Invisible

   
   Should a writer be invisible? 

   Taking this in another direction, should an artist have a face? Would a band such as One Direction still be as successful as they are without their faces, personalities or press? Wanting to know the source of your most loved art - paintings, books or songs - is a natural reaction. You wish to explore further. You want to know what inspired them to create such a thing.

   Roland Barthes, however, disagrees. A text should stand alone from the author's intentions and historical context. To agree with him would ignore every author that has ever produced important texts throughout history. The likes of William Shakespeare, who introduced hundreds of words into the English language, Charles Dickens, whose stories were significant social commentaries in the Victorian era, and even Roald Dahl and J K Rowling, who each gave tremendous input into the increase of children reading, would all be dismissed. They would be banished to a side note on the blurb.

   To me, this is ridiculous. Of course, these examples have had a profound effect on society and history, but what about the authors who write for the sake of profit and publicity? Writers such as Lauren Goodger, Chloe Sims and Sam Faiers – all reality stars from the show The Only Way Is Essex  - have sold thousands of books in Britain. I highly doubt their audience cares much about the content of the text, for their thoughts on politics and social anxieties, or for their opinions on what impact the Arab Spring had on the rest of the planet. Their fans will be reading their books to learn more on the celebrities themselves - to learn of their pasts, romances, family and so on – and also to double check that they can indeed complete a sentence without using the word ‘like’.