It baffles me: it seems to be another version of the old chestnut that anyone can sit down and write a book, that it's easy and takes no effort, research etc etc (I get that one with my non-fiction, too). Now, part of me likes to be invisible, but the consequences are scary. I accept that once a book is out there, it's no longer solely mine, that others will have different ideas and interpretations to me, that others will feel a sense of ownership in my writing. But that the writer can vanish...? non sequitur, unless we are to live in a world of unformed daydreams. What this subset seem to want is a kind of auto-author, who produces precisely what they want to order and never slows, tires or contradicts -- a bit like the Will Speak machines in Jasper fforde's novels. Or else a teflon author, who does not react or feel -- the equivalent of the way some people act about teachers, say, or shop workers -- servants who have no feelings or needs of their own. It reeks to me of entitlement. That is what is the most worrying aspect, because it is predicated on a deliberate removal of individuality from one set of people for the benefit of another. I doubt that anyone of those who have come close to this position really think that -- they are reacting with their gut, not their head and I hope they'd be horrified if they realised the implications.
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yati
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Date: 2010-02-04 10:42 am (UTC)Now, part of me likes to be invisible, but the consequences are scary. I accept that once a book is out there, it's no longer solely mine, that others will have different ideas and interpretations to me, that others will feel a sense of ownership in my writing.
But that the writer can vanish...? non sequitur, unless we are to live in a world of unformed daydreams. What this subset seem to want is a kind of auto-author, who produces precisely what they want to order and never slows, tires or contradicts -- a bit like the Will Speak machines in Jasper fforde's novels. Or else a teflon author, who does not react or feel -- the equivalent of the way some people act about teachers, say, or shop workers -- servants who have no feelings or needs of their own.
It reeks to me of entitlement. That is what is the most worrying aspect, because it is predicated on a deliberate removal of individuality from one set of people for the benefit of another. I doubt that anyone of those who have come close to this position really think that -- they are reacting with their gut, not their head and I hope they'd be horrified if they realised the implications.