Thursday 29 April 2010

Spare us

From the BBC Radio 4 Schedule for Friday:

'Book of the Week part 5: Michael Chabon confronts his feelings towards his daughter's emerging sexuality.'

Why must he do it in public? How will it make his daughter feel?

7 comments:

  1. I heard the same trailer having just listened to fifteen minutes of Chabon's navel gazing as to how fatherhood had impinged on his washing of his car (or was that what I was doing?) I made a mental note to avoid.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good point. Agonised and infuriuated, in answer to your question, I'd have thought!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Touch of the Myersons about this one. This idea that being a novelist justifies, nay, necessitates, screwing those who trust you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. i imagine his pubescent daughter, being confident and mature and stable as are all 12/13-year old girls, will relish the attention, all her classmates pointing at her and repeating bits of her father's latest PR stunt. Especially pleasing for her will the knowledge that, for the rest of her life, anyone who knows she's MC's daughter can, with a bit of research, have these valuable and intimate insights into her psyche. i dare say her life will be immeasurably enriched, bravo Michael Chabon.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gaw - I thought fatherhood was about persuading one of your children to wash the car instead of doing it yourself.
    Gadjo - I reckon you'd feel creeped out most of all.
    Brit - That Myerson thing was weird wasn't it: she looked as if she so longed to be as young as her own son and have someone saying that she was dreadfully transgressive - which I suppose was, in a warped way, the response she did get.
    Elberry - I have a brother so I don't need you to say silly provocative things to tease me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The irony in my comment seems to have been filtered out by the internet, as often happens. In truth i like the one Chabon book i read but despise publicity-seeking novelists and especially those who make the private public in order to build up their PR profile. i wasn't trying to wind you up, i was in fact so full of contempt for Chabon that i instinctively shifted to an ironic gear, as contempt pure is offputting, at least mine is.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Elberry - yes, that's what my brother always says too (and now I'm teasing you, in case that doesn't come through - as I was in my reply to your comment). And yes, I like Chabon's fiction as well. The trouble is there's probably a bigger market for the private made public than for fiction and, whatever murky things Chabon thinks or feels about his daughter, I imagine he still has to pay her school fees - so writing about them is probably as good a way as any of getting the money for that. Prurience rules?

    ReplyDelete