Greetings, salutations, & all that jazz! It is I, Paolo Cruz, a.k.a. Ipis Dei, intrepid pop culture writer, doing my litte part to keep this fine blog active.
Today, i’d like to discuss the nebulous concept of so-called Literary Rock Stars.
CASE IN POINT #1: In July this year, retail chain Power Books flew in humor essayist David Sedaris for the “Talk Pretty in Manila” tour. They promoted his series of appearances with an in-store banner that prominently featured a quote from the New York Times, declaring him “the closest thing the literary world has to a rock star” (or something to that effect).
CASE IN POINT #2: In the same month, during the awards night for the 1st Philippine Graphic/Fiction Contest, production group Furball created a cute video, recapping Neil Gaiman’s involvement with the contest. The AVP presents him (with tongue firmly in cheek) as black-clad, scruffy-haired rocker, performing in front of crowd of screaming fans.
CASE IN POINT #3: Publisher A.A. Knopf built a special webpage, dedicated to eclectic Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. Blogger Ramon de Veyra described the site’s content as “author as rockstar”. This quote was picked up for an official BlogAd used to publicize the site.
Now, I understand that part of this is necessary marketing to hook in potential readers. It implies a cult following; a dedicated readership prepared to endure the routine hassles of queues, and bad weather, and vague number-stub ticketing systems to bear witness to their author-idol. But I also wonder if the “literary rock star” category has a limit to its effectiveness, as a reliable descriptor.
Frankly, the phrase loses some of its initial cleverness, once you recognize just how many contemporary prose writers fit the label. Off the top of my head, I can readily add Chuck Palanhiuk (Fight Club), Jonathan Lethem (Fortress of Solitude), and Michael Chabon (…Kavalier and Clay) to that list. After all, what is a “rock star” if not a person whose authorial mark is so great, it defines the very fabric of all their cultural products, ahead of things like genre, or form, or structure?
But I suspect that’s not quite what P.R. folks have in mind, whenever they brand an author with the “rock star” tag. More than anything, it suggests a particular attitude or disposition, perhaps reflected by choices of lifestyle, or wardrobe, or peers. It’s a complex matrix of sociographic types, which confer a sense of hipster cool, not often accorded to paid writers.
Consider the following examples:
This is the stuff of conteporary pop mythology. Thus, literary rock stardom ultimately has less to do with the actual content of an author’s work than the possibility of being able to make a juicy Behind the Music or E! True Hollywood Stories type documentary about their career.
Its a stark reminder that, for better or worse, rock stardom is defined primarily by celebrity, not youthful rebelliousness. Even in the (relatively) cerebral realm of pop literature, any old would-be shit-disturber can be a rocker; but only fame can make one a rock star.
