About the hollowness of fame.
We’ve been here before, but this is maybe the most straightforward statement
yet that fame does not bring what one expects from it before one attains it.
So here’s what I think, being
innocent of actual fame myself: You have to ignore it if it arrives as a result
of your work. You have to remember that the obsessions, the voicing, are what
matters and what have always mattered, and before fame ever comes you have to
remember that ambition is about the desire for fame. The satisfaction comes not
from success, the satisfaction of ambition, fame, but from the act of making.
Which is not to say that recognition is bad. Writers want readers, artists want
showings, musicians want an audience. But B. is clear here: The thing he
struggled for turned out to be empty.
He gets it at the end. Fame makes
him lazy. What matters is the voice and the obsessing. BBC specials? Not so
much, apparently. Doesn’t seem like such a bad problem from my vantage, but
like I say, innocence of fame is my lot so far.
This is infinitely better than
the narcissist who thinks he deserves his fame, who lives for publicity. The
boxer who fights a few too many fights because the lights of the ring bring him
more than the headaches he’ll suffer all the next month cost; Nora Desmond, the
aging starlet in Sunset Boulevard who
can’t accept that her career is over even though the silent movies that brought
her fame have gone extinct. Poetry and fame seem like such an odd mix anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment