This thing called wantin’ and havin’ it all…

In 2007, Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. At the time, she said “Thank you does not seem enough when you’ve won the best of them all. It is astonishing and amazing,” especially as she had been informed in the 1960s that she would never win, as the Noble judges did not like her.

One year on, Lessing has called winning the prize a disaster. It has left her in such high demand that it has completely sapped her of creativity, and she is now unable to write.

Last week I mentioned a long discussion carried out across blog posts and comments on blog posts about great books, books you have to read, and popular books. Very early in the discussion, Jodi asked whether it was possible for a writer to have both literary and commercial success at the same time. I could recall very few writers who have enjoyed the commercial success of a Dan Brown, or a J K Rowling, while at the same time being given the literary recognition of a Salman Rushdie or a Kingsly Amis.

At the time the question was framed as “is it possible to have both”? Lessing’s dilemma prompts a further consideration – would you want both?

With critical acclaim comes expectation, often unreasonable expectation. Your book is brilliant, a staggering work of unadulterated genius. The critics rave, raising you to the pantheon of the literary gods, a worthy successor to Shakespeare, Dickins, Hemmingway. What do you do next?

Unless your next book is an even more staggering work of sheer unadulterated genius, the knives will come out. You’ve lost your edge. A flash in the pan. I guess we were wrong about you. That’s an awful lot of expectation on a book that hasn’t been written. Every word should be gold. Every idea original. Every sentence quoteworthy. I can’t write that! And all of a sudden it is “hello writer’s block”.

As writers we want to have both. Do I want to open up a copy of the New Yorker, or the London Review of Books, and see my name, read critical discussions of my work, and have adulation heaped upon me? Of course I do! But I want to walk into my local Waterstones, Borders, Barnes & Noble and see my book in a prominent place, recommended by the staff. I want to sit on public transport, look over at the guy sat down reading a book, and realise that it is MY name on the cover.

Good reviews generate good sales, but there is a difference between being liked by the book critics of the popular press, and being critically acclaimed by the literati.

Was winning the Noble Prize a disaster for Lessing? It can be described as the pinnacle of a writer’s career, and it has come at a late stage in her life. Better to be suffering from such a “disaster” now, rather than early in a writing career. With a substantial body of work, coupled with a Noble Prize, it is unlikely that Lessing will fade into obscurity. A younger writer with only one or two novels may vanish. And from her descriptions, it is simply that she lacks the time, and consequently the energy, to write. The Prize has put her in demand, but has not robbed her of her creative voice. Instead, it has robbed her of the opportunity. This too shall pass.

So, would you rather have literary acclaim, or commercial success? Can you have it all? Would you want it all?