Stinking Rich

Jenny Diski

Branson by Tom Bower

I find myself nostalgic for the time, long ago, when one thing the very rich and very famous could be relied on to do was shut up. Paul Getty, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Princess Grace of Monaco wrapped their money around themselves in the form of impenetrable walls and/or designer sunglasses and kept silent while the world wondered and chattered. And you would imagine that if money could do anything for you it would be to insulate you from having to care what other people thought. The people don’t have to vote for you, they don’t have to love you. But even princesses and tycoons have to seem to be democratic and lovable these days. They have to sell their brand by selling themselves. Sometimes their brand is themselves. There are power lists and personalities of the year, decade and century, and however filthy with wealth you are, you have to worry about ‘the people’, you have to care what they think of you. We’ve had our people’s princess, desperate to become the queen of people’s hearts, and we still have the people’s tycoon noisily committed to running the People’s Lottery, apparently free of charge. The pitch is to demand to be seen as ordinary, just like you and me, only richer and more glamorous, of course, because it does the populace a power of good to see heightened images of what they might have been, kitted out in fine frocks and indulging in dangerous sports no one else can afford. And they want it known, these rich people, that in spite of their morale-boosting high life, they devote themselves to the well-being of others, and the greater benefit of the nation. They nurture, they improve, they innovate, they care. They are also – well, they are modern icons – consummate moaners. They complain loudly and publicly about being misunderstood, underappreciated, and afflicted on all sides by the forces of repression, tradition and evil. Since they’re on the side of the people, any attack on them is tantamount to an attack on the ordinary folk they would like us to believe they represent. They are, it turns out, latter-day saints, deflecting and taking on themselves the slights and assaults of the elitist, convention-bound enemy, becoming martyrs and shields of the people. And my God how they whine, how they snivel, how they demand our attention and sympathy.

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From the LRB letters page: [ 4 January 2001 ] Keith Flett.

Jenny Diski is writing a book about St Helena. A novel, Apology for the Woman Writing, is coming out in November.

Stinking Rich

Jenny Diski

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