalie Portman. But in an interview, Cusk says she never expected it would cause such a frenzy" (NYT gift link).
Cusk says: "It’s very stressful, the thought of these things happening.... It’s taking the novel that I’ve created into almost a sort of courtroom or a factual fight.... What I’ve done belongs much more in a world in which fame, and these people who are so known and yet so unknown, is a part of contemporary consciousness.... And if my job is not to go into unexplored areas of contemporary consciousness, then I don’t know what it is.... The book explains itself and defends itself pretty comprehensively.... and it’s something I created, so to start to explain it kind of ruins it for me."
The highest-rated comment over there says it best: "I am not convinced that the alleged controversy isn't actually the marketing campaign for the book."
Anyway, it seems as though books and movies do this all the time. I think of "Citizen Kane" and "Blonde” by Joyce Carol Oates, the Frank Sinatra character in "The Godfather," Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," "The Devil Wears Prada." It's a pretty standard device. Why is this a controversy? The only question is whether the book is good.
I see potential to think about this in connection with last night's post about the word "lore," which was based on a NYT essay called "A Simple, One-Word Trick to Turn Everyday Life Into Grand Fantasy." A quote from that essay:
“Lore” is a hinge word, a threshold word. Fiction passes through it and becomes tangible fact; facts pass through it and become part of a grand story.
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15 comments:
My niece just made us watch The Devil Wears Prada 2 last night, in which - guess what? - a la Maleficent and Wicked and so forth, the evil villainess is revealed to have a "complicated" backstory and we (are supposed to) end the movie feeling sympathy, or maybe it's empathy, for her. (I think my niece, a very young 19, is in her own mind one of these villainesses. She definitely considers herself to be superior to all her peers and most of those in authority around her, but her sense of superiority is justified, you see, by, well, her demonstrable superiority. If she were a 19yo who acted like a 19yo, it would be a lot more irritating than it is - but she's a 19yo who acts about 14 in most matters, so I hold out hope that she'll grow out of it, the way I did.)(I was insufferable.)
Anyway. DWP2. The Anne Hathaway character, at one point, insists that she's not one of those people who would publish all the dirt on her boss for crass profit. Pretty funny, coming from the character who is based on the author of the book in which she published all the dirt on Anna Wintour.
Of all the unimportant things in the world, the question of whether or not the character in this book is modeled on Natalie Portman approaches the top of the list. And those relative few who do care about that approach the top of the vapidity list. (Trying, as I write this, to remember which one of those middle-aged, run-of-the-mill, dark-haired actresses whose images sort of run together, she is...)
Lore = scam
1) Is Natalie Portman really interesting enough to write a novel about?
2) Has Rachel been called a "dried up Cusk of a woman" yet?
3) Cue the Natalie Portman-Hayden Christensen Star Wars meme. Right?
The entire article seems to have been written by Cusk's publisher to sell books. We even get this:
"Is “Life of M” autofiction? A perverse form of fan fiction? Or is it simply the latest experiment from Cusk, one of our most provocative, slippery and polarizing writers?"
Yeah, solve the mystery and buy the book. BTW, how are authors, "Slippery"? I thought con-men and shyster lawyers were "Slippery".
Cusk must be a leftist, since she's only "provocative". If she were righwing, she'd be labeled "Controversial".
She was on the cusk of a good book, but wrote this one instead.
She's a worn out cusk of an author.
If she married Elon she'd be Musk-Cusk.
"Rachel Cusk... wasn't planning on having this conversation about the novel...."
Stated without evidence.
"Been there, don't that." -Truman Capote, author of Answered Prayers
It's an article that I clicked on and read. You can call it a crude publicity ploy,, but you can't call it an unsuccessful publicity ploy.......On occasion, RCOCEAN II's comments are sharp and observant. He's like one of those cerebral Jewish comedians.......Natalie Portman knows how to work the publicity machine. I could readily identify her in a lineup with Keira Knightley and her name is far easier to spell.
"[..The book explains itself and defends itself pretty comprehensively.... and it’s something I created, so to start to explain it kind of ruins it for me." ~ Rachel Cusk
Friends, lovers, parents, children: all can be traded in for cash, kudos or just attention, provided you can live with the emotional consequences. The trouble is that at some point you run out of other people’s pain, and have to start inflicting it yourself.
Books about Hollywood.
LOL. nope.
Is that the Natalie Portman who is also Keira Knightley, or the other one?
I'd rather read a novel about Shirley Temple.
Whatever. The NYT has been publishing fiction about Donald Trump for decades.
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