Doing a Weldon

Lost in the rash of the past two weeks’ bad news was a juicy–or should I say glittery–tidbit from the often staid and gray world of publishing. British novelist Fay Weldon–the author of more than 20 books including The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, which starred Meryl Streep in the film version–came out with a new novel called The Bulgari Connection.

As controversial as the New Zealand-born Ms. Weldon has been for her views on rape, men, and feminism, what guaranteed her new book instant celebrity (or notoriety) was the fact that it had been specially commissioned by Bulgari, the jewelry company, who paid Weldon an undisclosed amount for the privilege of having "Bulgari" mentioned at least a dozen times in the novel. Weldon did more than that: she focused the whole book on Bulgari, dropping the name more than three dozen times in a tale of love, sex, and pricey baubles that Weldon’s agent, with understandable overstatement, likened to the oeuvre of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Predictably, a ton of opaque rocks descended on Weldon’s head when the news of her "literary prostitution" reached the press. Aside from "prostitution," words like "sellout," "compromise" and "crass commercialism" hounded the author.

That amuses the 69-year-old Weldon who, the Guardian reports, had some initial doubts: "When the approach came through I thought, oh no, dear me, I am a literary author. You can’t do this kind of thing; my name will be mud forever. But after a while I thought, I don’t care. Let it be mud. They never give me the Booker Prize anyway." (She’s no third-rate hack, having been nominated for the Booker–Britain’s top book award–in 1979.)

The novel had originally been meant to be a kind of party favor for private distribution by Bulgari, but HarperCollins has undertaken to produce a popular edition. "Just explain to me," Weldon asks, "why it is more contemptible to be paid by an Italian jewelry firm than by HarperCollins? It’s still money."

So what’s wrong with that? Plenty, if you go by the thinking of some poobahs–not likely working writers themselves–who insist on treating writing as some kind of holy ritual to be divorced from all monetary considerations (and these people, of course, never paid a priest to bless their boutiques or to offer Mass). Artists can make money painting society portraits, musicians can make money doing soap-bar jingles, James Bond can make money flashing an Ericsson, even athletes can make money wearing fastfood logos on their foreheads, but writers aren’t supposed to make money using certain proper nouns.

There should only be one test of Fay Weldon’s Bulgari novel, as shamelessly commercial as its premises may be: does it work? Does it read well? Do we mind or remember, in the end, that she got a bonus from a sponsor for saying "Bulgari" instead of, say, "Cartier"?

I myself was more than miffed a couple of years ago when a family biography I’d worked on for over two years failed to even make it to the shortlist of the National Book Awards. Now, I certainly don’t expect a prize for every book or story I write–Lord knows I’ve laid some nasty cow pies in that pasture we call literature–but writers who’ve been writing long enough develop what Hemingway called, pardon Ernest’s language, a "bullshit meter" to tell them if they’ve written something good or crappy. (If you don’t have this BSM and just listen to all the honeyed citations at awards ceremonies, you’ll soon be in trouble.) I thought that the biography I’d written wasn’t earthshaking or anything like that, and the book itself was on the thin side at just less than 200 pages; but on the other hand, it broke new ground, it told an important story, and it offered a satisfying read to those who took the trouble to leaf through its pages.

Frankly I wasn’t surprised that it didn’t win, considering the caliber of the competition; but I was dismayed to learn (only recently, as a matter of fact) that it wasn’t even considered for the shortlist allegedly because I had noted, on the back cover itself, that I had been commissioned by the family to write the book. In other words, I had been paid to write someone’s story.

I could’ve accepted a qualified critic’s opinion, if one had been expressed, that the book was badly researched and poorly written. But I thought it strange to have been disqualified–if indeed my book was–on account of my admission that it was a commissioned work. Somebody please tell me what’s wrong with being forthright about a fact that many other authors would rather sweep under the rug. (One critic-editor I know, a fairly successful fellow himself except for a sad deficiency in what every good writer and editor needs–accuracy, good taste, and what we usually call "a life" as in "Get a life!"–even had the nerve to screech at a public forum that "If I were commissioned to write a book, I’d never acknowledge it!")

Even the Olympics have gotten over the hypocrisy of sham amateurism, and to suggest that a work is any less good or any less honest because it had been paid for would leave literature and publishing to those with the privilege and leisure to dabble in them when they so please. Nobody but the hiring party winces if Nick Joaquin charges three to five million sweet yams for a book–and he’s my hero in this department–but then again, that’s Nick Joaquin.

As I’ve said before, I make a living off my writing, though several barangays away from Mr. Joaquin’s neighborhood, and I’m just thankful I can in these parlous times. I do make a clear distinction between the work I do for others and which might go under someone else’s byline–speeches and corporate reports, for example–and the work I do for myself, which goes under my name and which I will personally stand by. If I get paid for my byline (and all the effort that goes into producing the book), then that means that I have written that work as if it were my own–except that I could not or might not have done it on my own time.

But then of course, I know that other commissioned (albeit unacknowledged) works have won book awards, so perhaps the only other explanation is right, after all: the book just wasn’t good enough. If so, I can live with that and move on to my next project. After four National Book Awards and a share of a fifth, I’m sure I can survive my middle age without seeing another one.

It just worries me that I must be running really low these days on luck and talent–another book I edited, Under the Crescent Moon, written by the outstanding journalists Marites Vitug and Glenda Gloria, also failed to make it to this year’s National Book Awards shortlist, despite its painstaking research, its insightful reportage, and its sheer usefulness as a much-quoted resource in these dark days of global terror and the Abu Sayyaf. Curiously enough, that same abovementioned critic had thumbed this book down as soon as it came out for being "badly edited," without saying exactly where and how. Was he on the screening committee? I dare not ask.

Let’s go back to something funnier. There’s a website called the Modern Humorist (www.modernhumorist.com) where the Weldon-Bulgari tie-up had the wags wondering how other authors might have done their own versions of the textual plug:

Stephen King: "The blood flowed thick and red, staining the royal blue carpet under her feet to create a viscous purple–at least, that’s the way the crisp colors looked with Kodak’s Advanced Photo System technology."

JK Rowling: "Harry knew that Quidditch would never be the same after trading in his dusty broom for a revolutionary new Swiffer."

Phillip Roth: "Portnoy stared long and hard into the cartoon eyes of the little redheaded mascot, but his eyes nearly popped out when he saw his large Wendy’s Frosty; not only did it look delicious, it was so soft and moist..."

Salman Rushdie: "On St. Valentine’s Day, 1989, the last day of her life, the legendary popular singer Vina Apsara woke sobbing from a dream in which, somehow, at the stroke of midnight, every Tucks Hemorrhoidal Towelette with Witch Hazel disappeared all at once."

William Jefferson Clinton: "It’s amazing that during this difficult period of my presidency, with Mr. Starr’s team scouring all White House records, no one thought to examine the images I had recorded with my X10 Webcam. It’s tiny and wireless!"

And here’s mine: "I come from a country without snow and Macintosh PowerBook 2400c’s. Instead we have coconuts and cheap translucent rip-offs of the Graphite iMac Special Edition." I don’t suppose Steve Jobs is going to gift me with a new Titanium G4 PowerBook for the favor, will he now?

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Send e-mail to Butch Dalisay at penmanila@yahoo.com.