Jane Smiley on selling out
I'm teaching myself to read again after four months of illiterate hiatus. Also, there's a short line between the internet, resistance, and the imminence of The Draft, which looms like a decade of undone taxes. Voila, I bring you the bountiful results of my surfing. Here's JS on literary prostitution:
Let's look at the text of "Cathy's Book," which is coming out in September. In the original manuscript, according to the Times' article, someone (no doubt Cathy) applies a "killer coat of Clinique #11 'Black Violet' lipstick." Now that the deal has been cut, Cathy prefers "a killer coat of Lipslicks in 'Daring.' " Of course, this is only my opinion, but I don't know what "Lipslicks in 'Daring' " is. "Lipslicks in 'Daring' " makes no sense as English prose. Score one for authorial integrity.I'm reminded those Absolut vodka "stories" and David Foster Wallace in his drop-dead brilliant A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again feeding Frank Conroy through the woodchipper for essay-mercializing in the corporate literature of a luxury mega-cruise line. (Poached from Good Reports).
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