Here I’ve been writing about advertising, marketing, economics and business for the last several years thinking others shared my fascination with these subjects, (and meanwhile harvesting an average of about one comment for every five posts). Then I go and post one little thing about an obscure book I stumbled across and boom! My response rate quadruples.
So maybe that’s what my readers really are: Readers. And thus, what they’re most interested in hearing about is books, not this stupid advertising business. If so, then I’ve got a great suggestion that should keep you busy while I’m off gallivanting around the countryside for the next ten days: Middlemarch.
Yes, that Middlemarch, by George Eliot. And yes, I know most of you probably read it in some English Lit class back in college. But I also suspect many of you spent a good portion of those classes doing the same thing I did. (And trust me, that individual sitting in front of you would never have consented to assuming the position you had in mind nor been able to maintain for longer than thirty seconds without suffering extensive damage to the lumbar region.)
So go back and read it again. Then tell me if Ms. (or should it be Mr.?) Eliot didn’t produce one of the most astounding MRI scans of human nature ever rendered. An exegesis of the venality, vanity and vapidity encoded in the DNA of several personalities all of whom could just as easily be walking the streets today as opposed to 136 years ago. But what writer today, I ask you, could capture them with such scathing honesty and disarming wit?
It seems to me that in this circle jerk of solipsism we find ourselves inhabiting today, not many authors can tear their eyes off their navels long enough to grind out anything this perceptive, let alone exquisitely crafted. But see for yourself and let me know what you think. At the very least, it’s not the worst way to kill time between episodes of Mad Men.district 9 peter jackson! district 9 district 9
“But what writer today, I ask you, could capture them with such scathing honesty and disarming wit?”
Good question, Mark. And one, since I’ve never read “Middlemarch,” that I can’t answer.
As far as modern writers go, I’m a serious fan of Bellow, Roth, Styron, Heller, Updike, Pynchon and perhaps a few others I can’t remember at the moment. (Maybe William Kennedy, the Albany NY author, and certainly John Kennedy O’Toole, who wrote “Confederacy of Dunces” but then killed himself. What a waste!)
Most of all, I’m a fan of DeLillo’s work. “Underworld” hooked me. Since then I’ve read every word he’s ever written. Sometimes his stories are improbable, but even when that’s the case, they always illuminate the human condition one way or another. His storytelling is almost cinematic in form, and the way he strings sentences together, especially after you’ve heard him read his work, is jazz-like, which gives it life, surprise and steady movement forward. That he toiled in the advertising business, at Ogilvy NY, makes him all the more interesting to me.
By the way, I could be the only former or current ad man in America who hasn’t made a religion of watching Mad Men. I guess I just think there are better ways to kill time.
Yes, I vaguely remember the book. All the wrong people have a lock on money, power and influence, right? There’s a bit of tension in that. Not too different from today, with Wall Street. That Bernard Madoff fellow is a latter day Bulstrode … both are bent but masquerade as authority.
I enjoy your site, Mark.
All the best,
Steve Ulin