THE APOLLONIAN
A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (Online, Open-Access, Peer-Reviewed)
Vol. 2, Issue 3 (December 2015) || ISSN 2393-9001
Chief Editor: Girindra Narayan Roy
Editors: Subashish Bhattacharjee & Saikat Guha
Research Article:
The Name Game: Presenting J.K. Rowling as Robert Galbraith
Rizia Begum Laskar
Find this and other research articles at: http://theapollonian.in/
The Apollonian 2.3 (December 2015) 74
The Name Game: Presenting J.K. Rowling as Robert Galbraith
Rizia Begum Laskar
M.D.K.G. College, Dibrugarh University, India
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees; all times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name [...]
– Tennyson, ‚Ulysses‛
Robert Galbraith’s The Cuckoo’s Calling ends with these lines from Tennyson’s
Ulysses and the reverberating imagery that the reader carries in the mind is that of
becoming a name – I am become a name. What does it mean to become just a name,
and how is name connected to identity formation? The identity attached to an
author’s name in a very generalized sense is of a verbal marker – a signifier
signifying or directing towards the text. But the advent or rather onslaught of media
has meant almost a fetish for a voyeuristic attachment with the author figure. In such
a context, the author’s name or body is no longer a privately guarded self revealed
only in the text but rather an entity in the public space often beyond the purview of
the text. Interestingly, instead of the text being the site of fiction and thereby media
attention, the author’s name or body becomes the text itself and therefore subjected
to scrutiny. The branding of the author’s name not only creates a mediated public
identity of the author but also keeps this identity under constant gaze. At the same
time, it also creates a norm which denies deviation and any form of anonymity. In
such a context, what role do pseudonyms play? This paper tries to engage with the
public figure of J.K. Rowling and how Rowling’s use of a pseudonym while writing
detective fiction both caters to and redefines notions of anonymity, the female
process of writing, and the role of media in the creation of identity of the author.
The Apollonian 2.3 (December 2015) 75
Who is the Author?
How do we define the word ‘author’? Derived from the Latin word ‘auctoritas’,
which means authority, a very simplistic definition would be one who authors
something or in other words one who holds authority over the written word. Such a
definition is problematic in itself because it immediately entails that there is a one-toone relation between the written text and the person who has written it. The concept
of the author remains an often debated on and is often assumed to be formed by
various discourses which change over a period of time.
The twentieth century has witnessed some of the most dramatic questionings
regarding the concept of the author. One of the most prominent of critics has been
Roland Barthes whose ‚The Death of the Author‛ has now reached a cult status in
any discussions on this concept. Barthes, as the name signifies, gave importance to
the written text rather than the author, thereby preferring the written text to the
author. His work in 1968 thus says that, ‚it is language which speaks, not the
author‛ (147). As Barthes adds, any text ‚is made of multiple writings, drawn from
many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation‛
(150) in which the important figure is the reader, who is ‚simply that someone who
holds together in a single field all the traces by which the written text is constituted‛
(150). For Barthes the process of identifying the author doesn’t lead the reader to any
actual understanding of the text. The reader, in the act of reading, brings in his own
personal experiences to interpret the text. There is thus no oneness in meaning
derived by the various readers which opens up the text for diverse interpretations.
In response to his statement, Foucault follows with ‚What is an Author?‛ in 1969.
Foucault’s text tries to give some ground to the dead author by positing an
importance on the author’s name and the author function. For Foucault, the author’s
name ‚performs a certain role with regard to narrative discourse, assuring a
classificatory function‛ (178). The usage of the author’s name allows a grouping of
certain texts which can be defined and differentiated from others. The important
point of departure in the context of this paper is that Foucault defines author as a
‚figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of
meaning‛ (186). But more importantly, deriving from Foucault’s important question,
does it matter who is speaking in the text if the authorial figure or the name remains
unknown to the reader?
The Apollonian 2.3 (December 2015) 76
Name and Pseudonymity
Gerard Genette in Paratexts Thresholds of Interpretation identifies three primary ways
in which the name of the author appears in a work – the author putting in his/her
legal or actual name, the author using an assumed name or false name which is the
usage of pseudonyms, or the author doesn’t put any name itself which gives rise to
an anonymous work. Genette terms the first condition as onymity and makes an
important observation in the context of this paper. He says that the condition of
onymity doesn’t necessarily arise as being diametrically opposite to that of
pseudonymity. A person who is already famous can put the name on another which
achieves success primarily because of the famous name attached to it. In such a
condition, the name by itself is not a marker of identity but rather a way of imposing
an identity or personality on the work (39-40). The act of putting a name on
something signifies therefore a definite act of association and description too. It is
therefore Shakespeare’s Macbeth or Austen’s Emma and the names Macbeth or Emma
immediately conjures up images of the author. A pseudonym, though a name after
all, tries to produce the same effect but fails in doing so because the name is unable
to describe the person. Who is the ‘real’ or ‘actual’ person behind the façade of the
pseudonym? As Starobinski rightly says: ‚When a man conceals or disguises himself
with a pseudonym, we feel defied. This man refuses to give himself to us. And in
return we want to know *<+‛ (qtd. in Genette 49, emphasis in original). The reader
inevitably performs the role of the sleuth trying to detect the reality of the person
whose name is on the work. The imperative urge that the reader feels in discovering
the identity of the author is in fact a kind of a play that the reader often indulges in.
The pleasure is not only derived from the text itself but in the act of detection too
(Love 14).
The act of taking on a pseudonym is similar to the act of creating a fictional
character. Both are figments of imagination which requires putting up a
performance. Molly Catherine Des Jardin thus says that authors are:
[A]lways engaging in the act of performing in order to create an authorial
identity – one that does not preexist that performance. Regardless of the way
in which the individuals behind the performance of authorial identity are
received by the audience, it remains that an ‚author‛ is being created by *<+.
In the act of performing authorship, writers are thus creating authorial
identity and a written work simultaneously. With this, they move the focus of
reception away from themselves as living individuals and toward the dual
creation itself. (11-12)
The Apollonian 2.3 (December 2015) 77
This creation of an alternate authorial identity which shifts the attention away from
the author towards both the pseudonym and the work itself is also a process of
diverting the attention from the presumably known authorial self. At the same time,
it also often entails a movement away from the self to analyze ones work objectively
and to allow the reader to do so too. As Nietzsche suggests in Human, All Too
Human, an artist’s ambition ‚demands above all that their work should preserve the
highest excellence in their own eyes, as they understand excellence‛ (90). It is
necessary therefore to analyze Rowling’s use of a male pseudonym within the
context of women’s fiction primarily within the accusation that Rowling has let
down other women authors by using a man’s name.
Women and Fiction
Is there a particular way or means in which a woman writes and are there genres or
areas of writing which remain beyond the purview of women? More importantly,
how do we define the concept of woman or women within the context of writing
literature? Denise Riley, in of ‘Am I that Name?’: Feminism and the Category of ‘Women’
in History says that ‚‘women’ is historically, discursively constructed, and always
relatively to other categories which themselves change; ‘women’ is a volatile
collectivity in which female persons can be very differently positioned so that the
apparent continuity of the subject of ‘women’ isn’t to be relied on‛ (1-2). The figure
of the woman writer has been the locus of feminist attention over the ages be it
Anglo-American gynocriticism or post-structuralist French écriture féminine. But Toril
Moi’s ‚I Am Not a Woman Writer‛ says that feminist theory is no longer interested
in categorizing the notion of the woman writer. Moi rather feels that ‚Today, then,
theory and practice appear to be just as out of synch as they were by the end of the
1980s. The result is a kind of intellectual schizophrenia, in which one half of the
brain continues to read women writers while the other continues to think that the
author is dead, and that the very word ‘woman’ is theoretically dodgy‛(264). Despite
Moi’s assertion, the question of who is a woman author remains. And identification
and naming of the author therefore remains a fertile area in the politics of women’s
writing. J. K. Rowling figures as an interesting area of exploration from the very fact
that Rowling has from the very beginning remained within the media glare. Her
name has also been constructed to suit the reading tastes of a particular section of
readers who wouldn’t otherwise read women writers. ‘Brand Rowling’ has emerged
as a successful name in itself which conforms to satiate the public appetite. But
Rowling’s foray into detective fiction has been marked with a lot of controversy. Not
The Apollonian 2.3 (December 2015) 78
only has her use of the pseudonym Robert Galbraith given rise to much media
speculation1 but also the fact of revelation2 has resulted in the questioning of her
position as a female author itself. Media’s very beloved author has provided more
food for analysis. The mask that Rowling has put on has been almost ferociously
removed by the media, a kind of a sadistic pleasure being derived in scrutinizing a
private secret publicly, leading back to the very reason of Rowling adopting the
mask in the first place. What role do the media play in the creation of the literary
figure in the publication world of the twenty-first century?
Media’s Author
The authorial identity that is attached to very public persona of Rowling is one that
emanates from the success of the Harry Potter series which is often at odds with the
author of The Casual Vacancy. When both these figures are compared what is
revealed is a schism which does nothing to make comparison easier. The authorial
intention that reels off from the pages of The Casual Vacancy is far removed from
what Harry Potter has revealed to the world and the discrepancy is one which has
often been difficult to accept for the readers. After the initial success of Harry Potter
and the Philosopher’s Stone, each one of the Harry Potter books have created a
phenomenon in itself, be it the pre-publication frenzy or the post-publication success
story. The media hype has meant that the focus has shifted from the literary value of
the books to the ability to acquire them, a commodification of books as a cultural
artifact that marked the later part of twentieth century and the early part of twenty
first century. Instead of J. K. Rowling being the acclaimed name the name Harry
Potter became a legacy, a trail-blazer of its own. If the question is asked as to which
name is more famous, more known it would obviously be Harry Potter rather than J.
K. Rowling. It seems therefore very justified in Rowling trying to detach herself from
her creation, of bringing out the author from the text into an identity of its own
which is not determined only by Harry Potter. But Rowling’s next literary output,
The Casual Vacancy, though sold extremely well did not fare well with the critics.
Here the author’s name became more important than the text and thus the ideal
relation between text and author was not reached. The way out for Rowling is not
only taking the text out of the author but also in taking the self out of the author. It
resulted in a very intricate play on names that has created a text loaded with the
significance of names and the act of naming. But is Rowling’s attempt at creating an
alternate persona important within the responses of readers who have read her work
as Robert Galbraith? Does it matter as to who writes and who is the authorial figure
The Apollonian 2.3 (December 2015) 79
who pervades the text? What is the play with identity that names perform in the
text?
Name, Identity and Authorial Self in The Cuckoo’s Calling
Rowling’s obvious distaste with media is evident in the very beginning itself where
she presents the first scene as a typical scene of media clustered together to get the
juicy pieces of news at the earliest:
THE BUZZ IN THE STREET was like the humming of flies. Photographers
stood massed behind barriers patrolled by police, their long-snouted cameras
poised, their breath rising like steam *<+. Behind the tightly packed paparazzi
stood white vans with enormous satellite dishes on the roofs, and journalists
talking, some in foreign languages, while soundmen in headphones hovered.
(8)
In fact the whole of the prologue is dedicated to the media attention given to an
eminent super-model’s alleged suicide. The way the story is covered takes the edge
off the tragedy, merely relegating it to a ‘story’ which reporters try to get leverage
out of. Surprisingly, the very famous super-model’s name is not at all mentioned in
the prologue and the reader remains clueless who she despite the media coverage. In
the context of the text, names perform an intrinsic referential role in dismantling the
layers of obscurity that surround most of the characters. The text revolves around
the problems that naming creates and how naming itself can lead to a lot of
ambiguities. The two most important characters in the text are the victim Lula
Landry and the detective Cormoran Strike. Both these characters’ names are
constructed through a very convoluted process which gives rise to important aspects
of the question of names being connected to identity. Lula Landry is a girl of Arican
origin who is adopted by white parents. She is given the name of Lula and she
chooses the surname Landry which isn’t the family’s surname. Landry again is
connected to Tony Landry who is revolting to Lula. The choice of the surname is
therefore a questionable process to which John Bristow throws light. He says: ‚Oh
no, she chose Landry because it was Mum’s maiden name; nothing to do with Tony.
Mum was thrilled. I think there was another model called Bristow. Lula liked to
stand out‛ (240). Cormoran Strike’s naming process is even more complicated than
Lula Landry’s. The illegitimate son of a famous rock star, Jonny Rokeby, Strike in
fact takes his surname from his mother’s second husband whom he has never met.
The Apollonian 2.3 (December 2015) 80
Cormoran again is the name of a giant whom he resembles in his bodily structure.
And as Robin reminisces about him, ‚Her new boss seemed to be a person of many
names. One man asked for ‚Oggy‛; another for ‚Monkey Boy,‛ while a dry, clipped
voice asked that ‚Mr. Strike‛ return Mr. Peter Gillespie’s call as soon as possible‛
(57). This complex process of naming blurs the boundaries of fiction and reality and
the question of identity remains intertwined with how names are formed.
Interestingly enough, the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith is created with elaborate
markers of identity with the cautionary warning at the end that it is a pseudonym.
The back cover of the first editions of The Cuckoo’s Calling describes the author
Robert Galbraith as:
ROBERT GALBRAITH spent several years with the Royal Military Police
before being attached to the SIB (Special Investigative Branch), the
plainclothes branch of the RMP. He left the military in 2003 and has been
working since then in the civilian security industry. The idea for Cormoran
Strike grew directly out of his own experiences and those of his military
friends who returned to the civilian world. ‚Robert Galbraith‛ is a
pseudonym.
As is proved later on, this identity is very much a false one created to delude
the reader. This play on identity that the simple act of naming creates is one that
raises significant questions about the role of names. Do names create identities or do
identities create names? Is J. K. Rowling, the writer, the same as the author Robert
Galbraith or is there a different identity attached to both the names? Alexander
Nehamas in ‚What an Author Is‛ while referring to Michel Foucault’s ‚What Is an
Author?‛ makes an important distinction between writer and author. Nehamas says:
Writers are actual individuals, firmly located in history, efficient causes of
their texts. *<+ Writers truly exist outside their texts. They have no
interpretive authority over them. *<+ An author, by contrast, is whoever can
be understood to have produced a particular text as we interpret it. Authors
are not individuals but characters manifested or exemplified, though not
depicted or described, in texts. (686)
This distinction is important in understanding the basic difference between Rowling
and Galbraith. J. K. Rowling as a writer exists not only in the imaginative realm but
also one whose name exists in the literary realm too. She is a distinctive individual
credited with the highly successful Harry Potter series and whose name conjures up
an aura of literary achievements and financial success too. The name Rowling is very
The Apollonian 2.3 (December 2015) 81
much connected to the identity of the Harry Potter series and vice versa. On the other
hand, the author Robert Galbraith exists only within the range of the two Cormoran
Strike detective fictions, The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm. The two texts are
therefore ‘authored’ by Galbraith writing in a genre which is a deviation from the
usual works of Rowling. Galbraith, the author, and Rowling, the writer, neither
share similarities in name nor do they share any likeness in genres of writing. Except
for the fact that Rowling has been ‘revealed’ to be Galbraith, there is no concrete
connection between the two. The discrete identity that has been painstakingly
‘created’ for Galbraith doesn’t in any way match with the public persona of Rowling.
It is in fact the excessive media attention and the fact that anything attached to
Rowling is eagerly lapped by the public led to the revelation. Despite this, Rowling
used her pseudonym for the second work, The Silkworm, too. So, who is the name
that Galbraith invokes at the end of the first work? In the context of the furore that
surrounded post publication, the invocation seems justified as Galbraith has become
a name. It is a name that Rowling has written on the body of her text, a name that
complicates distinction between identification and identity. But the fact that the
connection has been made between the names J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith
has resulted in the defacement of the alternate authorial self, Robert Galbraith
remains therefore a mere appendage or an accessory to the ‘actual’ self of Rowling.
Who Writes and How the Reader Reads
Who writes – is it J. K. Rowling or is it Robert Galbraith? How does the reader read
the text before and after the revelation? The second question is probably easier to
answer. When the reader reads without much knowledge of who Robert Galbraith
is, there is obviously the latent tension to unmask the author. But at the same time,
there is also the relishing of the text itself where the written word takes over. At the
same time, the written word would also possibly provide clues for the reader
therefore allowing a close reading which is otherwise not done often. After the
knowledge of Galbraith’s identity, the reader reads with the baggage of the added
identity of Rowling. This in a way creates a presumed reading which mars the very
act of taking on a pseudonym. At the same time, the association with previous works
immediately starts though the work being in a cross-over genre resists the
generalization to an extent. The question of the apparent schism between Rowling
and Galbraith can only be resolved in accepting that there exists the gap, the ‘blank
space’ where one dons the personality of the other. The authorial mask of persona is
important to write more fiction beyond the accepted and time-tested genres. It is also
The Apollonian 2.3 (December 2015) 82
important that while the work outlives the author, the text rather than the authorial
aura be justification enough for reading.
END NOTES:
1.
There has been a lot of media attention to the fact that an unknown author has found such a good
publisher. There was a software analysis of the work to find if there are any similarities with
works of other contemporary authors.
2.
The revelation came one of the lawyers in Rowling’s solicitors’ firm. The person tweeted the
identity of Galbraith and it caught the media craze like anything.
WORKS CITED:
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Ed. David Lodge. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 1988. 146-150. Print.
Des Jardin, Molly Catherine. Editing Identity: Literary Anthologies and the Construction
of the Author in Meiji Japan. Ph.D Thesis. Michigan: University of Michigan,
2012. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
Foucault, Michel. ‚What is an Author?‛ Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader Ed.
David Lodge. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 1988. 173-187. Print.
Galbraith, Robert. The Cuckoo’s Calling. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013.
Print.
Genette, Gérard. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Trans. Jane E. Lewin.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. Print.
Love, Harold. Attributing Authorship: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
2002. Print.
Moi, Toril ‚I Am Not a Woman Writer.‛ Feminist Theory 9.3 (2008): 259–271. JSTOR.
Web. 26 Oct. 2014.
Nehamas, Alexander ‚What an Author Is?‛ The Journal of Philosophy 83.11 (1986):
685-69. JSTOR. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Human, All Too Human. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1986. Print.
Riley, Denise. ‘Am I That Name?’: Feminism and the Category of Women in History.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1988. Print.
The Apollonian 2.3 (December 2015) 83
Tennyson, ‚Ulysses.‛ Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Rizia Begum Laskar is assistant professor of English at M.D.K.G. College, Dibrugarh
University, India. Her articles appeared in such journals as The Atlantic Review of
Feminist Studies and Dibrugarh University Journal of English Studies. Her areas of
interest include children’s literature, crime and detective fiction, and queer literature.