By: Emma Brockes / The Guardian
Translation: Telegrafi.com
In these troubled times, we take small pleasures where we can find them. And this week we have this: a snapshot of the literary world at the awards ceremony. Booker, trying to get in the picture next to Sarah Jessica Parker. The actress - if you missed the long article about her in New York Times, or the countless posts on social media promoting her inclusion - this year she served as a jury member for the award Booker, a process that required her to read 153 books, some of them on the New York subway, followed by a film crew. “Oh, let me try!” Parker wrote to the prize’s directors last year, and for reasons that became clear this week, they accepted.
I know what you mean; that anything less than a full endorsement of Parker's interesting engagement with books in general and with the price Booker in particular, it's just plain snobbish. There's nothing wrong with an actress getting involved in the literary world or using her cultural clout to promote reading. And - there's no arguing - we're all very grateful for anyone who has a platform bigger than that of the average stay-at-home novelist and who uses her charm and attention to good use. That star book endorsements have become a natural extension of public relations, like animal charities or UN goodwill ambassadors, is certainly something to note. Who among us wouldn't welcome Mindy Kaling, or Emma Watson, or Jenna Bush Hager, in their fight against attention deficit and screen addiction?
And yet: come on now. Really? Content created by stars who want to present themselves as bookish has yielded some images - Natalie Portman (did she ever mention she went to Harvard?) staring at a copy of Waves by Virginia Woolf; Emma Roberts, actress and granddaughter of Julia Roberts, taking a nap with her newborn next to a Joan Didion anthology; Kaia Gerber, actress and daughter of Cindy Crawford, who assures us through her social media posts that “reading is very sexy”; the phrase “Dakota Johnson’s immersive literary experience” - which, if doesn’t make you laugh, then you’re a much better person than me.
Some of the ways you view this type of content can come from simply asking how your body reacts when you hear the words “Reese Witherspoon” — with a warm smile or an unconscious shiver. Witherspoon, whose book list is nearly a decade old, is a big name on the literary continent of celebrities and the natural heir to Oprah Winfrey, who is often pictured in a floral dress, sprawled on a couch with a book in her hand, and with an expression on her face that says, “Yes, I’m cute; but I also read.” What Witherspoon is reading, no doubt, is a novel about a strange girl who meets a strange man and together they celebrate their nonconformity to a conventional wedding.
Of course, not all star literary lists are created equal, and a generation after Witherspoon comes Dua Lipa, with a much more ambitious and literary list - which has recently included titles from Ocean Vuong, Patrick Radden Keefe and, the star of the moment, Helen Garner. (In fact, it was Sarah Jessica Parker who got to Garner first, portraying Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City with, from time to time, a copy of Garner's first novel, Monkey grip, and her book This house of pain, stylishly tucked under the arm. The latter is the chilling story of a man who kills his own children - which every stylish and civilized girl should have.)
Since there is room for all kinds of literary tastes, I think my annoyance with most of this is stylistic. Regarding the phrase “reading is sexy” — a claim that most bookish stars take extremely literally, to the point where every promotional photo shows them posing, red carpet ready, over a book — is it incredibly boring to ask whether “sexy” is the right word? There is something deeply demeaning about assuming that the only thing the young, the ignorant, and the unread will respond to is “seduction,” or that the definition of seduction is reading a book in a bikini.
As for the authors themselves, many of them are, of course, excited to be involved with younger, richer, more famous people from the popular end of the entertainment spectrum, thus entering into the tradition of gloomy and difficult people in literature who meet an actor and suddenly become cheerful. In the article New York Timesto about how Sarah Jessica Parker managed to be a famous actress who also reads books, the TV star said: "I wanted to write to Roddy [Doyle, the chairman of the jury] and say, 'Have you touched this book yet? Here are my feelings on it, but it's possible I'm completely wrong.'" Early revelation: the Irish novelist was absolutely 100 percent in agreement with the award winner's assessment Golden Globe and Emmy for that particular book.
I don't want to be too pessimistic. No one wants to be Jonathan Franzen at this particular party (although, I will say, as Oprah's book choices become increasingly questionable, I'm finding myself increasingly sympathetic to his adamant refusal to be a part of it). But perhaps we can say "congratulations" to the stars' book choices, while reserving the right to find them a little ridiculous - examples of people who insist on telling us what they think about everything, with a confidence completely untainted by expertise. /Telegraph/
