Former Arcatiste Susan Hill (famed novelist, publisher, playwright, opinionist spewer of words) now writes a blog for The Spectator, the magazine that's hosting an Aids-denialist movie screening on Oct 28 - and my thanks to the loyal, all-weather Arcastiste who brought the blog to my attention. I did say elsewhere that I would not bother to read it, but being a double Gemini I succumbed to curiosity and had a look. Oh dear.
Susan's latest post is a nattery onslaught on ghost written celebrity novels such as those by Katie Price (aka Jordan). In Mail-style fulminant mode she writes of these books: "To pretend to pen a novel, to appear and sign the book for long queues of people and never to acknowledge the ‘real’ author, is simple deceit and the many people who buy a novel believing that it really was written by Jordan or Katie Price, are being cynically manipulated."
I don't think so, dearie. If Susan did her homework, instead of wallowing in upper middleclass oblivion of lower-order cultural realities - a condition encouraged by the infantile, belle epoque mindset of the Spectator - she would know it's no secret that Katie is not the author of the novels that bear her name. As Katie herself said in a Mail interview - among others! - last year to push Angel Uncovered: "I'm not going to sit here and say I write it word by word because I'd be lying. I actually say how I want the story and that's how it happens." Her non-authorship is a truth universally acknowledged. Her books are brand-stamped productions and promoted as such.
I bet Susan a modest £50 - to be donated to an Aids charity - that she will not find one Katie Price fan chosen at random who imagines Katie has written any of her books. Susan would do better to get back to writing a properly earthed indie blog and not try to pander to the delusional and out-of-touch soaks of the Spectator readership.
On other matters, I've always been fascinated by spiders ...
18 comments:
soakist!
Susan - language, please.
Pure nastiness.
Is there some subliminal connection between Robert Smith's arachnophobic fantasy and Susan Hill? A blog shouldn't get too clever, Clover.
Rebecca Farnworth, I think that's her name, writes me books. Keep it up Madame
that is a man in drag isn't it ?..I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Yes darling. For the benefit of foreigners and readers of the Spectator, the man in drag is Miss Katie Price's current boyfriend Alex Reid who is otherwise a crossdresser: his alter ego is Roxanne as pictured. The use of this picture in conjunction with Susan Hill's name is light-hearted satire given the nature of the copy below.
Has Burchill's foot dropped off yet?
you've got a transvestite, a nude male and Julie Burchill all in the some frame. am I in heaven?
You're right. All entirely accidental I hasten to add.
Oh, I've not asked Julie about her foot but there was only a 5% chance it would drop off. I understand however that she is still bipedal.
Madame Arcati displays yet again "her" churlishness with this vicious little item. Throwing a tantrum because a true literary star dropped your blog when she realised it's a filthy porn site full of freaks?
You can't drop what you never pick up, ducky. I beleve Dignitas are offering a three for two btw.
I think one should always throw tantrums whenever possible
Madame, it may be that Robert Smith, in the Faithless video, looks not unlike Jordan in the picture above. Actually, he looks rather more interesting and attractive to me, and I believe he writes his own songs (he certainly sings them!)
Jordan has certainly said on the TV that she doesn't write the books that go out under her name. We must remember that Gordon Brown probably doesn't write his own speeches.
I'm somewhat disappointed (as a former newspaper columnist in the back of the beyond) that someone would not write their own work. But, I can only guess that Jordan's ghost gets a good pay-cheque, and Jordan gets to trot out her unreal body parts and fake tan and get the attention she craves at the booksellers (which doesn't involve her great thoughts). It's a business arrangement.
I'd like Virginia Woolf to ghost my writing! Is she still under copyright?
MA darling, have you ever wondered what attracts decent, well adjusted, church going citizens like anon to this "filthy porn site full of freaks"? Where do you suppose s/he hides her/his mega-dildo?
Oh Susan Hill, all that whinging sound so much like the xenophobic complaining about foreigners "taking away" jobs. I wonder if she realises her argument only means Mr./Ms good ghost writer is getting paid and selling a story that other wise would only sell, what did she say? 100 copies?
Won't it be sweet to get an interview with the author[s] and find out what they think of Susan Hill meddling in their business? Besides, I would love to find out about Katie exchanging her ideas with them.
When I was a little girl my friends and I would tell each other stories, go back and write them and then read them back to the group. Wow, that was fun: we laughed!... and they kept getting crazier and funnier. I wish I had kept them and could read them now.
Darling Dame Spirit, I soooo agree. However we must not look to the Spectator for any meaningful insight into contemporary matters.
Dear Ross, it's a perfect symbiosis, no one loses. Rebecca F, Jordan's ghost, clearly enjoys the shadowlands of literary puppetry: indeed if you read a Jordan novel, you may detect subtle digs at the cover author: Jordan, if she knows of this, is clever to tolerate it, while the sharper reader may relish noticing. Susan Hill, accomplished though she may be, cannot hope to rival Jordan's sales: one cannot ignore the consequential bitterness this fact may engender. Boo hoo.
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