The ego of others

Cover image: Allegory of Vanity, by Antonio de Pereda.

I was very interested in this meeting, I thought about it for days. I was thinking how pathetic you are when the world agrees with you.

“Obviously the millionaire’s vanity is greater, and his appreciation and love for his work, consistent“

I will have met, without making any effort at all to make a social life in the world of books, ten writers very similar to this one, so important. Equally conceited, equally snooty, equally vain, enlightened and special. There are them everywhere, with the good fortune for society that their books do not end up being best sellers global. We know few psychopaths because they are all failing. That’s what separates us from an avalanche of unbearable famous writers: their failure.

The important author reminded me of something an unimportant author told me years ago. He was presenting a new book and wanted a writer more important than him to accompany him, as is usually the case. But this writer told him no, and his way of saying no irritated my friend, who told me: “He believes that the rest of us have no pride.””.

The important author (he will have earned two or three million dollars with his novel) assumes that his vanity and the appreciation he feels for his books cannot be compared with the vanity and appreciation felt for his books by an author who has sold 500 copies, an author who has sold 5,000 copies or an author who is only translated into Portuguese. Obviously the millionaire’s vanity is greater, and his appreciation and love for his work are consistent. In this way, interacting with a less successful author means interacting with an author with less ego.

Curiously, in these hierarchies, the one at the top naturally thinks that his vanity is completely justified, validated by success, but he also thinks that the vanity of the other, barely existing, is also fully justified and assumed, and that An unsuccessful author considers his books very little, like children he has had without wanting to.. It does not affect it, therefore, if someone reads them, if someone translates them, if someone remembers them. For the egomaniacal author, all books have received what they deserve since the moment his own have been successful.

“The truth is that many authors without success, without immortality, without headlines in The New York Timesthey behave exactly the same as the major author“

As it is, an unsuccessful author has nothing interesting to say about his own ignored books, and he is not going to quote Deleuze or move a group of people around because the noise of a vacuum cleaner bothers him. He does this because he is already an artist, as demonstrated by the two or three million dollars he has earned with his novel.

The condition of a reasoned psychopath is evident. The truth is that many authors without success, without immortality, without headlines in The New York Times, they behave exactly the same as the important author, at least, during the first years. Their calculation is that if they manage to make others think that they are great writers, in the end they will end up being considered great writers. It is the self-fulfilling prophecy that Billy Wilder’s wife pointed out when she said: “Before he was Billy Wilder, Billy Wilder already behaved as if he were Billy Wilder”.

Or, in the accurate words of Julio Cortázar: “Genius is choosing oneself great, and getting it right.”

Many choose geniuses, great authors, titans of literature, and they don’t get it right. Nobody realizes what titans they are. Years go by, and some assume that maybe they weren’t that great, while others continue to parade their psychopath’s vanity through book fairs and downtown cafes.

With this super-important author still in my memory, I confronted my sensations with the sensations that other authors of the same lineage have given me, to conclude that it is not the ego, nor the struggle of egos, that emerges from them, but the denial of the ego of others.

Something like: “You yourself cannot consider your own books good.”

“A few weeks ago, my friend David Pérez Vega published a video in which, among other things, he talked about the ranking of egos“

The truth is that any author has a fairly high appreciation for his own work, but only the one who has achieved literary glory (curiously, “literary glory”, so poetic, better reflects what we want to investigate here than “selling many books” or “to be highly translated”; it is that gold that drives one crazy, “literary glory”), I say, only those who have achieved literary glory (a kind of preferential access door to posterity) believe they hold pride exclusively.

A few weeks ago, my friend David Pérez Vega published a video in which, among other things, he talked about the ranking of egos. David said: “Literature is a hierarchical world, with hierarchies that look like India, this”. And he added: “There are people who publish in such a publisher and then hierarchically put themselves above you, and these people feel they have the ability to write to you, hey, are you going to read my book and comment on it?” David clarified that these authors never read one of his books.

That “putting himself above you” is what I saw in the important author, and in other, less important authors that I have known, whose treatment always requires a principle of vassalage, the honor of being able to be his squires. Each author acts and speaks from a certain stock market pre-conception, as if he saw the quote written in the air, and that of his interlocutor next to him: this is what I’m worth, this is what you’re worth, from there we deal with each other.

I don’t deny that I may have acted like this myself at some point, of course.

“Of course, a novel by David Pérez Vega could be published in one of those imprints that don’t even answer your emails.“

David Pérez Vega’s video, caused by his entry into his fifties, seemed like a gem to me. Here we have a man who has spent several decades getting his books published, and he regrets that they have never been picked up by a major imprint. Turning 50, he assumes that will never happen. Rarely will you see such a pure testimony about the love of literature.. I read, I write, I send. During decades. I get nothing; hardly anything. I follow.

Of course, a novel by David Pérez Vega could be published in one of those imprints that don’t even answer your emails. It’s a matter of luck, fashion, friendship; of many things that in no way question a literary talent. So much garbage is published that it cannot seem normal to us that a book has never been published by someone who lives solely and exclusively to read and write, and who does not stop sending manuscripts. But it has happened. Surely, it has happened many times.