After reading John Cawelti’s article The Writer as Celebrity, I started to think about how I as a reader respond to the “celebrity” author. I think the distinction between fame and celebrity, as Cawelti notes, is very important.
“Celebrity is brief and intense; fame tends to be slower in growing and is relatively permanent” (Cawelti 164).
Famous authors are those we can almost always recognize even though we may not have read any of their work; Cawelti notes famous authors such as Wilde, Poe, and J.D. Salinger. I think also of authors such as Shakespeare, Dante, and Homer. All of these authors carry a “brand name” but it is important to note that their fame is something that they have earned, whether they like it or not or sought it intentionally.
If we look at authors like Poe and Dickinson, we can see that their celebrity was largely a posthumous creation. It is not the author who decides that they are a celebrity (at first) but rather the reader. It is unlikely that these authors would have anticipated their fame, so I am inclined to believe that “fame” and “celebrity” are created not by the author but by the reader.
If the readers or the consumers of literature are the chief deciders of celebrity, then can we really blame a famous author for her popularity resulting from obnoxious books about sparkly vampires? While I can’t stand those books, I’m going to say no. While some authors embrace their celebrity and milk it for all it is worth, we have to remember that these authors would be no where without their readers. I think this is truly a reflection of how powerful the readers can be in shaping the popular literature that we see in the bookstores. The influence of the reader on the celebrity author can either be a motivational factor in the production of their work, or it can be completely ignored as is the case with J.D. Salinger.
I wonder, though, is it always readers that create and bolster a writer’s celebrity? I think DeLillo and Cawelti both would say that there are other factors involved, which have nothing to do with readership. The best example might be the Oprah Effect, whereby a hitherto relatively unknown writer might become a celebrity simply based upon Oprah’s recommendation to her viewers.