Thirty years later, the very few who remember, might wonder: was Kelman’s award more for the institution’s profile than for the writer? A then controversy because of its use of the Scots language and profanity. A “disgrace”, Rabbi Julia Neuberger, now in The House of Lords, denounced the award as it didn’t fit how the elite bourgeois ever taught one to consider or produce literature. Come to think of it, are many awards much more for the institution giving it out than they are for the winner? They need you to care who wins, they need advertising revenue after all. They need to maintain their image. Ego requires recognition. Humans must know their talents and opinions are of higher status than others. No offence likes but were other planets allowed to vote in the Miss Universe competitions? Asking for an enemy… The now cancelled, Woody Allen, famously didn’t show up to award shows/recognition rituals and this annoyed who the most? Probably those giving out the award—although we cannot speak for anyone nor the retrospective relief on their faces. These days, few remember Katherine Hepburn or Marlon Brando refusing to attend The Oscars.
Would you like an award printed by yourself on a jittery and low-ink blotchy inkjet printer or by your peers wearing ostentatious gowns and tuxedos… the gold statue they hand you glimmering under various Venetian chandeliers? Of course, the latter, because it’s nice to be liked by those you respect or loved by strange strangers who wish they knew you, not the real you, the illusion you’ve created.
Let’s admit, there’s something so madly beautiful about printing out your own honorary degree, putting it in a frame and hanging it in your shared vestibule where only the old lady who knits her own cardigans, Janice, can see it. She might spot it when she’s collecting mail, or turning off your water pipes again because the noise of running water is freaking her out, or perhaps when the power cuts come and you hear her door squeak as she goes armed with a torch to flick the master switch back.
An honorary degree, a special award mentioned in your bio might glean respect and prestige but will it help at all when apocalyptic tsunamis batter through the coasts and bring with them three-foot mutant rats with toxic green teeth and spiky tails, swimming with radioactive leeches in your hallway with Janice holding one of her deceased husband’s golf clubs as the rats try to bite you and the person you’ve created for blogs. Janice will wedding-ring punch the rat in the face and kick its squealing ass out of your building. As you stand there shivering in your soaking pyjamas you’ll want to give Janice an award. If only the internet still worked so you could use Canva to print her a certificate, a diploma in rat removal, but wait, would the award be for her, or for you?