I have read all of this author's works, and while the Ferrante used a fake name she made it clear it was just that, like the author of Primary Colors. For that matter Thomas Pynchon was and has been famously private, more so than Salinger ever was. But figuring out who Elena Ferrante was became a parlor game among a certain few journalists-- and one investigative writer apparently has cracked the code. Given the issues the world faces, this seems like a small thing. She's not a CIA agent being outed. She's an author. Even outed I imagine not one person in the USA would ever recognize her on the street. (Or Thomas Pynchon for that matter.) And probably very few in Italy either.
3
Thank you for this semi-sweet cherry.
1
Maybe instead of broadly condemning "cultural appropriation" or broadly endorsing "freedom of speech" we should simply admit that most writers don't have the empathy, the discipline, or the self-awareness to imagine lives unlike their own. The crime isn't telling somebody else's story. The crime is telling somebody else's story in a way that protects your interests at their expense. Elena Ferrante doesn't do that.
29
One can only hope that " cultural appropriation " is a fad which struts and frets its hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.
32
All art is appropriation: Coltrane's beautiful version of "My Favorite Things," Picasso's masks, our American anthem's roots in a British drinking tune, Conjunto's fusion of German Polka and Mexican Folk music, Chinese invented pasta in your favorite Italian joint, any language used in literature or poetry did not arise from thin air, but is an amalgam of its predecessors, and so forth.
To be anti-appropriation is to be anti-art (appropriation is one type of creativity). Without appropriation we would be stuck with only personal memoir and all its indulgences.
To be anti-appropriation is to be anti-art (appropriation is one type of creativity). Without appropriation we would be stuck with only personal memoir and all its indulgences.
52
hopefully we aren't on the verge of issuing fatwas to fiction writers deemed to be guilty of vivid imaginations
40
I am amazed that the editor(s) at the Times did not correct Mr Kirsch's misuse of the verb "may" in his first sentence. The correct verb should have been the conditional "might" with its implications of "perhaps" and "perhaps not."
3
First off, describing the Neapolitan novels as cultural appropriation seems pretty far-fetched: the author known as 'Elena Ferrante' is writing about being a woman in Italy while being... an Italian woman. Major themes of the books (the complexity of female friendship, the constraints placed on women's intellectual ambition, the changing place occupied by women in Italian society) were likely drawn from the author's own life. This is the exact opposite of cultural appropriation.
Second, this op-ed (and Lionel Shriver, and many of the commenters on this article) seem hell-bent on misrepresenting the whole concept of "cultural appropriation." Have any of Lionel Shriver's critics actually demanded that fiction cease to exist, and all written works be autobiographical? Of course not. Any author is allowed to create characters of any gender, race, sexuality, etc. But that doesn't mean those authors can expect to be immune from criticism if they write those characters poorly. If being asked to consider your own position of privilege is the worst thing you can imagine, if being sensitive to the feelings of marginalized groups feels like 'censorship' to you, you probably don't have the empathy needed to be a good writer, anyway.
Second, this op-ed (and Lionel Shriver, and many of the commenters on this article) seem hell-bent on misrepresenting the whole concept of "cultural appropriation." Have any of Lionel Shriver's critics actually demanded that fiction cease to exist, and all written works be autobiographical? Of course not. Any author is allowed to create characters of any gender, race, sexuality, etc. But that doesn't mean those authors can expect to be immune from criticism if they write those characters poorly. If being asked to consider your own position of privilege is the worst thing you can imagine, if being sensitive to the feelings of marginalized groups feels like 'censorship' to you, you probably don't have the empathy needed to be a good writer, anyway.
19
OMG! I just found out that this old Greek writer Homer never fought in a war in his life! And not only that, but he was never even on board a ship, let alone for a long sea voyage. What a poser! I'm tossing all his so-called "classic" in the trash where they belong.
53
I find even the existence of a discussion that a writer, musician or performer of ANY art, should feel any constraints on "appropriation," or any form of fantasy, invention—absurd and depressing.
Taken to its logical conclusion, the misguided idea that "appropriation" should be taboo would necessarily bring the evolution of cultures to a screeching halt.
Every art form is to some degree a cross-over, a marriage of cultures, a crazy quilt of borrowed pieces of humanity. To draw a line and say to an artist, "keep out, your'e not a member", is arbitrary, absurd and self-defeating.
One of the most memorable novels I have ever read is "A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, by Michael Dorris who "appropriates" the experiences of three women. As a woman, I did not find one whiff of gender-inauthentic prose. The ultimate "appropriation", one of gender, came off brilliantly.
Jazz couldn't exist without appropriation. I am limited here by word count, not examples.
What sets 'art' apart from mathematics or science is the ability of artists to show us our common humanity while relishing our cultural idiosyncrasies and to bring it all together in a fresh way. To create boxes with borders of what is "appropriate" raw material spells the death of creativity.
Addionally: I think the "outing" of this author was a disgusting act of selfishness and disrespect. It speaks only to his personal egotistical need to be thought of clever detective and serves no literary purpose at all. Shame on him.
Taken to its logical conclusion, the misguided idea that "appropriation" should be taboo would necessarily bring the evolution of cultures to a screeching halt.
Every art form is to some degree a cross-over, a marriage of cultures, a crazy quilt of borrowed pieces of humanity. To draw a line and say to an artist, "keep out, your'e not a member", is arbitrary, absurd and self-defeating.
One of the most memorable novels I have ever read is "A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, by Michael Dorris who "appropriates" the experiences of three women. As a woman, I did not find one whiff of gender-inauthentic prose. The ultimate "appropriation", one of gender, came off brilliantly.
Jazz couldn't exist without appropriation. I am limited here by word count, not examples.
What sets 'art' apart from mathematics or science is the ability of artists to show us our common humanity while relishing our cultural idiosyncrasies and to bring it all together in a fresh way. To create boxes with borders of what is "appropriate" raw material spells the death of creativity.
Addionally: I think the "outing" of this author was a disgusting act of selfishness and disrespect. It speaks only to his personal egotistical need to be thought of clever detective and serves no literary purpose at all. Shame on him.
62
I feel like this editorial misses the central issue of the event at hand: Does an author or artist have a right to privacy? Does an author or artist have the right to control her relationship to her work? Is it a violation if someone decides to wrest that control away from the artist or author? (I think it is.) And what are the consequences for those who would violate that relationship?
33
This debate is so funny!
As though one needs a "right" to do anything one wants, short of crime!
The topic of identity is discussed in ultimate depth in "I Am That" by Nisargadatta.
Think for yourself?
As though one needs a "right" to do anything one wants, short of crime!
The topic of identity is discussed in ultimate depth in "I Am That" by Nisargadatta.
Think for yourself?
4
being able to put yourself in the shoes of another is known as compassion. Thank you, writers, who do this so well that some of your readers are moved to become compassionate also. What a great education for the rest of us, and what great educators you writers are! We need more like you!
11
Just don't understand the argument against cultural appropriation... in my mind, culture IS appropriation... it's meant to spread and be shared. The idea that you can only express yourself in cultural outlines that match your own background is ridiculous.
24
Humanism at its finest : - /
2
Having skimmed over Claudio Gatti's violation of Ms. Raja's privacy, Mr. Kirsch levels the charge of "cultural appropriation" against her, presuming that the experiences she writes about are in no way hers because the air-view of her childhood profile doesn't fit that of her subjects. Never mind that Mr. Kirsch is okay with appropriation; soon the torches and pitchforks will follow. Mr. Kirsch has framed an argument and now other woolly-minded readers will be quick to condemn the truthfulness and sincerity of Ms. Raja's books, based exclusively on their belief that Ms. Raja has somehow deceived them. That isn't Mr. Kirsch's intention of course. He wants to extol her having "claim[ed] the right to imagine the lives of people quite unlike herself." (Presumably, Mr. Kirsch knows how Ms. Raja is, quite.) But of course, there is the charge, however it is voiced. Ms. Raja has not merely written fictions of depth and beauty, she has posited a claim, committed a political act, and so there must be political actors who will want to take her to task. Mr. Kirsch concludes, sententiously, "If the exposure of Elena Ferrante reminds us of that truth [that we all have the power to imagine our way into one another's lives], [...] perhaps it will turn out to be justified." "We" just have to be "reminded" for the violation to be justified? One wonders in what ethical universe Mr. Kirsch resides,and what sort of sacrifices he is prepared to make to jog our memories.
6
Cultural appropriation is so silly I can't even find the energy to write more about it.
Artists of all strides, writers, painters, poets..., a free spirits and can create whatever they like.
The audience can then, in return, decide whether they like it or not.
Where's the problem?
Artists of all strides, writers, painters, poets..., a free spirits and can create whatever they like.
The audience can then, in return, decide whether they like it or not.
Where's the problem?
17
Intellectuals are like the mafia; they only kill their own
- Woody Allen
- Woody Allen
9
The question is of how much importance it is to understanding or appreciating a book. An editor’s foreword that tells the reader about the author will affect your reading.
2
Wow, talk about appropriation. How about Gatti's appropriation of Elena Ferrante's privacy?
6
Claiming 'cultural appropriation' is an attempt to silence people.
There is nothing more anti the spirit of literature than trying to silence people.
There is nothing more anti the spirit of literature than trying to silence people.
26
It's a shame that someone felt that Ms. Ferrante shouldn't have the right to use a pseudonym. But it's insane that anyone can ask "whether a writer has the right to tell stories about people unlike herself". That would mean no Dickens - wrote about poor people and criminals - and no Trollope - who imagined prime ministers, parsons and dukes. Should he have only written novels about postal inspectors? Was Twain out of line writing Huckleberry Finn? What would Mrs. Dalloway be without Septimus Smith? Obviously Woolf was never a working class soldier. I could go on, but I'm too annoyed. If fiction writers don't write about people unlike themselves, literature is over.
45
Brava! Your last sentence sums it up perfectly.
12
Charges of cultural appropriation are a double edged sword. Many fine Indian and African novels are written in English and perhaps would not have existed if their authors had to write in their native language.
Having said that, the current battle over cultural appropriation is a storm in a tea cup. White authors are in an uproar that minorities have the temerity to say that they don't like the way they are portrayed. So what? This has not lead to a ban on their writing or on their works being published. It seems that they want to write what they want to write, and at the same time they don't want to be told they didn't do an authentic job.
Having said that, the current battle over cultural appropriation is a storm in a tea cup. White authors are in an uproar that minorities have the temerity to say that they don't like the way they are portrayed. So what? This has not lead to a ban on their writing or on their works being published. It seems that they want to write what they want to write, and at the same time they don't want to be told they didn't do an authentic job.
7
Few expressions of political correctness are more absurd than cultural appropriation. It is nonsense. And it's not just in literature. I am a college professor in the History Dept, and once taught a seminar on Africa --- the class went great from the students' perspectives and mine, but I was shocked by the onslaught of criticism from friends and colleagues, who told me I should not teach the class because I am white and not African. You know what? I am also not a member of royalty, but I have taught classes on ancient monarchies.
I also teach Creative Writing courses, and recently gave an assignment relating to the missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada. Many students were scared to imagine the point of view of an indigenous person because they might be accused of 'appropriating.'
What this really means is that some people think the rest of us cannot exercise empathy. It means that were are more different from each other than similar. It means the divide is so great, and our identities so very important and rigid that we cannot cross those barriers to experience compassion and empathy with those who are different from us.
Thank goodness this was not going on while Flaubert and Shakespeare lived. If this ridiculous trend continues, literature will be divided into silos of personal experience and reduced to memoir rather than genuine creativity. All authors should be able to explore and draw attention to the experience of people different from themselves.
I also teach Creative Writing courses, and recently gave an assignment relating to the missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada. Many students were scared to imagine the point of view of an indigenous person because they might be accused of 'appropriating.'
What this really means is that some people think the rest of us cannot exercise empathy. It means that were are more different from each other than similar. It means the divide is so great, and our identities so very important and rigid that we cannot cross those barriers to experience compassion and empathy with those who are different from us.
Thank goodness this was not going on while Flaubert and Shakespeare lived. If this ridiculous trend continues, literature will be divided into silos of personal experience and reduced to memoir rather than genuine creativity. All authors should be able to explore and draw attention to the experience of people different from themselves.
98
A bit hypocritical, aren't we? Other new outlets that covered this story pointedly *did not* include the discovered name of the author.
But the NY Times, thoughtlessly, has, and in doing so, has made the problem worse.
I'm disgusted with the NY Review, but shame on the Times, too.
And, by the way, this is not an issue of "cultural appropriation". It's a question of violation of a person's privacy.
But the NY Times, thoughtlessly, has, and in doing so, has made the problem worse.
I'm disgusted with the NY Review, but shame on the Times, too.
And, by the way, this is not an issue of "cultural appropriation". It's a question of violation of a person's privacy.
5
"Ms. Raja was born in Naples, but she moved to Rome at the age of 3 and grew up there. Her father was Neapolitan, but not poor..." Mr Kirsch doesn't seem to have a clear idea of what "cultural appropriation" even is. If I grow up in New York City and set my story in Buffalo, whose culture is being appropriated? Culture is bigger than a city block, and appropriation ("making a thing one's own") is not fantasy but theft.
4
John Coltrane became obsessed with Lester Young's interpretation of Oscar Hammerstein's "All The Things You Are." He listened to it and then practiced it note for note over and over again until eventually it ceased to be Young's and became Coltrane's through a symbiosis of imitation and admiration. Both Coltrane and Young were African American. Hammerstein was white, but all of his music was shot through with the blues, an African American art form. Confusing isn't it?
3
It's not easy ... we have to fully acknowledge the lives and worlds that we and others come from, but not fetishize that as we work toward degrees of universality and understanding. After all the distinguished African-American scholar, Henry Louis Gates, has said (to the effect) that he will be happy when we all look like Polynesians. This from a man who has articulated our social and cultural differences to a fine degree.
Literature as well as well as art is a juxtaposing of metaphors to illuminate a principle; a truth. The paradox lies in the fact that principle is counter-intuitive. The aha moments come when you close the difference that has been opened by the writer or artist. Then you understand. Perhaps the haters were embarrassed that their understanding was wrong. In time, perhaps, they will laugh at their folly.
1
The appeal of her work is in the content. For wahtever reason she has tapped into many people's psyche and there is no reason beyond Mr. Gatti's personal gratification and possible financial gain to expose the author's desire for privacy.
Free world filled with all sorts of people.
Free world filled with all sorts of people.
5
It is hypocrisy to believe that fiction writers can write any fiction they want (of course they can) but that a journalist cannot write any journalism they want.
By writing under a pseudonym you invite curiosity that invites investigation. The better the writer the more intense the curiosity and the investigation.
On the subject of cultural appropriation, the internet has rendered the concept moot. Everything is appropriated.
By writing under a pseudonym you invite curiosity that invites investigation. The better the writer the more intense the curiosity and the investigation.
On the subject of cultural appropriation, the internet has rendered the concept moot. Everything is appropriated.
1
There's no hypocrisy. Fiction uses the imagination. Journalism is about facts. Ferrante's identity was a 'fact' most people didn't want to know. Journalism is far below art, not it's equal.
7
This is FICTION. Look it up. It's why writers write: to imagine/create other lives, and share them through stories, novels, and plays. Please, just read the work and leave us in peace to write it.
11
Here we go again, reinventing the wheel. Dickens? Balzac? Hello?
Duh.
Why is this an issue for an article? Writers write and use their imaginations--they're not reality TV stars. Why do so many people not understand imagination and creative process? Not everyone who is recessive and retiring is looking for publicity. Virginia Woolf had a few words to say about the value of obscurity over fame. But obscurity is only of use to someone who has something going on upstairs, that is, an inner life. And so few people do today, because it's not in the interest of corporate capitalistic control of the masses for them to think or use their imaginations creatively.
Duh.
Why is this an issue for an article? Writers write and use their imaginations--they're not reality TV stars. Why do so many people not understand imagination and creative process? Not everyone who is recessive and retiring is looking for publicity. Virginia Woolf had a few words to say about the value of obscurity over fame. But obscurity is only of use to someone who has something going on upstairs, that is, an inner life. And so few people do today, because it's not in the interest of corporate capitalistic control of the masses for them to think or use their imaginations creatively.
7
Mr. Gatto did not care about - or respect - Elena Ferrante.
He cared only about himself & getting a 'scoop' about something nobody wanted to know - because people respect Ferrante's right to privacy.
Nobody was 'helped' by this disclosure except Mr. Gatto. Certainly Ms. Raja, if she is Ferrante, doesn't benefit from having her privacy invaded & flushed out by the international press. Beyond that, her readers are also harmed if international media scrutiny & violation of her privacy lead Ms. Ferrante to end her career.
This is why many people hate journalists & the media. Gatto stalked, 'investigated' & violated the privacy of a private person. It doesn't matter that Ferrante's books are best sellers. 'Elena Ferrante' is a private person. She holds no public position for which she must be held accountable - she doesn't represent shareholders, teach students or hold elective office. She has no one to answer to but herself. Further, in her almost total refusal to do appearances or interviews, she set boundaries of privacy which all decent people respect. We recognize she has a right to set such boundaries - which Mr. Gatto rudely crushed for his gain.
This is a sad day. If this great writer has been exposed by a mean over-aggressive 'journalist' seeking a 'scoop,' it's a loss for literature, the concept of privacy (so rare today) & human decency.
I wish Ms. Ferrante the best & hope she can live in privacy w/o media intrusion. & I thank her for her wonderful books.
He cared only about himself & getting a 'scoop' about something nobody wanted to know - because people respect Ferrante's right to privacy.
Nobody was 'helped' by this disclosure except Mr. Gatto. Certainly Ms. Raja, if she is Ferrante, doesn't benefit from having her privacy invaded & flushed out by the international press. Beyond that, her readers are also harmed if international media scrutiny & violation of her privacy lead Ms. Ferrante to end her career.
This is why many people hate journalists & the media. Gatto stalked, 'investigated' & violated the privacy of a private person. It doesn't matter that Ferrante's books are best sellers. 'Elena Ferrante' is a private person. She holds no public position for which she must be held accountable - she doesn't represent shareholders, teach students or hold elective office. She has no one to answer to but herself. Further, in her almost total refusal to do appearances or interviews, she set boundaries of privacy which all decent people respect. We recognize she has a right to set such boundaries - which Mr. Gatto rudely crushed for his gain.
This is a sad day. If this great writer has been exposed by a mean over-aggressive 'journalist' seeking a 'scoop,' it's a loss for literature, the concept of privacy (so rare today) & human decency.
I wish Ms. Ferrante the best & hope she can live in privacy w/o media intrusion. & I thank her for her wonderful books.
25
It's the cultural administrators, with their known but unacknowledged gender and racial quotas, who enforce the "appropriation" prohibition -- not writers, readers or viewers.
The Sundance Institute, which receives endlessly adoring media coverage, including in the pages of this newspaper, is probably the best known offender and proves that you don't have to actively censor acts of "appropriation".
Just implement your unadmitted gender or racial quotas. This has the additional unfortunate effect of impugning the integrity of accomplished "non-appropriated" works as well (because nobody believes the hype), but it's great to be virtuous!
The Sundance Institute, which receives endlessly adoring media coverage, including in the pages of this newspaper, is probably the best known offender and proves that you don't have to actively censor acts of "appropriation".
Just implement your unadmitted gender or racial quotas. This has the additional unfortunate effect of impugning the integrity of accomplished "non-appropriated" works as well (because nobody believes the hype), but it's great to be virtuous!
1
There are fools and cowards here.
The fools are all those readers who were so certain that only someone from the same poor background could possible have written these novels. Now they insist that only such a person has the right to do so.
The cowards are those in the press who should be openly and repeatedly attacking the cultural appropriation movement, which neither began with this novel, nor will it end there.
This movement is just one of the toxins flowing out of what was once Liberalism. Where the heck is the intellectual decency of The Times?
The fools are all those readers who were so certain that only someone from the same poor background could possible have written these novels. Now they insist that only such a person has the right to do so.
The cowards are those in the press who should be openly and repeatedly attacking the cultural appropriation movement, which neither began with this novel, nor will it end there.
This movement is just one of the toxins flowing out of what was once Liberalism. Where the heck is the intellectual decency of The Times?
15
Liberalism has NEVER been opposed to creativity and imagination--quite the opposite. Liberals dream beyond themselves and promote creative ideas, imaginative new approaches, answers to individual woes. What planet do you reside upon?
10
I don't know where it is, I was looking in the broom closet, but it wasn't there. It's certainly not hiding in plain sight.
I suppose the last paragraph is supposed to redeem the article.
I suppose the last paragraph is supposed to redeem the article.
This seems like a mistranslation of cultural appropriation. Had Ms. Raja toured with her books and claimed them to be based on her own life or published a "memoir" of her Neapolitan life, then there would be reason to call her out. Instead, she relied on her rich imagination and made no claims of personal authenticity. Neopolitans are free to speculate about whether she gets it right, but to stop her from writing seems outright censorship.
13
Whatever your opinion of cultural appropriation Ms. Ferrante's writings don't really fit the bill. Cultural appropriation usually refers to writing about marginalized and discriminated against people in a way that is often tone deaf. Ferrante is not guilty of any of the above. Also I find the emphasis on her being Jewish to be insensitive.
12
The misguided arguments about "cultural appropriation" in this article demonstrate that the Identity Politics from which this concern issues is, at its core, terrifically opposed to creativity, imagination, art, and thus really to the entire soul of humankind.
The soul of the human psyche is innately creative, innately imaginative and mysterious ---- it is not linked to any rigid identity or outer form. It's a delusion of the human ego that our identity can be reduced to a fixed form -- much less a specific race, gender or sexual orientation or nationality -- and the deeper spiritual reality of the psyche, which is evidenced in our magnificent and spiritually liberating capacity for imagination, will break apart every little prison of a shell that the ego tries to build to erect a pathetic sense of its own "identity" -- which includes the whole pathetic, shallow philosophy and worldview of "Identity Politics."
Identity Politics is ultimately a sham, a fake, a fraud -- nonsensical and facile, merely a tool to allow some to manipulate others and try to induce guilt. The human capacity for imagination, by contrast, is a means of liberation -- artistic, spiritual and psychological liberation. Follow your imagination -- it will heal you and allow your soul to unfold.
The soul of the human psyche is innately creative, innately imaginative and mysterious ---- it is not linked to any rigid identity or outer form. It's a delusion of the human ego that our identity can be reduced to a fixed form -- much less a specific race, gender or sexual orientation or nationality -- and the deeper spiritual reality of the psyche, which is evidenced in our magnificent and spiritually liberating capacity for imagination, will break apart every little prison of a shell that the ego tries to build to erect a pathetic sense of its own "identity" -- which includes the whole pathetic, shallow philosophy and worldview of "Identity Politics."
Identity Politics is ultimately a sham, a fake, a fraud -- nonsensical and facile, merely a tool to allow some to manipulate others and try to induce guilt. The human capacity for imagination, by contrast, is a means of liberation -- artistic, spiritual and psychological liberation. Follow your imagination -- it will heal you and allow your soul to unfold.
18
Ms. Ferrante "got away with it," meaning that she convincingly imagined the experience, including sufferings, of others. Why anyone should have a problem with that is beyond me, unless the mere fact of being a victim is some kind of treasure to be protected and touted. I don't think that bodes well for literature or for humanity.
20
Cultural appropriation. Another Liberal Buzz-Phrase designed to divide the country even more.
Americans (at least the patriotic type) are sick and tired of the media and the politicians pushing ideologies and agendas that, instead of bringing us together as a country, divide it even more.
Being "PC" is neither political nor correct. It's just plain ignorance.
Americans (at least the patriotic type) are sick and tired of the media and the politicians pushing ideologies and agendas that, instead of bringing us together as a country, divide it even more.
Being "PC" is neither political nor correct. It's just plain ignorance.
4
Literature is an aesthetic enterprise. It is designed to move and to put in motion complex questions and relationships viewed through an aesthetic lens. It is only secondarily social comment or autobiographical. The teaching of literature has been undermined by selection and analysis of books for all the wrong reasons. No wonder students are turned off to good books, given what they are asked to read and the irrelevance of most teaching. On the other hand, literature, like the other arts, has always been for the few.
"Cultural appropriation" is just another PC tool to claim a "right" to ideas and scenes owned by no one. Like irredentism and revanchism, it creates a fanciful history of the good ol' days when some cultural affinity group was, e.g., ruler of the known world, or had someone who cooked something or knew something. If we keep rolling back the videotape, however, we find that the roots to most things go pretty far back and are shared by most people via ancestors long gone and hard to recall. Those who need a 'safe space" should just go their rooms and pretend that (fill in the blank) was first "invented" in the 1940s or the 1800s or some other incorrect time that offers them claimed ownership. You choose, be PC or keep going to your precious yoga class, eating :Italian" food and, shockingly, reading a book not written by someone exactly like the main character in the book.
1
Cultural appropriation is the idiocy of the times. Fiction does not exist without it.
This journalist, who pried into people's financial records only in order to make a name for himself, justified his actions by implying that Ferrante should have written about her real life. Well, no, she's writing fiction. She has no obligation to anyone to write autobiography. Even when she pretends to be writing autobiography.
The journalist has no automatic right to publish details about the 'real' author's 'real' mother. We have no business knowing the story of her mother, or what Ferrante paid for an apartment. Does a strongly worded desire for privacy not mean anything to him? Ferrante is a writer of fiction, not a politician or anyone else in whose finances and life story there is a legitimate public interrest. (And it gets worse: how unseemly to 'unmask' an author only to imply that perhaps the husband helps her write!)
I am very disappointed that the New York Review of Books published this information. A literary magazine should have respected the strongly expressed life choice of a living author.
In an age where too much is revealed, I admired Ferrante's refusal to let anything but the works speak for her. I can only hope she will not, as she has said, stop publishing now that her identity is revealed. If indeed it is.
This journalist, who pried into people's financial records only in order to make a name for himself, justified his actions by implying that Ferrante should have written about her real life. Well, no, she's writing fiction. She has no obligation to anyone to write autobiography. Even when she pretends to be writing autobiography.
The journalist has no automatic right to publish details about the 'real' author's 'real' mother. We have no business knowing the story of her mother, or what Ferrante paid for an apartment. Does a strongly worded desire for privacy not mean anything to him? Ferrante is a writer of fiction, not a politician or anyone else in whose finances and life story there is a legitimate public interrest. (And it gets worse: how unseemly to 'unmask' an author only to imply that perhaps the husband helps her write!)
I am very disappointed that the New York Review of Books published this information. A literary magazine should have respected the strongly expressed life choice of a living author.
In an age where too much is revealed, I admired Ferrante's refusal to let anything but the works speak for her. I can only hope she will not, as she has said, stop publishing now that her identity is revealed. If indeed it is.
56
Imagination is the only way to understand another human being. Empathy depends on it. All the arts, but literature especially, train the imagination. Ms Ferrante's work is a timely reminder of this truth.
11
We live in a world where people are far too caught up in being offended and other people have made an industry of making sure that no one anywhere is ever offended by anything.
You very existence is offensive because you are a man, woman, child or adult. You are white, black, latino, asian, native, african, mix, wiccan, christian, buddhist, muslim, straight, gay, bi, trans, whatever. Live your life as best you can and let those with small minds obsess over small things.
You very existence is offensive because you are a man, woman, child or adult. You are white, black, latino, asian, native, african, mix, wiccan, christian, buddhist, muslim, straight, gay, bi, trans, whatever. Live your life as best you can and let those with small minds obsess over small things.
10
This is the paradox of literature, which is also the glory of humanism: the idea that nothing human is alien to any of us, that we all have the power to imagine our way into one another’s lives.
The discussion around cultural appropriation is about whether or not you believe we all have the power to imagine our way into each other's lives. I'm not sure we all do, certainly not every fiction writer does. It's not just a question of the fictional character but of the fictional world in which they move, also written into being by the author.
Don't we need at least to try to imagine the anger and dismay some people feel about seeing their cultures represented in fiction in ways that are so poorly understood as to be unrecognizable? This is not about the interplay of cultures on each other but about a work of fiction that seeks to summon an entire complex world. If you belong to a culture that has been very poorly or even shamefully represented by outsiders, then surely your perspective will be different. Since we're talking about imagining the lives of other people, maybe we could begin there?
The discussion around cultural appropriation is about whether or not you believe we all have the power to imagine our way into each other's lives. I'm not sure we all do, certainly not every fiction writer does. It's not just a question of the fictional character but of the fictional world in which they move, also written into being by the author.
Don't we need at least to try to imagine the anger and dismay some people feel about seeing their cultures represented in fiction in ways that are so poorly understood as to be unrecognizable? This is not about the interplay of cultures on each other but about a work of fiction that seeks to summon an entire complex world. If you belong to a culture that has been very poorly or even shamefully represented by outsiders, then surely your perspective will be different. Since we're talking about imagining the lives of other people, maybe we could begin there?
12
Her books are amazingly rich. I am so glad I have read some and still are reading them. Whether or not I know the author's identity does not matter to me as much as the resonance of the author's words. At the present time, her words speak to me powerfully of the human experience. I will hold on to that for now.
6
Go ahead and "imagine your way into other people's lives." I will stick to nonfiction.
1
I don't remember hearing about Ferrante or the Neopolitan quartet until this story broke. At a minimum this is a lot of free publicity.
And I agree that this discovery was inevitable. Ask Robert Galbraith.
And I agree that this discovery was inevitable. Ask Robert Galbraith.
2
Good artist steal. Bad artists appropriate.
With apologies to T.S. Eliot and Picasso.
With apologies to T.S. Eliot and Picasso.
4
I have always been put off by this argument that people who have not lived an experience cannot and should not write about it in a work of fiction. Why on earth not? What a silly perspective. I remember hearing this years ago about the music of Tracy Chapman. The argument was that she had not grown up poor or (presumably) abused and therefore, how dare she write about these things in the first person in her songs? Really? That is ridiculous to me.
5
Earlier this year, I spent the better part of six weeks reading all four "Neapolitan" novels consecutively. Magnificent is too puny a word to describe them. Sure I was curious. Who is this Elena Ferrante? But really does it matter? Ironic that only one other work of fiction of the thousands I have read in my seven decades has moved me in the same way: "Middlemarch," by George Eliot: yes, another pseudonym -- Mary Ann Evans. Leave Ferrante alone! She has created something to appreciate. That's plenty!
2
Is not the key question whether Ferrante's quartet are great books? I would say the first two are and the final two are not. The difference in qualty has more to with sustaining the narrative and slack writing and nothing to do with cultural appropriation. The author understands the milieu she is addressing all too well.
3
Writing about a reality different from one’s own offers another point of view of that reality just as flying over a landscape presents a perspective different from someone who is experiencing that landscape on the ground. In that sense, writing is not unlike architecture. Initially I was surprised to learn that the National Museum of African American History and Culture had not been designed by a black American architect. However, architects from Mongolia, if they had done their homework, could have successfully designed the museum, bringing their unique perspective of the subject matter.
1
"In recent weeks, the literary world has been at war over the idea of cultural appropriation — whether a writer has the right to tell stories about people unlike herself."
Quite an exaggeration and the answer is, of course, yes.
Quite an exaggeration and the answer is, of course, yes.
10
Of all the things in this world that people fight over, "cultural appropriation" has got to be silliest of them all. I refuse to get involved in this in anyway, shape, or form.
11
Art is speech, not action. It isn't running a red light for my selfishness or sending anthrax Christmas cards.
Art can result in offended sensibilities. But it isn't murdering someone for my passion and-or other nefarious plan.
Artists are like holy fools-mad scientists. Their garrets and studios are laboratories for this speech. Whoever said, "Write what you know" knew only one half. The other half is what you don't know, but can infer and craft into worlds. Your work will wither in time if it is not well thought out.
Those who desire total control in the name of justice have failed to distinguish between thought and action. They want power over justice, and the desire for power in the guise of justice is an attempt at total control: totalitarianism-dictatorship in essence.
Art can result in offended sensibilities. But it isn't murdering someone for my passion and-or other nefarious plan.
Artists are like holy fools-mad scientists. Their garrets and studios are laboratories for this speech. Whoever said, "Write what you know" knew only one half. The other half is what you don't know, but can infer and craft into worlds. Your work will wither in time if it is not well thought out.
Those who desire total control in the name of justice have failed to distinguish between thought and action. They want power over justice, and the desire for power in the guise of justice is an attempt at total control: totalitarianism-dictatorship in essence.
12
This is the endgame of the scourge that is identity politics. We went from segregation and not being willing to accept other peoples cultures, to getting chastised if we dare to incorporate another persons culture in our own lives or works? How is that any better? Why is this an accepted cultural standard?
We have had people literally protesting over white people doing yoga. How can this kind of laughable extremism be normalized like this?
Regardless where you fall on the political spectrum, this is the true danger of one side gaining too much cultural power. The cultural right have been so deeply defeated that there is no one around to stop the cultural left from it more radical elements.
This manifests itself in what we are seeing today, such as demanding of "black only" dorm areas in the name of safe spaces and, as we see in this article, demonizing those who write fiction from the point of view of someone whos race the author doesn't share. It is sheer madness.
We have had people literally protesting over white people doing yoga. How can this kind of laughable extremism be normalized like this?
Regardless where you fall on the political spectrum, this is the true danger of one side gaining too much cultural power. The cultural right have been so deeply defeated that there is no one around to stop the cultural left from it more radical elements.
This manifests itself in what we are seeing today, such as demanding of "black only" dorm areas in the name of safe spaces and, as we see in this article, demonizing those who write fiction from the point of view of someone whos race the author doesn't share. It is sheer madness.
13
It's not clear to me yet how Ms. Raja's experience was entirely removed from the characters in her Neapolitan novels. Her father was a Neapolitan, and the fact that he was a magistrate means nothing in terms of money. Plenty of magistrates in post-WWII Naples were eating their shoes. Additionally, family ties in Italy are strong. Who's to say Ms. Raja did not repeatedly visit Naples, a couple hours train ride from Rome, to spend summers there, for instance. It seems we don't know enough about Ms. Raja yet to talk about "appropriation."
8
Maybe it's because I'm old,but I don't understand cultural appropriation. Kafka never went to Amerika, Steinbeck was not an Okie and Lewis Carroll never met a rabbit with a giant pocket watch. Literature is art, created from imagination. I wish Ferrante's identity had not been revealed. I liked wondering who she was. I read all 4 in the Neopolitan series, and I identified with the characters, even though I have never been to Naples.
25
@aginfla - It's not your age. I'm in the Millenial demographic that's supposed to be outraged but I'm just as baffled. For the record, I don't understand it as a black male, either. I would only take offense if an author was creating characters that entrench ignorant stereotypes or something. But that has nothing to do with cultural identity. It's a simple matter of the author's words.
To me, a great many people complaining about "P.C." censoring (especially including politicians, whose occupation involves watching their mouths) are really just upset at being called out on their crude statements, but maybe I'm showing MY age now, yeah? That said, I must admit that this particular issue bridges the generation gap for me. @aginfla, you can't make sense of the controversy because the controversy is nonsensical.
To me, a great many people complaining about "P.C." censoring (especially including politicians, whose occupation involves watching their mouths) are really just upset at being called out on their crude statements, but maybe I'm showing MY age now, yeah? That said, I must admit that this particular issue bridges the generation gap for me. @aginfla, you can't make sense of the controversy because the controversy is nonsensical.
3
The disappointment with having the author identity revealed, only uncovers the public's letdown at not getting to meet Lenù herself. We were so immersed in the story that we all came to believe the author couldn't be anyone but Lenù and that some day we were going to know her or even meet her. Alas, not to happen. It was "only" a work of literature. So there is no applause for Mr. Gatti who uncovering this truth spoiled our own limited imagination of believing, truly believing, that Lenù and her friends belonged to this world.
12
The whole 'cultural appropriation' aside, I read the Neapolitan quartet and, with the exception of the first and (parts of) the last book, found it tedious.
No matter who wrote them.
No matter who wrote them.
1
I guess this means that I am doomed to keep cooking brisket and potato latkes and never do stir fry or Italian food or anything else other than what my mother cooked because I understand that cooking can be cultural appropriation as well. It is ridiculous . Some people seem to have made a career (even if they are still in university) of being offended and toting up victim points.And this is written by a bleeding heart liberal.
10
Writers of fiction are free to imagine all sorts of worlds, contexts, and characters; to say otherwise is to negate the power that well researched, well-written fiction has had upon our world civilization. And the appropriation of another's story and placing it as our own in the world of non-fiction creates a fiction that we have in fact experienced another person's life as our own. I once heard a famous preacher say that he no longer attributed quotes in his sermons because all experience is the human experience and no one has a lock on their own. That is a specious argument: I am not, for example, Desmond Tutu; I have not experienced apartheid in any part of my life; I have not lived as an oppressed person of color. If I appropriate his words and experiences as my own, I am a thief and a liar. The same can be said for white people who appropriate African-American spirituals just because they love to sway with the rhythm. If you are singing about slavery, murder, and oppression with a smile on your face, you've missed the point, but wow, it's made you "feel" good.
1
Wow, you have to get a grip and remember what FICTION means.
5
I guess this might mean the end of murder mysteries. Who would dare write something in such a genre?
2
Once again, we see people being dismissive of the issue of cultural appropriation, and purposely misconstruing it. Ironically saying that it makes people more empathetic. Yet no empathy is shown to those who are being appropriated. No one is saying you can't write (or any other creative pursuit) about those who are different from you. It is asking you to be aware that you might be misrepresenting others, and that you need to be aware of the long legacy of exclusion, misrepresentation, and exploitation of others.
26
So! The "others" can reply, can educate and can set the record straight! How wonderful is that? An enduring debate. Socrates would have loved it!
1
This brouhaha does not make sense.
A novel -- a work of fiction and imagination-- has the luxury of invention, imitation and philosophizing.
In the case of Shakespeare, the Earl of Oxford? in the long run, it is the output that matters.
A novel -- a work of fiction and imagination-- has the luxury of invention, imitation and philosophizing.
In the case of Shakespeare, the Earl of Oxford? in the long run, it is the output that matters.
1
Beautiful, Mr. Kirsch, that article contains a beautiful, wonderful sentence near the very end, that is so well put, and it says something.
Author revelations aside do we really now need to assert the "right" to use our imagination? I am sympathetic to many of the cultural causes of our day, but the appropriation argument is out of control and has lost all effectiveness because of that. Often works that employ this kind of imagination actually make us more empathetic.
3
What exactly was going to be proven by identifying Ms Ferrante? Knowledge of her identity isn't necessary for enjoyment of her work. I know this because many people, myself included, have greatly enjoyed her novels without knowing anything about her. In fact, the mystery of her identity only deepened my enjoyment of the work because I wasn't shackled by an image of the writer, as I sometimes am when I read novels by well-known writers. I don't spend my time with Ms. Ferrante's work saying "Ah yes, of course she wrote that!" because I know too much about her own life. Novels by writers such as Hemingway, Mailer, Roth, and Plath (to name only a few examples) are invariably judged not only by their quality but also by the lived experiences of the authors. It's impossible to read anything by Plath or Hemingway, for example, without considering their suicides. Sometimes the less you know about an author, the better we're able to simply enjoy the work. What if Ms. Ferrante had turned out to be a 30-year-old man who lived on a reservation in Arizona? The novels, as rich and beautifully rendered as they were, would have seemed like a hoax and for many people would've completely lost their enchantment. And to what end? Some mysteries are enjoyably left unsolved.
3
The issue of cultural appropriation is less about defense of culture than it is about maintaining a sense of cultural identity in a primarily white culture still dominated by white writers. It is about how non-white culture is portrayed to support and and reinforce delicate white sensibilities with regards to what it means to be black, brown, yellow, red, or whatever in white culture. Coming from a position of power, white writers should be held to a higher standard when it comes to portraying other cultures. To do otherwise is to inadvertently (or even deliberately) reinforce cultural stereotypes that lock white culture into its own dated stereotype of refusing to learn and understand cultures other than its own.
8
Creativity is the hallmark of fiction which is calculated to transform the often mundane into another perspective.
As such instead of staking out cultural territory and viewing socio/cultural "errors" as such, as long as the work isn't advanced as non-fiction, they can be used to highlight the misconceptions existing between communities opening a dialogue with respect not only to the specific misapprehensions but also the general problem of using language to communicate nuanced views.
As such instead of staking out cultural territory and viewing socio/cultural "errors" as such, as long as the work isn't advanced as non-fiction, they can be used to highlight the misconceptions existing between communities opening a dialogue with respect not only to the specific misapprehensions but also the general problem of using language to communicate nuanced views.
So the woman who pretended to be Elena Ferrante had no idea what she was writing about and that is why the novels are so bad and the characters so cardboard and boring. Thank you NYT for explaining this.
1
the greatest writer ever to live appropriated histories and set stories in places he had never been (Scotland, Denmark, Padua etc) or places no one had ever been (the Forest of Arden, or a Faery Glen).
Mirror makers are not required to be all the people who will be reflected in the mirror they make; if they were, there could be no mirrors...
Mirror makers are not required to be all the people who will be reflected in the mirror they make; if they were, there could be no mirrors...
2
So what do we say about Skakespeare, Nathaniel Hawthorne or Mark Twain...?? they all stole other person's story... or at least made them up.
1
Unfortunately for me I suppose, I'm not a literature person. But the theme of the article transcends the literary world on the presumption literature has something to do with human life and living.
I remember disdain from a (somewhat-ugly-American-type) very well travelled person because I had not been to as many places as he, by a long shot, and therefore had invalid opinions on x topics. This was after my stating not having been to Antarctica but knowing nonetheless it had penguins.
Perhaps worldliness is more a state of mind than any location-specific and possibly superficially experiential attainments.
I remember disdain from a (somewhat-ugly-American-type) very well travelled person because I had not been to as many places as he, by a long shot, and therefore had invalid opinions on x topics. This was after my stating not having been to Antarctica but knowing nonetheless it had penguins.
Perhaps worldliness is more a state of mind than any location-specific and possibly superficially experiential attainments.
1
"In recent weeks, the literary world has been at war over the idea of cultural appropriation — whether a writer has the right to tell stories about people unlike herself."
This is a ridiculous demand. That would mean that males may write only about males just like themselves. The first authors who came to my mind are Stephen King or Dan Brown, neither of these authors have any experience of the subject matter they write about. A male could never write about a female character because obviously she experiences her role in any culture quite differently from a male. Females would not be able to include a male within their novels either. Pearl Buckley Moss would not have been able to write. The list goes on and on. The final question would then be, can only scientists write about the scientific specific in which they specialize? Shall we restrict artists to cultural and social settings that they live in at the moment? Can an typical housewife write a book on cooking if she is not a professional chef? Or sewing or interior DIY decoration if she is not a profession tailor or a licensed Interior Decorator?
Alfred Uhry would not have be able to write 'Driving Miss Daisy' because of the different skin colors and genders involved. Cormac McCarthy wouldn't have been able to write The Road because no such event has occurred and he didn't personally experience it.
I've come to the conclusion that the term Cultural Appropriation is nothing more than a Troll Call seeking rancor.
This is a ridiculous demand. That would mean that males may write only about males just like themselves. The first authors who came to my mind are Stephen King or Dan Brown, neither of these authors have any experience of the subject matter they write about. A male could never write about a female character because obviously she experiences her role in any culture quite differently from a male. Females would not be able to include a male within their novels either. Pearl Buckley Moss would not have been able to write. The list goes on and on. The final question would then be, can only scientists write about the scientific specific in which they specialize? Shall we restrict artists to cultural and social settings that they live in at the moment? Can an typical housewife write a book on cooking if she is not a professional chef? Or sewing or interior DIY decoration if she is not a profession tailor or a licensed Interior Decorator?
Alfred Uhry would not have be able to write 'Driving Miss Daisy' because of the different skin colors and genders involved. Cormac McCarthy wouldn't have been able to write The Road because no such event has occurred and he didn't personally experience it.
I've come to the conclusion that the term Cultural Appropriation is nothing more than a Troll Call seeking rancor.
3
Ferrante writes for people who read books and are serious about literature and the power of great art to transport and enlighten. The widespread focus in present day academe on issues such as cultural appropriation lays bare the reality that for a large part of that community, the substance and quality of literature now takes a distinctly back seat role to questions of identity politics. The exposing journalist of Ms. Raja knows his audience - it is the present community of academics working tirelessly to undermine and devalue the essence and meaning of literature, and indeed, of many other art forms into which they have sunk their philistinistic teeth. When you have nothing serious to say about a work of art - out of some combination of ignorance and sloth - it is mighty convenient to have the cudgel of identity politics close to hand, as a cover for one's shameful emptiness otherwise there to see in the harsh light of day.
8
Cultural appropriation? Ms. Ferrante has written works of fiction. If readers chose to believe that her books are based on facts, that is their decision. I enjoyed the quartet but was not obsessed with her "identity" as an author nor with the "reality" of her tales of Naples. I would think that only Neapolitans of certain age would be the ones to question whether Ms. Ferrante's narrative was "true" or not.
3
Was Beethoven's deafness relevant to understanding Op. 111 and other later works?
Did George Eliot's prompt unmasking as Mary Anne Evans undermine her work's greatness? Her future productivity or prosperity?
Is anonymity any more an artist's right than a football player's?
I, a man no less, enjoyed Ferrante's novels and now, knowing more about their author, I may reread them, or at least one or two, to detect glimmers of Raja's life in her characters. Bad? Good? Bits of both, knowing authorial data?
Did Hemingway's exhibitionism render his works more or less powerful and moving?
No easy answers here, so please less chest beating about Gatti's rights and, especially, Raja's. If she truly wished to hide her identity, perhaps fewer high-Euro purchases might have helped preserve cover. In any case, the inevitable has come to pass, we know an author's identity despite her professed desire to conceal it, and the world goes on. Hear that Ludwig?
Did George Eliot's prompt unmasking as Mary Anne Evans undermine her work's greatness? Her future productivity or prosperity?
Is anonymity any more an artist's right than a football player's?
I, a man no less, enjoyed Ferrante's novels and now, knowing more about their author, I may reread them, or at least one or two, to detect glimmers of Raja's life in her characters. Bad? Good? Bits of both, knowing authorial data?
Did Hemingway's exhibitionism render his works more or less powerful and moving?
No easy answers here, so please less chest beating about Gatti's rights and, especially, Raja's. If she truly wished to hide her identity, perhaps fewer high-Euro purchases might have helped preserve cover. In any case, the inevitable has come to pass, we know an author's identity despite her professed desire to conceal it, and the world goes on. Hear that Ludwig?
1
Literature is a world on its own. As long as there are readers willingly to embrace these worlds it does not matter who writes them. Appropriation is a limited word for creation. As long as the creation allows you to reflect on the themes, the characters and the spaces it reveals, is a great piece of literature. That it can be criticized, of course! That is why literary criticism exists, but that does not mean is a bad piece of literature. Look at Alejo Carpentier, Vargas Llosa and many others. They talked about experiences not of their own, and still the creations are widely read today. Great literary pieces with plenty to say and criticize yet.
4
Cultural appropriation is, hopefully, the final piece of lunacy we will see before the world finally turns on PC progressive ideas. All novels are flights of fancy and imagination, and readers appreciate the imagination, often based on research, but not necessarily direct experience, of the author. Even in this current case, many readers are angry because their imagination about an anonymous author did not turn out to be true. Were they guilty of some bizarre form of appropriation? Going forward, if violation of cultural appropriation were to become a "crime," just imagine all of the beloved novels that would be banned. By the way, lest anyone forget, book banning was a key part of the Nazi strategy. I would suggest the Times and any contributors bury the concept of cultural appropriation immediately and forever.
16
"cultural appropriation"? Therefore, many cultures around the world should not be utilizing cars, phones, airplanes, computers, printing presses, film, copying machines, Chinese food, Mexican food, Italian food, etc. This would be a much poorer world if "cultural appropriation" mean that only someone who had invented or created a process had restricted its use to only the politically correct.
14
There actually are Arabs who wince at the Arab world's wholesale utilization of Western engineering and science because they once led such fields before entering their medieval night under the Sunni Wahabbis.
The French resistance to American pop culture has to be admired in this light.
The French resistance to American pop culture has to be admired in this light.
No trousers for you, ladies.
2
If you believe that a teenage girl can both design shoes that sell well and learn Latin (including Latin grammar) on her own, plus many other things, then these books are for you. Otherwise don't bother. (I read the first two, then gave up.)
3
Walking a mile in someone else's shoes is, first and foremost, footwear appropriation, and nothing good can come of it. Petty theft is only petty when it happens to other people. "Thinking outside of the box" is simply an invitation to having inappropriate thoughts. We should stick to "Good fences (and walls) make good neighbors."
I may not know what this world is coming to, but at least I know it's none of my business.
I may not know what this world is coming to, but at least I know it's none of my business.
4
Thanks for a great column, Adam Kirsch!
2
Two issues:
"the idea that nothing human is alien to any of us, that we all have the power to imagine our way into one another’s lives."
(See Lionel Shriver's Times op-ed on cultural appropriation).
Gotti's sleuthing apparently revealed Raja/Ferrante's spending. To be truly anonymous, the proceeds from those wonderful, successful books would have had to remain hidden. (But then there's the New Yorker piece by Alexandra Schwartz casting doubt on Gatti's revelations.)
"the idea that nothing human is alien to any of us, that we all have the power to imagine our way into one another’s lives."
(See Lionel Shriver's Times op-ed on cultural appropriation).
Gotti's sleuthing apparently revealed Raja/Ferrante's spending. To be truly anonymous, the proceeds from those wonderful, successful books would have had to remain hidden. (But then there's the New Yorker piece by Alexandra Schwartz casting doubt on Gatti's revelations.)
Appropriation was a fine word until the liberals got hold of it and tried to make it part of their fake political-correctness fascism.
2
Does a writer have the right to write about experiences and cultures not her own? Of course not. We are all to be kept prisoners of our own little lives and must never ever dare to think outside the box within which we are put. Because the human imagination must always be controlled and denied. Because otherwise, some self righteous individuals who feel they should have sole possession of whatever if it is you imagine might get upset.
Or alternatively, we can start getting upset with those who insist on telling us what to do and what to think. That we can stand up not only for human creativity and imagination, but also for the idea that people are more than their personal experiences, gender, or the color of their skin. That sometimes the point of view of an outsider can tell us more about our experiences and our lives than can we ourselves.
Risky thing, imagining yourself in another person's skin and writing about it for all to read. Even more so should that individual be so different than yourself. And sometimes it can come across as forced or condescending. But then again, sometimes it is transcendent, taking the reader to places and situation never conceived. Not all literature is great, but when it speaks to you it can be a life changing experience. To insist that we all must stay within the closed little boxes of our own experience and class is one of the most unduly restrictive, even fascistic things I can imagine.
Or alternatively, we can start getting upset with those who insist on telling us what to do and what to think. That we can stand up not only for human creativity and imagination, but also for the idea that people are more than their personal experiences, gender, or the color of their skin. That sometimes the point of view of an outsider can tell us more about our experiences and our lives than can we ourselves.
Risky thing, imagining yourself in another person's skin and writing about it for all to read. Even more so should that individual be so different than yourself. And sometimes it can come across as forced or condescending. But then again, sometimes it is transcendent, taking the reader to places and situation never conceived. Not all literature is great, but when it speaks to you it can be a life changing experience. To insist that we all must stay within the closed little boxes of our own experience and class is one of the most unduly restrictive, even fascistic things I can imagine.
57
It must be the silliest controversy imaginable to spend time on such a spurious concept as cultural appropriation. If pushed to its extreme, it would reduce literature to a series of personal memoirs. Homer couldn't write the Iliad, Dumas couldn't give us The Count of Montecristo, Flaubert wouldn't have given us Emma Bovary, and so on. Moreover, all writing is based on the awareness of human reality, psychologically or physical. The writer explores it, he/she does not appropriate it.
149
It's entirely natural to enjoy a book and think about the author and what an interesting person he or she might be. The desire to find out some of the background of the writing of the book is not a crime. Ferrante/Raja would have known the privacy would only last so long. She can still tap into the collective intelligence if she wants to. And she can still write about whatever she is capable of writing about. The tenuous connection made here to Shriver is silly. Shriver is an opportunist. Ferrante/Raja played her own little game, but at least she did not wear a sombrero while doing it.
14
Symbolic communication is meant to seek and express understanding. The accusation of cultural appropriation misses this and defends against that possibility of human connection. One has to wonder if it unwittingly protects an identity not only based on too concrete and small minded categories, but also built on opposing others. Our imaginal capacity overcomes those categories but it is scary to allow oneself to be understood. This goes for everyone, gender, race, class. It's an all too human fear that we share.
27
I found it luminous and compelling that a prominent writer could keep her identity secret in these days when privacy seems impossible and exposure is everywhere. It was old-fashioned, a healthy antidote to the narcissism of a certain presidential candidate. It gave me hope that a private niche still existed beyond celebrity, that a person could still sell their work without having to sell their very self or soul, that work could stand alone on its merits. I suppose this was too tantalizing a secret to last for long: but I loved it while it did last.
89
That reproduction of a Mondrian painting that rareynolds uses could be improved removing the black line in its perimeter.
Of course writers should have licence to imagine the lives of people unlike themselves. This is the essence of writing! But with this power comes responsibility. Authors writing about cultures other than their own need to be mindful that they are not perpetuating stereotypes when doing so. There is a fine line between admiration and appropriation.
25
"Cultural appropriation" causes empathy among those who are different. It knits the world together. It is inevitable, unstoppable, and a positive force for change. No accountant sits around writing in a ledger citations and attributions of who has borrowed from whom--culture isn't owned. Arguing against this dynamic process is arguing against imagination, and the empathy that follows.
44
This revelation makes me love and appreciate the works even more. What a great mind one must have to create a whole new world apart from oneself and yet so intimately universal. Brava Ms. Raja! Please keep intriguing us with the gift of your writing.
22
Time for English majors trying to seem politically relevant to start re-assessing Ferrante’s work through the blurry lens of “cultural appropriation.” Pontificating on the social ramifications of literature is so much funner than reading boring “stories.” By the way, leave Lionel Shriver out of this. Haven’t you heard? Kaitlyn Greenlidge (in a recent NYT op-ed) forgave Shriver for not being “queer, colored, poor or stateless” (where the future of the publishing industry lies). Lionel only gave that nasty Brisbane speech mocking “cultural appropriation” because receding white hegemony was cutting into her book sales. In the coming millennialist utopia Lionel will still be allowed to write. Thank you, Kaitlyn, on behalf of readers everywhere.
5
Like many others, I was disappointed, even angry, that someone felt he had the right to deny the author calling herself Elena Ferrante her strong preference for anonymity. It was none of his business, and it is none of ours. The writing speaks for itself without needing to rely on biographical information about the author.
34
Is there a meaningful distinction between cultural appropriation and imagination? What an artistically impoverished world the censors would have us inhabit.
57
A snooping journalist has perhaps identified an author whose works are loved by many. There has been no confirmation from any of the people concerned, and I for one prefer the mystery. Ms. Ferrante once spoke of a "collective intelligence" in her novels and it is easy to imagine more than one hand in their creation. There are even several Italian male writers who might have participated, including her own husband.
One thing I noted, reading them in the original Italian, is that there is very little use of the local dialect, even though the books are full of details about Naples neighborhoods, people, crime families and traditions. This points to a possible collaboration with someone who does know that world intimately.
I can see some stylistic similarities with the work of the author/journalist Roberto Saviano.
However, the point is that I really don't want to know Ms. Ferrante's identity. Her books stand alone and that is good enough. She deserves to continue creating in peace.
One thing I noted, reading them in the original Italian, is that there is very little use of the local dialect, even though the books are full of details about Naples neighborhoods, people, crime families and traditions. This points to a possible collaboration with someone who does know that world intimately.
I can see some stylistic similarities with the work of the author/journalist Roberto Saviano.
However, the point is that I really don't want to know Ms. Ferrante's identity. Her books stand alone and that is good enough. She deserves to continue creating in peace.
35
Who would dismiss Rousseau's jungle because it was his fantasy and not his heritage? A writer should be able, without charges of wrongdoing, to tell the story of any person or people and should not be limited to stories of self or family, or be forced to remain in literary territory circumscribed by country, race, religion, or culture. We want a writer's perspective when we read: tales which result from more or less sensitive listening and more or less keen vision of worlds internal and external. And maybe we want affirmation or criticism of a world we share, maybe an examination of our unknowns, maybe a nuanced life experience we were unable to feel fully until we found it expressed.
Is my saga of an ancient Jew --whose mind and heart I've studied in scripture and histories-- unworthy because I live now and practice hinduism? We can disagree about the strength of my story or the tones of my voice but you cannot prohibit my exploration of any literary territory whether I do it from my sickbed, my hometown, or my hiking boots. Granted, my story may feel to you to be unauthoritative or derivative or it may seem to you a poorly wrought corner of the world. But what I use to invent my story is: nature as I witness it, community norms as I perceive them, and personalities and spirits as I apprehend them. These compose my understanding, which turns into story ingredients for mixing together, to share. Criticize all you want, but please don't object to the telling :-)
Is my saga of an ancient Jew --whose mind and heart I've studied in scripture and histories-- unworthy because I live now and practice hinduism? We can disagree about the strength of my story or the tones of my voice but you cannot prohibit my exploration of any literary territory whether I do it from my sickbed, my hometown, or my hiking boots. Granted, my story may feel to you to be unauthoritative or derivative or it may seem to you a poorly wrought corner of the world. But what I use to invent my story is: nature as I witness it, community norms as I perceive them, and personalities and spirits as I apprehend them. These compose my understanding, which turns into story ingredients for mixing together, to share. Criticize all you want, but please don't object to the telling :-)
45
Of all the ways that people strive to become victims the most infuriating are claims of cultural appropriation.
If I write a book am I only allowed to write about an aging white guy who's losing his hair and has lower back pain?
The book "Schindler's Ark," on which the film "Schindler's List" was based, a powerful story of the Holocaust, was written by Thomas Keneally, an Australian who studied to be a priest. He's not Jewish, not Polish, not a Nazi and not a German industrialist.
People can write whatever they want without having to suffer the bleats of the censoring mob. If the writing is good it will resonate. If it isn't it, and the author, will soon disappear. That's all that matters.
If I write a book am I only allowed to write about an aging white guy who's losing his hair and has lower back pain?
The book "Schindler's Ark," on which the film "Schindler's List" was based, a powerful story of the Holocaust, was written by Thomas Keneally, an Australian who studied to be a priest. He's not Jewish, not Polish, not a Nazi and not a German industrialist.
People can write whatever they want without having to suffer the bleats of the censoring mob. If the writing is good it will resonate. If it isn't it, and the author, will soon disappear. That's all that matters.
287
Writers are, and have always been, free to imagine the lives of others. Good writers will do it well; bad writers won't. But no writer is exempt from criticism, and I find ridiculous the idea that any writer is being "censored" simply because it is pointed out that a character is poorly written because of the writer's own biases, blind spots, or insufficient research.
Writers have the right to write what they want, and the public has the right to find fault with it. Arguments will ensue, as they do in a healthy open society. I don't see Lionel Shriver having any difficulty actually publishing her work, and I doubt that Ms. Raja will see any jail time for writing about characters outside her personal life experience. The problem isn't censorship, but some writers' apparently thin skin.
Writers have the right to write what they want, and the public has the right to find fault with it. Arguments will ensue, as they do in a healthy open society. I don't see Lionel Shriver having any difficulty actually publishing her work, and I doubt that Ms. Raja will see any jail time for writing about characters outside her personal life experience. The problem isn't censorship, but some writers' apparently thin skin.
14
Schindler's List was inspired by the stories of the people he saved. They sought out Kenneally to tell their story. He did not spontaneously come up with it. You still have to have a touchstone -- in this case the real people who lived the event.
6
Exactly. It's either a joy to read or it goes back to the library asap.
Nor is the issue of appropriation only a literary problem. I suspect that condemnations of "appropriation" will eventually mean that only historians of a particular background will be deemed fit to write about the culture from which he or she comes. For instance, white historians will be pronounced unfit to write about African-American history. Straight historians no longer teach about the history of homosexuality (the field is now reserved for gay historians). Male historians will be prohibited to teach courses in Women's History. Indeed, I'll bet that the percentage of male historians teaching Women's History at American colleges today does not exceed 3%. Some of that is because of self-selection (on both sides), but not all. It's an extension of our embrace of identity politics.
62
So white people shouldn't rap (actually, that may not be a bad idea) or sing soul music? Using that logic, interracial dating/marriage should be banned. I was always under the impression it was called imagination for a reason.
But what is the percentage of female instructors teaching courses in Men's History, a.k.a. History?
It has already happened--see accounts of disruptions on various college campuses in the last few months.
2
Kirsch says: "This is the paradox of literature, which is also the glory of humanism: the idea that nothing human is alien to any of us, that we all have the power to imagine our way into one another’s lives."
Empathetic imagination: it's also what might---just might, if we can raise enough young people as imaginatively and critically empathetic readers---help create a better world.
But that requires the enlightened teaching of literature in schools, from kindergarten through university. (Insert here a rant against current vocational-technical-STEM-jobs-based "education" policies that cut humanities and arts funding, assuming that only what can be measured and priced has any value.)
Empathetic imagination: it's also what might---just might, if we can raise enough young people as imaginatively and critically empathetic readers---help create a better world.
But that requires the enlightened teaching of literature in schools, from kindergarten through university. (Insert here a rant against current vocational-technical-STEM-jobs-based "education" policies that cut humanities and arts funding, assuming that only what can be measured and priced has any value.)
36
There seems to be a bizarre movement afoot to redefine the word "appropriate" away from its true meaning. The mere act of writing about someone different from yourself, or trying to understand the world from their perspective, does not mean you are trying to appropriate their very essence as your own identity. Bravo to writers and artists everywhere who try to see the world through another's eyes. Do not let the critics confine you to their rigid little boxes.
101
Early in my writing life, I wrote a first-person short story from the perspective of a man. It caused enormous confusion!
But why not? I am not, was not, him. I am not any of my characters.
That's the fun of it.
But why not? I am not, was not, him. I am not any of my characters.
That's the fun of it.
28
The literary issue of appropriation does not seem essential in this case. Every creative artist picks from the others' lives, either small bits or gross pieces, depending from the reality's circumstances.
The real problem seemingly might be the literary ownership of the final novels' output.
In Italy, as I recall, we have already had a case of a couple of authors for a series of novels, crime stories. That was in the sixties and the stories were located in Torino, Piemonte.
With the Ferrante's case, maybe the anonimity might be useful because there was difficulty in a couple either to decide for the exclusive ownership or to go for naming the couple on the cover. Surely their literary chemistry has made wonders.
This hypothesis looks seemingly real to me if you know the great talent of the recognized Neapolitan novelist, the husband and the multiple, cultural riches of the translator, who is his wife.
So, finally, maybe the impossibility to clearly identify the one who could be considered the author of the novels has yielded the birth of an outstanding literary master, Elena Ferrante.
Whatever be the reasons, they are fully entitled to remain behind the anonimity
The real problem seemingly might be the literary ownership of the final novels' output.
In Italy, as I recall, we have already had a case of a couple of authors for a series of novels, crime stories. That was in the sixties and the stories were located in Torino, Piemonte.
With the Ferrante's case, maybe the anonimity might be useful because there was difficulty in a couple either to decide for the exclusive ownership or to go for naming the couple on the cover. Surely their literary chemistry has made wonders.
This hypothesis looks seemingly real to me if you know the great talent of the recognized Neapolitan novelist, the husband and the multiple, cultural riches of the translator, who is his wife.
So, finally, maybe the impossibility to clearly identify the one who could be considered the author of the novels has yielded the birth of an outstanding literary master, Elena Ferrante.
Whatever be the reasons, they are fully entitled to remain behind the anonimity
10
I haven't read anything by Ferrante: there are too many Italian writers I know I like--Luigi Meneghello, Primo Levi, Nuto Revelli, Natalia Ginzburg, Giuseppe Berto, Beppe Fenoglio, and Mario Rigoni Stern, to name a few--for me to bother with a writer whose books, at least in their American editions, seem marketed exclusively to women (look at the covers; yes, I'm quite willing to judge a book by its cover. Why do you ask?).
I also tend to disagree with or dislike Kirsch's commentary on matters literary. But he's right here. The anger and dismay Ferrante's English-language readers have expressed at her unmasking are baffling. It's as if they thought they were owed an anonymous writer. I'll go even further and say that I think my skepticism of Ferrante's books and the whole overblown Ferrante phenomenon is retroactively vindicated by this collective temper tantrum thrown by her English-language readers and admirers, who have shown themselves to be entirely lacking in discernment.
I also tend to disagree with or dislike Kirsch's commentary on matters literary. But he's right here. The anger and dismay Ferrante's English-language readers have expressed at her unmasking are baffling. It's as if they thought they were owed an anonymous writer. I'll go even further and say that I think my skepticism of Ferrante's books and the whole overblown Ferrante phenomenon is retroactively vindicated by this collective temper tantrum thrown by her English-language readers and admirers, who have shown themselves to be entirely lacking in discernment.
7
You should try the first book. Not being an expert on the lives of women in whatever environment, I found the portraits of the post WWII Neapolitan men to be quite believable.
The ups and downs along the way between Lina and Elena are engrossing, and the failure of them to retain their closeness as they mature over the four books is a powerful theme.
The ups and downs along the way between Lina and Elena are engrossing, and the failure of them to retain their closeness as they mature over the four books is a powerful theme.
"The anger and dismay.... are baffling": perhaps because they realized that these were just novels, i.e. made-up stories, not for real. (I read the Italian version of the first two books, and then gave up; it was a waste of time and money).
1
Of course, Ferrante hid her identity - and apparently fabricated her autobiography - because she knew readers wouldn't accept her "appropriation" of poor Neapolitan women's lives.
Is this different from JT LeRoy?
Now perhaps we can judge her books for themselves without the implied biographical backstory.
And wonder about ourselves as readers.
Is this different from JT LeRoy?
Now perhaps we can judge her books for themselves without the implied biographical backstory.
And wonder about ourselves as readers.
6
I do not welcome these revelations about Ferrante. As a devotee of her brilliant quadrilogy, I was happy for the author, whoever she was, to exist in MY imagination.
The insidiousness of modern technology has spawned a brave new world of appropriation, where individual privacy, even where expressly requested, is quashed in the name of money or fame to be gained by exposure, which is then instantaneously revealed.
The fact that a man 'outed' Ferrante also rankles. I doubt Gatti has even read her books. If he had, he may have stepped back in awe and allowed Ferrante to continue practicing her art under the radar.
The insidiousness of modern technology has spawned a brave new world of appropriation, where individual privacy, even where expressly requested, is quashed in the name of money or fame to be gained by exposure, which is then instantaneously revealed.
The fact that a man 'outed' Ferrante also rankles. I doubt Gatti has even read her books. If he had, he may have stepped back in awe and allowed Ferrante to continue practicing her art under the radar.
35
Her anonymity, even if initially chosen for honest reasons, had become an integral part of a nearly global marketing phenomenon. She wasn't working under the radar.
7
The criticism of Shriver's address wasn't that a writer of fiction should or should not imagine the lives of others unlike the writer. The criticism was that she seemed to imply that it didn't matter at all how that was done as long as it suited the writer's devices. Characters in books, just as in real life, need to be treated with dignity and respect rather than used to your advantage.
16
@Joann Bren - Did Shriver really write that? Please give us a few lines in quotation. I am on Bus4You crossing Sweden so it is a little bit difficult to re-read Shriver just now.
You jump from Shriver to your position concerning treating with dignity. Are you implying that Ferrante does not treat the characters with dignity? If so please explain.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
You jump from Shriver to your position concerning treating with dignity. Are you implying that Ferrante does not treat the characters with dignity? If so please explain.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
4
@Joann: actually...no they do not have to be treated with respect or dignity. Shriver was writing what was obviously a humorous parody of extreme conditions in a future USA -- and written during an election cycle -- by your standards, nobody could write humor or parody anymore, lest someone, somewhere, take offense at "not being treated with dignity and respect".
OF COURSE writers use characters to their "advantage" -- writers want to be published, and expect to be paid if they ARE published.
OF COURSE writers use characters to their "advantage" -- writers want to be published, and expect to be paid if they ARE published.
6
I'm referring to the talk she gave at the writers festival in Brisbane and the reaction to it that was the beginning of this controversy. You can find both on line (sorry I don't have links but the address was the keynote this year and the criticism articulated by Yassmin Abdel-Magied.)
Mr. Kirsch writes: "Claudio Gatti wrote that Elena Ferrante — the pen name for an Italian novelist whose true identity was a closely guarded secret — is actually a Rome-based translator named Anita Raja." I don't know if Mr. Gatti really put it that way, but if he did, he was either falling in line with a particularly North American way of viewing the matter or was being unusually obtuse for a European discussing literature (or both). Because the revelation, if his conclusion is correct, is that Anita Raja, who has translated a certain number of books, is actually a novelist.
Many prominent European authors have translated fiction or poetry or both, a service much appreciated by their compatriots. They have not been regarded as translators who also wrote -- not even those who published translations first. In the US it is a rarity for any writer who publishes translations before establishing a solid reputation as an author ever to receive respectful treatment in the latter role (Lydia Davis is the only example that comes to mind). The typecasting reflects ignorance both of the creative talent required of good literary translators and of the variety of paths that literary careers can take.
Many prominent European authors have translated fiction or poetry or both, a service much appreciated by their compatriots. They have not been regarded as translators who also wrote -- not even those who published translations first. In the US it is a rarity for any writer who publishes translations before establishing a solid reputation as an author ever to receive respectful treatment in the latter role (Lydia Davis is the only example that comes to mind). The typecasting reflects ignorance both of the creative talent required of good literary translators and of the variety of paths that literary careers can take.
19
Long live the imagined lives given us by the Elena Ferrante each of us imagined as we saw fit. Let Elena Ferrante say to the world as my Vermont license plate proclaims, "IMWHOIM".
Let "hen" (Swedish for he/she whatever) become the flag we wave before those who shout, "Do not imagine what you yourself in your own limited life and with your own constraining genome have not lived."
I read Ferrante One and Ferrante Two and marvel on every page at the imagination at work. Should it be true that the author or authors have not lived the lives presented, so be it.
Long live Bartok's appropriation of 1000 folk melodies, long live Bird's appropriation of Gershwin's I Got Rhythm chord progression, long live those who transform, exchange,interchange, evolve.
Or as we sang in the 1940s, "Don't Fence Me In".
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen-US SE
Let "hen" (Swedish for he/she whatever) become the flag we wave before those who shout, "Do not imagine what you yourself in your own limited life and with your own constraining genome have not lived."
I read Ferrante One and Ferrante Two and marvel on every page at the imagination at work. Should it be true that the author or authors have not lived the lives presented, so be it.
Long live Bartok's appropriation of 1000 folk melodies, long live Bird's appropriation of Gershwin's I Got Rhythm chord progression, long live those who transform, exchange,interchange, evolve.
Or as we sang in the 1940s, "Don't Fence Me In".
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen-US SE
52
Actually, in this case it was not the public's curiosity that was relentless,it was a hound dog journalist. The public, according to most of what I've read seemed content to leave Ferrante alone.
There was something completely refreshing and, dare I say, liberating about not having to contend with the "who" behind the story.
The books stood alone, gloriously, and the specter of "appropriation" kept at bay. . . where it belongs.
There was something completely refreshing and, dare I say, liberating about not having to contend with the "who" behind the story.
The books stood alone, gloriously, and the specter of "appropriation" kept at bay. . . where it belongs.
32
I read the Neapolitan Novels last summer. I could not put them down, I immensely enjoyed them. However, I don't understand the public need to pry into the author's life. We are not so entitled. The "real" Elena Ferrante is steeped in her delicious prose. If the author wishes to remain anonymous, the author's wishes should be respected.
66
Mr. Gatti's behavior is no better than the paparazzi who attempt to invade the private lives of innocent individuals such as the children of the British royal family or the relatives of murder victims.
The NY Review of Books' choice to publish his snooping brings them down to the same level as The Sun when it published topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge, taken with a high powered telephoto lens, from 1 kilometer away, while she tried to enjoy a bit of sunshine on private property far from any public roads.
As far as "cultural appropriation", the whole notion rests on the assumption that we are vastly more different from each other than we are similar. In reality, we are 99% identical to other apes, from a genetic standpoint. In fact, we share 50% of our DNA with bananas.
Now I don't expect to read a book written by a banana any time soon. But if a skillful, imaginative and talented human (or other ape) author were to choose to write a book from the point of view of a banana, I just might read it.
The NY Review of Books' choice to publish his snooping brings them down to the same level as The Sun when it published topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge, taken with a high powered telephoto lens, from 1 kilometer away, while she tried to enjoy a bit of sunshine on private property far from any public roads.
As far as "cultural appropriation", the whole notion rests on the assumption that we are vastly more different from each other than we are similar. In reality, we are 99% identical to other apes, from a genetic standpoint. In fact, we share 50% of our DNA with bananas.
Now I don't expect to read a book written by a banana any time soon. But if a skillful, imaginative and talented human (or other ape) author were to choose to write a book from the point of view of a banana, I just might read it.
49
If anyone dare step into the treacherous waters of appropriating a banana, I nominate Tom Robbins!
1
Whether or not exposing Ferrante is some crime against literature, it's strange that Kirsch ignores Ferrante's own justification of her anonymity in her great Paris Review interview as a tribute to the "collective intelligence" behind her work. And it's pretty sneaky (at best) to turn this into a defense of Shriver and cultural appropriation in the name of humanism. I thought that Kaitlyn Greenidge put it well: we can write for others when we do it well, and Shriver is being criticized for doing it poorly. This seems like one of those times when "humanism" becomes a defense of ignoring differences: if appropriation is humanistic, it becomes impossible to do it poorly ... and Shriver is automatically on Ferrante's level.
41
Shriver was not accused simply of writing a bad or uninteresting novel. She was clearly and specifically targeted for CULTURAL APPROPRIATION (and by a Sudanese-Australian blogger in Brisbane, oddly, who was infuriated by an American writing about America).
There is a difference between saying you like or hate a book, and saying the author had no right to write the book at all.
There is a difference between saying you like or hate a book, and saying the author had no right to write the book at all.
6
Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems that Shriver and others are being criticized not merely for doing a poor job of impersonation but, rather, for daring to engage at all in the appropriation of identities other than their own. If the only issue were one of quality, there would be no debate; the quantity of poor writing dwarfs the quantity of quality, and that difference is hardly anything anyone but a hopeless idealist could object to.
2
An author is best appreciated by the quality of their work.
The popularity of Elena Ferrante's novels novels is perplexing; the female characters are wonderfully complex, the male characters are one dimensional and the overall writing is just average.
Ms. Ferrante has gained much by hiding her true identity, the quality of the Neapolitan novels do not live up to the hype.
The popularity of Elena Ferrante's novels novels is perplexing; the female characters are wonderfully complex, the male characters are one dimensional and the overall writing is just average.
Ms. Ferrante has gained much by hiding her true identity, the quality of the Neapolitan novels do not live up to the hype.
1
Let us hope that this is another nail in the coffin of the scurrilous doctrine that '"appropriation" is evil'. Here's to Korean pizza chefs and American yogini. "Fusion" is a much better frame than "appropriation". Fuse on!
22
I loved the Neapolitan Novels and I think it was always clear, that at some point, Miss Ferrante's identity would be revealed, whether this is now or in the future. I can't say I even care, I will not do research on her but just wait for her next novel to come out. There are only very rare cases, where the personality of an author makes me have a special approach to her or his work. Cormac McCarthy comes to mind and although his appearance is well known and he (rarely) does interviews, there is a kind of mysticism about him that to me is even more compelling than Ferrante. The Neapolitan Novels seem to be extremely well researched, I don't think anyone can argue with that. They never feel like a cliché of poor Naples. I find it odd that a couple of hundred years after Don Quixote came out, that discussion about cultural appropriation in fiction is so heated right now and I expect it to quiet down again. It certainly will not change.
Having said that, I will throw my Harry Potter books in the trash now because it turns out J.K. Rowling is actually not a male underaged wizard and never spent one day at Hogwarts! What a fraud! :-)
Having said that, I will throw my Harry Potter books in the trash now because it turns out J.K. Rowling is actually not a male underaged wizard and never spent one day at Hogwarts! What a fraud! :-)
171
This reminds me of when kurt Vonnegut famously appropriated the cultural heritage and identity of the tralfamadorians, using his patriarchal sense of cultural superiority and privilege to blame the destruction of the universe on a tralfamadorian test pilot.
Somehow, i dont see a lot of outrage in the poor neapolitan community over this, only upper middle class people. How strange...
Somehow, i dont see a lot of outrage in the poor neapolitan community over this, only upper middle class people. How strange...
37
i've always maintained that it is the work, not the person creating the work, that is important. which is why i often shun biographies, so often they seem simply a public's need to associate with the subject of the biography and hence with her or his faults or extraordinary faculties. it is like gossip, but gossip on the highest literary plain. take salinger, his extreme seclusion combined with a dire need for young woman. once you start the research, you'll find him to have been the creep you have suspected him to be, if behind the catcher. does that take away from the work? yes, i think it does. i'd rather not know of the peculiar circumstances enveloping his life, and yet, do to my own incessant need to know his work has taken a backseat to his life. whether it is fame and fortune or simply the need to know, or even accidentally read about the latest development in this writer's secret persona, whose work has been so beautifully received by so many, will, i hope, surpass all these novel incriminations.
1
I don't think that a Roman woman writing about a Neapolitan woman would really qualify as appropriation. Yes, there are some differences between Neapolitan and Roman culture, and there might be a class difference (though it's not entirely clear that there is), but it's not like she was writing about a Chinese man growing up in Chengdu or a Native American growing up in northeastern Arizona. Rather than being "a sterling example of the power of appropriation," Ms. Raja's situation actually seems to be a rather poor example of it.
32
No offense. Gert, but your comments shows real ignorance of Italy and the vast differences between the north and south. Contrary to what you write, there most certainly is a colossal class difference between Naples and Rome. There are great cultural ones too.
What Ferrante did (and most critics thought quite well) would be the equivalent of an educated, upper-middle-class American woman in Park Slope, Brooklym or the Upper West Side writing about poor whites in rural Alabama or Latinas in Corpus Christi, Texas. It would certainly be scrutinized as at best "deeply problematic" by many critics, readers and sites like Salon. It would also be much less likely to win awards or a vast readership.
Such is the literary world and academia in the 21st century.
What Ferrante did (and most critics thought quite well) would be the equivalent of an educated, upper-middle-class American woman in Park Slope, Brooklym or the Upper West Side writing about poor whites in rural Alabama or Latinas in Corpus Christi, Texas. It would certainly be scrutinized as at best "deeply problematic" by many critics, readers and sites like Salon. It would also be much less likely to win awards or a vast readership.
Such is the literary world and academia in the 21st century.
12
Your objection would carry more weight, Maria, if Raja, who is married to a man from Naples, had not actually been born in Naples to a Neapolitan father.
2
If you don't think that it qualifies as appropriation, then you are still retaining some common sense. However, by pointing out that she can't write about being Chinese (There goes The Good Earth), you are well on your way to being a True Believer.
1
"Be yourself," once said wit & wordsmith, Oscar Wilde,"everyone else is already taken." And if being oneself means the divine right to privacy for the creative imagination to flourish, then for God's sake, respect that. Turning authors into personalities to be scrutinized, either for gender or race or bank accounts or the right to tell a story, one's own or someone else's, et al...is an insult to the creative process. Get out of the writer's alchemy. It's hers. Enjoy the gold.Not the peephole. (btw, it is the all too similar entitlement to gobbling the "personality" that is giving us a self aggrandizing candidate, media supported.) Sigh. Deep deep sighs.
12
A Roman with a Neapolitan father is not appropriating a culture (from Naples) the way, for instance, a city girl pretending to be a Native American from a reservation is. I actually do think all culture is appropriated and there's not much to do about it, but this column is beyond trivial.
21
Bravo. Lionel Shriver has been vindicated.
10
I stopped after the third book in the series because the narcissism finally got to me. I can appreciate that Ms Raja, if she did create these little monsters, would not want to be mistaken for them.
2
Of course, ironically, the books' main characters are people who want nothing more than to be recognized for their writing, and that includes Lina. Surely Ferrante wanted her true identity to be discovered
3
Mr. Kirsch you missed the point about that important discussion regarding cultural appropriation. To try to connect the Elena Ferrante revelation to it really does a disservice to readers.
7
What's the point of outing any writer, but particularly one of fiction? It doesn't make sense to me. And this current rejection of so-called "appropriation" is bad news for readers. What difference does the origin of the writer matter? It's either a good book or not. The current debates reeks of political correctness run amok, infecting now even artistic processes where people should be free to explore and create. If you can only write you know, it would be a very very boring trip to the bookstore.
14
I never found Ferrante's work to be "powerfully authentic;" in fact, I sometimes wondered if the writer was a man, because some of the inner dialogue just didn't ring true. I also thought that the depiction of the neighborhood was intentionally distorted and exaggerated to create such an engaging and explosive feel.
Whether people who actually grew up in post war impoverished Italian neighborhoods feel that their voices have long been oppressed and undermined through racism and discrimination, and that Ms. Raja has continued that pattern through her storytelling, is not something I would presume to answer. But I do think the author here dramatically simplifies the questions of appropriation by reducing it to any imagining of another's life to fit in his desire to use Ferrante/Raja as a counterpoint.
Whether people who actually grew up in post war impoverished Italian neighborhoods feel that their voices have long been oppressed and undermined through racism and discrimination, and that Ms. Raja has continued that pattern through her storytelling, is not something I would presume to answer. But I do think the author here dramatically simplifies the questions of appropriation by reducing it to any imagining of another's life to fit in his desire to use Ferrante/Raja as a counterpoint.
8
@ Mew from Denver - Please tell us how long you have lived in the neighborhoods Ferrante's characters occupy, if you have learned to speak, understand, and write Italian at least as well as Jhumpa Lahiri, and how well you undestand the dialects they use as appropriate.
As one who speaks, understands, and reads Swedish reasonably well I would not for a moment presume to make observations such as you make about the work of any of the many Swedish authors whose work I read. And I have lived in Sweden for 21 years.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
r
As one who speaks, understands, and reads Swedish reasonably well I would not for a moment presume to make observations such as you make about the work of any of the many Swedish authors whose work I read. And I have lived in Sweden for 21 years.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
r
11
Larry, my very point is that I don't know what those neighborhood were like, nor, I am willing to bet, do the many people the author contends believe Ferrante's work is so authentic. How would they know if that's what a neighborhood was like? How would they feel entitled to judge the authentic-ness of her work? I surely don't. All I have is the language and story itself, which, as I said, struck me as exaggerated - and beautifully so.
In other words, the assumption that Ferrante's work was authentic strikes me as both strange - because that wasn't how it ever struck me - and problematic. It seems to highlight the concerns that CA critics are raising rather than undermining them. That there are people who would assume, with no knowledge, that Ferrante speaks authentically for an experience she does not have; and that the success of her books might crowd out the voices of people who actually are writing from their own experience and have their own stories to tell - that's part of the point. I have no idea if that is actually a concern of people who lived the experience she wrote about, but at a conceptual level, it's certainly possible.
Maybe this shows that CA criticism should be directed more to readers and publishers than writers, but I don't think blithely writing it off BC the author loves Ferrante's work is particularly valid.
Maybe this shows that CA criticism should be directed more to readers and publishers than writers, but I don't think blithely writing it off BC the author loves Ferrante's work is particularly valid.
Does anyone really think that J. K. Rowling can perform magic (other than literary magic)? Or that Agatha Christie was both a man and a woman (detectives of both genders)? A novel is not an autobiography! However, a best-selling novelist becomes a public figure, and it is not surprising that an investigative journalist would "out" her.
13
Most of us have grown weary of the Cultural Studies crowd scolding writers, particularly white writers, about what they are "allowed" or "not allowed" to write. I say this as a liberal to progressives: Please give it a rest and stop harping and dumping on everyone else's interests and artistic expressions. If you don't like an author, don't purchase her books. Otherwise, live and let live and stop being such a drag.
153
"Ms. Raja was claiming the right to imagine the lives of people quite unlike herself."
Wow. It's both scary and saddening to read 'revelations' like this one. Have we degenerated so far? Back to savagery?
Madame Bovary who's as authentic is it goes, was created by a man. So was Jeanne by Maupassant and Mrs. Bloom by Joyce, so were male and female characters by Virginia Wolf. Half of Shakespeare's plays take place in Italy, and scholars doubt that he ever set foot let along lived there.
I'm not at all surprised there are idiots suggesting that only an alcoholic can portrait alcoholics, a murderer - murderers, an Asian - Asians, and so forth, but I am surprised an saddened that we've been sold on that idiocy to a point where we find it worth of discourse, let alone one with a straight face.
Wow. It's both scary and saddening to read 'revelations' like this one. Have we degenerated so far? Back to savagery?
Madame Bovary who's as authentic is it goes, was created by a man. So was Jeanne by Maupassant and Mrs. Bloom by Joyce, so were male and female characters by Virginia Wolf. Half of Shakespeare's plays take place in Italy, and scholars doubt that he ever set foot let along lived there.
I'm not at all surprised there are idiots suggesting that only an alcoholic can portrait alcoholics, a murderer - murderers, an Asian - Asians, and so forth, but I am surprised an saddened that we've been sold on that idiocy to a point where we find it worth of discourse, let alone one with a straight face.
195
But her books are so bad and boring I think it proves the opposite. Her characters are so wooden and poorly written. I am now more than ever convinced that you have to have lived a life to inhabit it fully. Or have a good editor which Ms. Ferrante clearly did not have. Try reading those books, I dare you.
Will civilization survive hyperbole implied by question?
Emma Bovary is as authentic as it gets? Sure, writers need to work across boundaries, but this essay provides one (just one) strong argument about what happens when an underrepresented group typically gets written about by other people: http://jennycrusie.com/non-fiction/essays/romancing-reality-the-power-of...
You can find your friend Emma in paragraph 6.
You can find your friend Emma in paragraph 6.
It is neither paradox nor appropriation for artists to have the fierce interest, imagination and sympathy to put themselves in others' places. Indeed, the rest of us need to aspire to same.
15
Regarding Lionel Shriver, forget her self-serving speech in Brisbane and her equally self-serving op-ed piece in the Times. Read the original review by Ken Kalfus. Her novel wasn't attacked for cultural appropriation but for its mean, stupid, racist would-be satire. All good writers appropriate and make imaginative leaps, trying to make other people's experiences as real and human as possible. Many of us believe that Ferrante succeeded.
14
A critique of "cultural appropriation" is such a vacuous and fake topic we're surprised it ever moved beyond the coke-sniffing bathroom countertop at any literary conference.
But for Abel Meeropol we'd never have heard that "Southern trees bear a strange fruit."
End of this pseudo-discussion.
But for Abel Meeropol we'd never have heard that "Southern trees bear a strange fruit."
End of this pseudo-discussion.
22
I am still befuddled about cultural appropriation. How did this phrase come about?
What is the objection? Besides that, I feel terrible for Ms Raja and her millions of readers who were happy with Elena Ferrante. Pseudonyms in my opinion are an intriguing and often exciting part of literature which have a purpose and place. If Ms Raja's identity would be revealed 50 years after the fact, it would have added value but right now it feels she has been laid bare and robbed of her wealth.
What is the objection? Besides that, I feel terrible for Ms Raja and her millions of readers who were happy with Elena Ferrante. Pseudonyms in my opinion are an intriguing and often exciting part of literature which have a purpose and place. If Ms Raja's identity would be revealed 50 years after the fact, it would have added value but right now it feels she has been laid bare and robbed of her wealth.
6
It should come as a consolation to Ms. Raja to know that being a literary celebrity still means she'll be virtually unknown.
As for everyone else: trust the tale, not the teller.
As for everyone else: trust the tale, not the teller.
6
only a society obsessed with the cult of 'personality' can condemn a writer for his or her imagination. using pseudonyms is as old as the world itself. what a sad commentary about we have becomed.
12
It's fiction - it can be anything the author imagines. To limit one's imagination would be to abolish all that is "creative" in writing. So what if an author's words and imaginative writing hold up a mirror or touch nerves. I am all for it and work to do so in my own writing.
10
sure. i would value the written word of someone who has not experienced the subject. imagination is a magical thing. but i also value the written word of someone who has actually experienced the subject. probably the latter a little bit more.
i read the transcript of shriver's speech and it was very disappointing, in terms of furthering a complicated, nuanced topic that requires multiple perspectives and, perhaps, a certain thoughtfulness, and self-awareness, in considering them. she definitely wasn't aiming for any of that. wearing a sombrero, she bemoaned this apparently sickening PC culture in which a younger generation is trying to define what it means to be empathetic, respectful, insightful, and "woke." and i doubt any of the "critics" of her speech actually want to legislate that only a 55-year-old chinese man can write about a 55-year-old chinese men. suggesting that shows only that you aren't listening.
ms. shriver is doing fine; she has a healthy literary career, she stands at podiums and makes speeches, no one is censoring her. she got a bad review once. seems like she's on a crusade to disarm any other reviewer from using a CA critique on her but, you know, free speech. you have to take it even when you don't like it, ms. shriver. you can keep writing your books and people can critique them if they want, and we all just carry on, adding to the discourse.
i read the transcript of shriver's speech and it was very disappointing, in terms of furthering a complicated, nuanced topic that requires multiple perspectives and, perhaps, a certain thoughtfulness, and self-awareness, in considering them. she definitely wasn't aiming for any of that. wearing a sombrero, she bemoaned this apparently sickening PC culture in which a younger generation is trying to define what it means to be empathetic, respectful, insightful, and "woke." and i doubt any of the "critics" of her speech actually want to legislate that only a 55-year-old chinese man can write about a 55-year-old chinese men. suggesting that shows only that you aren't listening.
ms. shriver is doing fine; she has a healthy literary career, she stands at podiums and makes speeches, no one is censoring her. she got a bad review once. seems like she's on a crusade to disarm any other reviewer from using a CA critique on her but, you know, free speech. you have to take it even when you don't like it, ms. shriver. you can keep writing your books and people can critique them if they want, and we all just carry on, adding to the discourse.
9
Bravo.
Another thoughtful example might be Harriet Beecher Stowe
Another thoughtful example might be Harriet Beecher Stowe
7
The category is fiction... not biography or history. Stop spoiling our fun.
15
confused - -
aren't the works involved herein: "fiction"?
where is the 'new-line' being drawn?
among others:
what becomes of graphic novels?
of science fiction?
of Moby Dick?
of Gulliver's Travels?
of Shakespeare?
of Charles Dickens?
of Tolstoy?
of?
of?
hmmmmm
me thinks an ill gotten tempest in a teapot ...
********************
as to the "discovery" and "disclosure" of
a reclusive writer,
i must yield to those who have the knowledge
to make comments and judgments of same...
while it seems inevitable that such information will arrive,
the sleuthing required to dig-up income data
does strike one as out-of-bounds,
unless there are nefarious details
not yet revealed.
tisk tisk
3
The public announcement that Elena Ferrante is a nom de plume always seemed to me to make a revelation of the "real" identity inevitable and, in its own way, to distract from the novels themselves. Gatti's "triumph" ( if triumph it s) seems minor and unproductive. Surely readers who feel discomfited by the gap between the author's identity and the milieu and background and experience of her characters are naive at best and too literal-minded. PErhaps this a product of a memoir-drenched era. WIthout the fictive imagination we'd have no Sister Carrie, no Frodo, no Hazel the rabbit, no Charlotte or Wilbur, no Mrs. Moore, no Gretta Conroy. And we'd be poorer for it. a nonissue for me, other than as a mildly amusing bit of literary gossip.
7
Thank you for making the connection to Lionel Shriver. The point of being human is to imagine what life is beyond our own skin. The world would be a poor, inhuman and ungenerous place without that possibility. Among its benefits are compassion and wonder, We may not like the imagination on offer in any particular case, but to forbid its exercise is a betrayal of human possibilities.
16
What the rigidly anti-appropriation folks don't seem to realize is that they're advocating the killing of mockingbirds.
20
Even the NYT cannot resist and somehow, despite all the criticism, gild with attention the despicable action by the NYRB to publish Mr. Gatti's invasion of an author's right to be not known.
10
I have a question: if you are from Arkansas, can you write about someone from Kentucky? And yes, I do understand the many facets of this debate; nonetheless, it is ridiculous.
20
I may be dense despite a very good education, but I don't understand the appropriation argument. Taken to its logical conclusion it would mean that men and women could not write about characters of the opposite gender, that all characters would have the same sexual orientation, religion, nationality, and every other demographic indicator as their author. It would allow only non-fiction to be written. Is all fiction to be attacked and labelled inappropriate on this basis? It is fiction folks. It is about imagination. As Mr. Kirch says "nothing human is alien to any of us" and "we all have the power to imagine our way into one another's lives". If what is written is inauthentic, the reader will discern it as will the book reviews.
33
Yes, you've got it completely. THAT IS WHAT IT MEANS.
It's the death of literary imagination, thanks to lefty liberalism run amuck.
Look at that bigot Shakespeare -- how DARE he have appropriated the lives of people in Italy? kings and queens? Moors and Jews? WOMEN? how dare he? He was a cis gender man, from a small rural English village and he should have written ONLY about being those things. Everything else he wrote was "cultural appropriation", and therefore, we should not read his plays or poems, nor teach Shakespeare in public schools.
It's the death of literary imagination, thanks to lefty liberalism run amuck.
Look at that bigot Shakespeare -- how DARE he have appropriated the lives of people in Italy? kings and queens? Moors and Jews? WOMEN? how dare he? He was a cis gender man, from a small rural English village and he should have written ONLY about being those things. Everything else he wrote was "cultural appropriation", and therefore, we should not read his plays or poems, nor teach Shakespeare in public schools.
5
Pardon me though for thinking Shakespeare to have been a sex - not a gender, cis or otherwise.
1
why couldn't gatti just respect her need for privacy and leave her readers with an intriguing mystery to continually ponder? i'm disgusted and dismayed.
13
Journalist: Why did you want to climb Mount Everest, George?
Mallory: Because it's there.
Mallory: Because it's there.
Because our culture has an obsession with "outing people" -- doesn't matter if it is a gay person who wants their privacy, or a celebrity in hiding, an author who wants you to read their work without calling it "appropriation" -- or a politician whose completely legal taxes are not required by law to be made public.
We gloat and fist bump each other when we finally "expose" such people, and "get the goods" on them. Now they can be cut down to size, and perhaps sneered at. And we can feel superior to them.
Like I said, it's pretty sick.
We gloat and fist bump each other when we finally "expose" such people, and "get the goods" on them. Now they can be cut down to size, and perhaps sneered at. And we can feel superior to them.
Like I said, it's pretty sick.
7
Being 2/3 of the way through the beautiful and exciting Neapolitan novels, I am willing to go on believing that they are by Elena Ferrante. No other supposition will change them for me.
4
I tried to read "My Brilliant Friend." I couldn't finish it.It just wasn't worth my time.
Now I'm reading "Malafrena" by Ursula Le Guin, which was just re-published by the Library of America.
But I am reminded of my infatuation with B. Traven back in the 1980s.
No one every has definitely proved who Traven actually was.
He was probably a WWI German deserter and anarchist named Otto Wernicke who later changed his name to Ret Marut before moving to Mexico and becoming Hal Croves.
But it doesn't matter.
B. Traven's literary productions, the most famous of which was "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", were phenomenal.
Independent of who Traven actually was.
So Gatti's findings are pretty useless.
Now I'm reading "Malafrena" by Ursula Le Guin, which was just re-published by the Library of America.
But I am reminded of my infatuation with B. Traven back in the 1980s.
No one every has definitely proved who Traven actually was.
He was probably a WWI German deserter and anarchist named Otto Wernicke who later changed his name to Ret Marut before moving to Mexico and becoming Hal Croves.
But it doesn't matter.
B. Traven's literary productions, the most famous of which was "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", were phenomenal.
Independent of who Traven actually was.
So Gatti's findings are pretty useless.
3