At the Cole Face: Jokes, Frankenstein and originality

The idea that nothing is original anymore is, itself, not original. 

Throughout history there has always been this perpetual drive for originality. 19th century artists took it to a whole new level with the realist movement, the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully to a point where they tried to completely remove the driver (artist) from the scene altogether.   

Today many contemplate whether there is any free thought in this fast-paced society, or whether we have been succumbed by impatience that the demand for quantity is overpowering basic quality. 

So Cole, why the philosophical subject?

I was having lunch with a few of my friends a few weeks ago, one friend brought along a new friend who works with her in the public service. 

Talking away I soon discovered this man had just written a book. I must say I was surprised, talking to him for the past hour he didn’t seem at all the typical creative type. None-the-less I peppered him with questions about its content and how he found time to write it.

He told me it was a joke book, something he had put together over the last six months. I was mightily impressed, not only had he written a book, but it was all original jokes. I for one couldn’t even remember old jokes let alone come up with new ones. It was what he said next that left me speechless. 

He told me it was simple, he contacted a company in Korea who wrote the jokes, did the research to make sure that the material was all original and sent it to him for proofing. The proofing went on a while, emails were tossed back and forth until he was satisfied with the outcome, then the manuscript went to the publishers and copies were made with his name plastered on the front. Simple. 

I blinked at him in astonishment; no, you didn’t write a book, paid workers in Korea wrote a book, I thought, and you published it. I challenged him on this, asking how he thought this was ethically sound putting his name to work that he had not actually done. He responded that because he was fronting the capital he was taking all the risks. 

Needless to say this was not a budding friendship. 

I decided to do some research and find out what sort of companies are offering this service. 

Turns out there are many companies out there that do this kind of work. One called Ghostebookwriters have the logo ‘We ghostwrite ebooks- you take the credit’. 

Their welcoming statement introduce themselves as; ‘original, creative, high-quality and grammatically perfect eBooks help you build a connection with your audience. Our online book writing services are delivered by professional writers who are qualified to create lengthy, engaging and interesting recipe books, full-length novels, immersive guides, and self-help as well as how-to books.’

What comes to my mind is how lazy we have become and why for example artists would bother making beautiful pieces of art or furniture when you can pick up something for cheap that does the same job at IKEA? 

One thing's for sure, capitalism does not promote creativity and diversity in the individual, all of that appears to belong to the corporate world.

Hand-painted works of visual masters are going cheap. Real cheap. You can always be certain that you can pick up a wonderful Van Gogh or Monet print at any decent market stall.  

A few years ago I was lucky enough to sit down with the original writer of the song ‘I was only 19’, John Schumann from Redgum. I was quite interested to know what he thought about the many different recreations of his song. 

To my surprise, instead of denigrating the remakes, he explained simply that there are writers and there are performers, sometimes you are lucky enough to have a combination of both. Each serve a purpose and neither is better than the other. 

The remakes of his song he explained were great, not only does it keep the song alive, but new artists have made it accessible for a new generation audience. His favourite remake was from The Herd, because they were an Australian band. 

This said, you could say the same of the many adaptations of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; perhaps with the exception of Twilight.  

I’m resigned not to give up on originality, on occasion the light bulb might come on overhead. While any individual idea may not be original, combinations of ideas can be very original. In fact, the greatest ideas today are unique combinations of concepts. Perhaps it is in the ability to express these new ideas, that can be suppressed by the common consensus to conform to what is already. 

If all else fails, I hear there are some cheap voices for sale in Korea.