“Fame, money and love” are supposed to be the three things we all have to strive for in life.
At least, I grew up hearing that phrase.
Of the three, love and money continue to rank highly among the new generations, although no one has found the recipe to obtain them in abundance and, above all, to preserve them.
Fame, on the other hand, is a much more elusive concept.
It seems to me that the idea of “being famous” is one of the ideas that
has changed the most in the last decade.
Before, someone managed to be known for excelling at something.
That is, he was recognized for his skill in an art, a sport, or a profession.
You could also be passed down to posterity for doing terrible things, as happened with some serial killers.
And there were even those, like Erostratus (the Greek who burned the temple of Artemis in Ephesus because it was one of the wonders of Antiquity),
sought fame at any price.
All of those paths can still lead someone to notoriety, but they are becoming less common.
Today virtuosity rarely lands you in the news headlines and, in the era of political correctness,
infamy does not keep you in the spotlight for long.
Big gestures are not even necessary, such as burning a temple or destroying a painting in a museum - gestures that no longer shock anyone or guarantee that we will remember those who perpetrate them - it is enough to bite a detergent capsule on Tik Tok or post photos with few clothes on only-fans to become a celebrity.
But the thing with that kind of fame is that it doesn't last long.
Even Andy Warhol's prediction no longer applies: it is true, thanks to the networks we all had or will have about fifteen minutes of global projection,
but they no longer mean anything.
One thing is certain:
there are no longer artists or writers famous for their books; if they are, it is because they have known how to project themselves as a product
.
Whether a book is good or bad is less important than the marketing operation that supports it and in that the figure of the author is crucial.
To me, however, I care more about what happens to me with a novel or a song than about the person who made it.
When I think about the relationship between fame and literature, I remember the books that marked me and I realize that for me it was never decisive who signed them.
Pinocchio
and
Peter Pan
are two of my favorite stories.
I read them when I was very young and sometimes I return to them
.
Most of my students believe that these books are anonymous.
Today no one remembers Carlo Collodi or JM Barrie, no one knows who they were, how they lived, how they loved and hated.
They are not brilliant authors, touched by the laurels of fame.
However, their characters have already had several incarnations and I don't think we are going to forget them.
That seems to me to be something more valuable than the significance of a name: to have created something so valuable to the rest of humanity that
no one cares who made it.