The notion that Ferrante and her work are public property
Stig Abell at the TLS on why the TLS wouldn’t have named Elena Ferrante:
His piece bears all the hallmarks – the signs, the stretch marks – of his effortful need to explain away what on the surface might seem a needless intrusion into a fellow writer’s privacy. He wants us to be convinced of the notion that Ferrante and her work are public property: the books are a “sensational success”; despite her anonymity, she has become an “oddly public figure” (a description where “oddly” can reasonably be translated as “not a”); she wrote a book arrogantly “purporting in part to outline her family background”, offering “crumbs of information designed to satisfy her readers’ appetite for a personal story”; her identity will “assist us in gaining insight into her novels”; and so on.
She was asking for it; she was dressed like a slut; she’s a prude who needs loosening up; she should have stayed home; she loved it; she’s a bitch.
I am the editor of the Times Literary Supplement, one of very few titles that is analogous to the New York Review of Books. So it is reasonable to ask: if Gatti had come to the TLS, would we have published him?
The answer, I believe, is no. We would have been tempted, of course. A solution to a genuine literary conundrum does not arise often. It would make people talk about the TLSand bring them to our website. Of course it would.
But I write this surrounded by people who have devoted their lives to the world of books and authors, because they believe it is worthwhile and civilized. We would have discussed the piece, and I think we would have asked: what good does this do Elena Ferrante; what good does this do the TLS; what good does this do the world at large? The answer is, resoundingly, too little on all counts.
Or even more simply they could have discussed the piece and observed that Ferrante clearly does not want to be outed and allowed that to settle the matter.
I, too, would have been uneasy about the gender politics of all this. Ferrante has talked about “male power, whether violently or delicately imposed, still bent on subordinating us”, and – while I am sure this was neither the motivation of Gatti or the NYRB – there is the regrettable, sulphurous whiff of a female artist being “mansplained” here. We may never know all of the reasons for Ferrante’s desired anonymity, but it is dangerous to assume they are simple and straightforward.
I wonder how he’s sure this was the motivation of neither Gatti nor the NYRB. I’m certainly not sure of that – in fact I think it was Gatti’s motivation at least. (The NYRB can’t really have a motivation, being a periodical, not a person.) I think it was part of Gatti’s motivation and I think it’s way more than a whiff. A man deliberately brushing aside a woman’s long and often stated determination to remain anonymous? More than a whiff, and more than mansplaining, too. Stripping in public, at the very least.
Oh well, it’s only a woman.
I’m still appalled at the NYRB acting like a sodding British tabloid.
I’m actually very much unimpressed by this piece on the part of the TLS. The editor is making all the high-minded noises we’d expect, but it’s rather easy to take the moral high ground when one deals in counterfactuals. Note the conditional tense used—we would have discussed, we would have asked, and we would have refrained from publishing the letter, after sufficiently sober and careful deliberation. Bully for them that they didn’t have to—now they can publish the author’s name all they like, as well as the bin-rummaging arsehole’s, with a clear conscience because someone else did what they surely WOULD have refrained to do.
And the “I am sure this was neither the motivation” bit is just a bunch of arse-covering benefit-of-the-doubt bullshit, either in respect of the decorum of the literary establishment (as though there were such a thing, and as though it could be called decorous, especially after this affair), or out of simple fear of being attacked by small-minded sexists and bigots for evincing a whiff of dread feminism.
Excuse me while I ignore any recommendations either the TLS or the NYRB have for the indefinite future.
Seth: Did TLS give her real name, even now? I did a scan of this and another post-reveal article, and both stick to the pen-name (the other article mentioned some of the revealed background, but nothing so intimate that it would be an immediate identifier).
And the other piece I found also explicitly called out the sexism behind the action: http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/elena-ferrante-the-story-of-a-new-name/
I suppose I may have been too hasty. This is an instance where I’ve tried not to delve too deeply into the original story, both out of respect for the author’s anonymity and out of frustration, so I wasn’t sure if ‘Elsa Ferrante’ was the pseudonym or the author’s actual name. So that moderates my criticism somewhat. Still, though, I maintain that it’s too easy to claim the moral high ground only in hindsight, and the editor’s easy dismissal of the malefactors’ motivations wrankles even so.
Mind you, Seth, Stig Abell was until a couple months ago Managing Editor at the Murdoch trash tabloid The Sun, so it does indeed ring hypocritical for him to wax moralistic about all this when he’s only just suddenly landed a gig in these higher-brow digs. Maybe your initial reaction wasn’t entirely unfounded…
Oh come on, rival paper says they wouldn’t have run a story even if they had the scoop so, you know, it doesn’t matter that they were scooped, in fact they sort of won? Let’s not be naive.
Seth: I’ll concede that he may have been attempting a bit of self-aggrandizement–but note that he’s also laid down a precedent for the future conduct of TLS, whether he meant to or not. A similar ‘expose’ of someone who just wants to write and be left alone will be that much harder for them to justify approving in the future. I count that as a net good.
What’s in a false name anyway? But let’s stick with the alias Elena please, not Elsa?
Argh! Fixed.