I looked up the quote because it's worth reading in all its glorious self-pity:
"Nonetheless, I’m aware of being thought not quite respectable by the literary establishment. When biographers congregate, it’s far more impressive to be able to say “I’m doing Augustus John” than “I’m doing Elton John”. I can hardly complain since no one could think less than I do of “rock writing”. Frank Zappa defined music journalists as “people who can’t write preparing articles about people who can’t think for people who can’t read”; indeed, the subject brings out a latent prattishness even in authors of the calibre of Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis."
Translation: I, Philip Norman, was one of the 20 Granta Best Young British Novelists of 1983 and I feel I am in the same class as Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis and I am bitter that writing the kind of books that have given me presumably a pretty decent living has not also earned me the respect I richly deserve.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2023-10-30 11:16 am (UTC)Gosh that is unnecessarily mean.
I looked up the quote because it's worth reading in all its glorious self-pity:
"Nonetheless, I’m aware of being thought not quite respectable by the literary establishment. When biographers congregate, it’s far more impressive to be able to say “I’m doing Augustus John” than “I’m doing Elton John”. I can hardly complain since no one could think less than I do of “rock writing”. Frank Zappa defined music journalists as “people who can’t write preparing articles about people who can’t think for people who can’t read”; indeed, the subject brings out a latent prattishness even in authors of the calibre of Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis."
Translation: I, Philip Norman, was one of the 20 Granta Best Young British Novelists of 1983 and I feel I am in the same class as Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis and I am bitter that writing the kind of books that have given me presumably a pretty decent living has not also earned me the respect I richly deserve.