Sarah Wrote That

Woolf, Austen, Palin, Abrams, Gaga And Me

Champagne Candy posted this page from the manuscript of Mrs. Dalloway.  Woolf’s handwriting is thin, tight and slanty, somewhat as I imagine the “spidery hand” Tolkien gives to Bilbo Baggins.

The page is one of several in the British Library’s marvelous online manuscript exhibition, which includes drafts by Pope, Blake, Dickens, Wilfred Owens, and this delightful History of England by a sixteen-year-old Jane Austen:

‘The History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st. By a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian.’

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Which brings me to the hopefully subsiding hubbub over Sarah Palin’s memoir.  A number of people whose writing and judgment I respect have questioned paying her any attention—shouldn’t we be close-reading the healthcare bill instead; aren’t we only enabling her; and so on.  I think we should be close-reading Palin and the healthcare bill. She came within seven million votes of being vice-president, and while it’s unlikely that she’ll gain high national office, inasmuch as her fameball book and tour is a calculated effort—in collusion with the mainstream media she derides—to channel the beliefs of a substantial minority, I’d rather understand what I oppose, and be able to say precisely why she elicits such strong reactions.

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So Imagine You’re On The Nobel Peace Prize Committee

…and you feel it’s important to recognize Lady Gaga.  Artists only get one first album, and you haven’t danced the way you dance to “Poker Face” since the Clinton Administration.  She writes her own material… maybe she’s not as revolutionary as she or her fans claim, but you don’t think she’s famous just for being famous (even if she did name her album The Fame).

But—you tell yourself in quiet moments, between tracks—she hasn’t really done anything, not compared with, say, Bono.  People will say you’re rewarding her for just being Lady Gaga.  Why not wait until she has years of career achievement?  But what if she doesn’t fulfill her early promise?  What if in four or eight years her reputation is tarnished by singles that misfired, or the press turning against her?  What if this is the moment, and you miss it?  Are you brave enough to honor how she’s transforming pop music and making it safe for people who prefer to be seen wearing masks?

Or do you go with an obvious choice, someone who’s now so taken for granted, so last year that no one even notices how he’s changed the entire geopolitical landscape and the tone of international relations?  Do you give the prize to Barack Obama?