THE PRINCESS AND THE PAUPERS: J.K. ROWLINGS PSEUDONYMOUS 15 MINUTES

 I don’t really care if I’m the only one who found J.K. Rowling’s pseudonymous stunt a disheartening display of celebrity privilege, but the moment I heard it, I felt an acrimony towards her I had never felt before. 
I had always admired Rowling, especially her spirit of charity, and no less the obstacles in life she overcame to gain success as a writer.

These days Rowling stands in a place that few writers have or ever will, as somebody who became a billionaire from writing books.  And while her charitable giving leads me to believe she knows how fortunate she is as a human being, her pseudonymous stunt, and the fact that a foundation to help other writers who were once like her is not among her philanthropic priorities, makes me think she doesn’t know how lucky she is as a writer.

Rowling stated two things about her short stint as Robert Galbraith that stuck in my craw.  1.  That she’d hoped she could have kept it secret a little longer and 2. How liberating it was to write under a pseudonym.

I couldn’t help think of The Prince and the Pauper, the royal and the poor boy trading places for a little while.  Like the prince in the story, how much fun it must have been to pretend to be a commoner for a little while.  How carefree you can be when you don’t have to worry about sales.  How unburdening to release a novel as a first time author (fake biography and all! Ha! Ha!), while still reaping the benefits of publicity that a first time author seldom gets (one of the things that gave Rowling away).  How liberating not to have people judging her work as J.K. Rowling.  Oh, the burden must be enormous.  The expectations crushing.  How gratifying for her to get such good reviews when nobody knew it was her writing. 

But really, how gratifying can it be for a 9-time novelist to be told how assured her writing is for a 1st time novelist.  It’s hardly making the short list for the Man Booker Prize.  And then, poor J.K.’s cover was blown and a book that had reportedly sold only 1,500 copies shot to the top of the Amazon sales list.  All because of that name she was just so eager to hide.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  How hard it must be to be J.K. Rowling.

Funny thing though.  When the princess left the royal court for her little escapade, no commoner got to take her place.  He was just one of her fictional characters.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/13/jk-rowling-pseudonym-robert-galbraith_n_3592769.html