SELF-MADE: Creating our identities, from Da Vinci to the Kardashians By Tara Isabella Burton
The Kardashians have sold so much to America — shapewear, cosmetics, drink after drink — but why not pile up ideas?
At the end of Tara Isabella Burton’s Self-Made, a well-defined family stops like a caboose. This book, High Speed Train, is a story that visits a series of figures who have made big and small changes in the way people live in Western history. Express yourself and think.
Burton calls Kim “the pinnacle of the nihilistic, aristocratic tradition,” but that includes Regency-era dandy Beau Brummell, who is “ready to go online” in modern times ( GRWM) was an early practitioner of what became known as the routine. . Brummell’s house was “crowded with worshipers” and hours of grooming included “exfoliating with a coarse brush followed by milk” and spitting into a special silver bowl. To see the process, she recalled. (And you thought Dior’s $40 lip oil was overkill.)
A novelist with a doctorate in theology from Oxford who has written extensively on travel and religion, including for The New York Times, Barton deftly uses the international term of self-determination to explore this fast voyage across the centuries. Confidently leading the journey. “sprezzatura” and “bon ton” and “Übermensch”.
She argues that in an increasingly secularized society (what is now called “de-churchization”), humans have come to assume god-like powers and responsibilities, at least with respect to their bodies and identities. , That’s what it means. “We are the creators of ourselves, our lives and the world around us,” she says. “We have a divine role to play in building and shaping our reality.” See us wandering the heavens and hells of cyberspace. Feeling omniscient with a powerful search engine and amassing “followers”.
“Self Made” does not begin with Leonardo da Vinci, as advertised in the book’s subtitle, but with the somewhat obscure German artist Albrecht Dürer. Albrecht Dürer is a pioneer in the field of self-portraits, painting himself in the form of Jesus Christ and splashing out his work. Initials where possible he cheerfully repeated “Anno Domini”. Readers will soon be able to see a throughline to Kim Kardashian, author of “Selfish.” Her ex-husband Kanye West proclaimed “I am God” on the album Yeezus. You’ll see a range of monogrammed product lines, but there are many other stops along the way.
One was early influencer Shee Oscar Wilde, who started the rage by wearing green-dyed carnations, presumably to boost publicity for his play “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” Burton reminded, but perhaps for no reason at all. She believed that “artistic creation, rather than filthy money-making, was the key to human superiority, and that her own artistic creation was the highest vocation of all.” writing.
On the other side of the Atlantic, another pioneer that caught our attention was Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist who was born a slave. He spoke at the National Market Hall in Philadelphia about his special commitment to Tatami Man and Work! work! ! work! ! ! work! ! ! ! ” (Modern spells are seldom uttered without arch inflections.)
In Burton’s words, personal identity has always sought to define itself to the crowd, moving forward in step with technology, sometimes awkwardly. Thomas Edison gave the press a glimpse of a lightbulb before prime time was ready (“He may have harnessed electricity, but so did another unseen force: celebrities.”) I did.”). Television and tape recording transformed the personal presentation of the Warhol era.
Just a few decades later, we all casually carry our smartphones in front of us. If, as Burton points out, the arrival of television in our living rooms was “thrilling” but “unsettling,” the iPhone, like a new limb, has completely thrown us off balance.
Reading “Self-Made” can feel like wandering through your favorite museum with a new teacher speaking into a padded headset. Momentary, but hardly surprising. Until the rise of the “it girl” in Hollywood, women only really appeared as robots. This theme was thoroughly explored last year in her creator Elinor Glynne’s biography. Another of Burton’s picks, Whole Earth catalog editor and maverick Stewart Brand, is the oft-meme’ed “we’re gods and we better do it well”. He, who has a mission statement, has just recently become the subject of a major biography.
But you can feel and share glimpses of her joy in every nook and cranny of her cobwebbed past. Did futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti ever put glue on a theater seat? Did Prime Minister William Pitt (The Younger) impose a tax on hair powder in London? I could have read dozens more pages about the Extropians, one of whom, at a 1994 conference, would eventually be able to “upload the whole consciousness into a computer.” suggested it would.
Burton packs a lot of material into a small space to support ambitious ideas, but it will be interesting to see what she does with more focus. “Self-Made” seems designed for an unfocused generation and is more of a tour than a tour de force.
self made: From Da Vinci to the Kardashians, creating our identities | Tara Isabella Burton Page 288 | PR | $30
