The unbearable ease of beauty
An extraordinary piece in the Times posits the theory that if you are beautiful, then your life is easy. The inquiry appears to have been prompted by the lack of a picture of author Aniruddha Bahal in Faber's spring catalogue--the suggestion being that Bahal's visage will somehow prove a turn-off.
"There's Andrew Motion, kissing his own forefinger. There's Andrew O'Hagan, craggy, moody, like a star of Mr Right. There's Lucy Wadham, staring out at the book trade like an Henri Cartier-Bresson model. There's even Joseph Connolly, a Gandalf lookalike daring you to read him from under hooded eyes and a luxuriant duvet of beard." This tyranny of beauty now affects all areas of the arts, even the Booker: Yann Martel is described as a "midlife pin-up". We are challenged to name an "ugly young female novelist", with Zadie Smith thrown-up as proof that "uncutes" such as George Eliot or Virginia Woolf would not now get a look in. The piece suggests that "big ugly brutes such as Michael Moore" are exceptions that prove the rule, although footballer Ronaldo and author Stephen King are also on hand to prove that you can be successful without "oil painting looks".
Visit source: The Times
13 November, 2002
| |
Comments |
| Hmm. The thing is, if you're going to get inside someone's head - and if you're reading a novel, you've got to tell yourself that you are - then it sure helps if you'd like to get into their pants, too. |
| Given a choice of curling up in the duvet with a Zadie Smith novel or a novel by George Eliot, I know which one I'd choose. How about you? |
| As a former bookseller, the once phrase on AI sheets (and therefore duly uttered by reps like a mantra) I hated more than any other was: "this author is highly promotable". We were duly expected to believe that just because the author was under thirty and, at a push, had their own teeth, we'd sell more of their books.That said, I can well remember the publisher of a certain, recently televised first novel by a young black female writer, describing her as the Macy Gray of literature. Presumably on the basis that that was the only young black woman who had invaded their consciousness since Tracey Chapman. |
| The fact is that his gorgeous good lucks would actually detract from the startling quality of the novel. See for yourself. |