On Jun 5, 2011, at 12:21 PM, Dissenting Wren wrote:
> Yes, we seem to be seizing on the tone that FT always uses in their "Lunch
> with..." interviews. I fear that we (and I most emphatically include myself)
> may envy Arundhati Roy a bit. A £500,000 advance for her first novel, which
> goes on to win the Booker Prize, beauty, celebrity, what appears from the
> outside to be a charmed life...and all she seems to do now is write crappy
> political essays that are more or less on "our side" but draw more on
> sentimentality than critical analysis. We could do that job so much better -
> but look who is being brought mangoes by the household help in her tasteful
> apartment while chatting with the nice reporter from FT. The bitch! Makes us
> want to go back and read Tom Wolfe's "Radical Chic," doesn't it?
>
> But seriously...however envious we are of Arundhati Roy, or however little
> regard we have for her political writing, do we really want to be in the company
> of that creepy little popinjay
Thing is, her political celebrity in the West is the product of Western leftists, who cherish her in the role of the emotional Third World woman, closer to nature - with not much cerebral function expected of her, because that's not in the job description. I'm fine with her material comforts, actually.
Doug