Human Wet Diapers Being Allowed To Censor The Text Of Authors' Books
This, reported by Laura Miller on Slate, is exactly the wrong approach by writers and publishers -- agreeing to change text of books in coming editions in the wake of readers' complaints.
Elin Hilderbrand writes novels about people who summer in Nantucket and have lots of family secrets and complicated love lives. The books--whose covers feature beach scenes with women in sun hats and sherbet-colored towels fluttering in the sea breeze--reliably make the bestseller lists every July, snapped up by fans in search of vacation reading. Hilderbrand's seems a dreamy life, raking in the cash by offering fans a few hours of harmless, sunny escapism. But don't get too comfortable in that deck chair: Social media has arrived to harsh Hilderbrand's mellow.As described in an article in Publishers Weekly, readers on Instagram criticized Hilderbrand's summer 2021 book, The Golden Girl, for a passage in which two teens, Vivi and Savannah, discuss plans for Vivi to hide out in the attic of Savannah's house without Savannah's parents' knowledge: "You're suggesting I hide here all summer?" Vivi asks. "Like ... like Anne Frank?" The two friends laugh at this, but Vivi thinks to herself, "Is it really funny, and is Vivi so far off base?"
On an Instagram post in Hilderbrand's publisher's feed, a user who goes by the name "poursandpages" posted a comment (since deleted) denouncing this joke as "horrifically" antisemitic and demanding an apology. Others described themselves as "disgusted" and "gobsmacked in every way with the insensitivity" and accused Hilderbrand of thinking "antisemitism is funny." After trying to put out these fires via DMs, Hilderbrand issued a formal apology and stated that the line would be removed from the book.
Jews, of all people, should know better. Censorship leads in dark directions.
First, I find the Anne Frank joke funny, and I'm a Jew -- and also a Jew who probably lost family in the Holocaust. I say probably because they just disappeared. My mother told me before she died that we had extended family in Russia and they were just gone after World War II. She suspects they were shot into a ditch at Babi Yar.
Part of what I always enjoyed about being Jewish is the sort of dark humor of the German-Jewish and Russian-Jewish sides of my family -- and other Jews, probably, too. Personally, I find that laughing at things makes them a little less horrible or smaller -- and laughing at my own mistakes and misjudgments (like "OMG, how absurd!") is a way I manage them (and try to not fuck up all over again).
However, even if I found the Anne Frank joke offensive, there are a number of appropriate things to do, like writing an op-ed saying so, but pressing authors and publishers to republish books without some of the text because a person or some people are offended opens a very bad door. The public suddenly has power -- not just in what they choose to buy -- but in the creation of literary work.
No.
If any author is facing this, I hope they will contact me. I've contacted authors under fire and offered my support and whatever advice I had in the past.
Books should not be changed because of reader bullying.
Also, the joke in question is made by a fictional character. Fictional characters sometimes do or say horrible things - otherwise novels would be very dull. I read a novel by some Hemingway bloke that featured actual fascists saying actually pro-fascist things - and the author did not even make sure they lost the war, to show how wrong they were. Yet life goes on.
Simonsays at June 14, 2021 12:47 AM
It wasn't anti-Semitic. If the character had made some reference to Anne Frank supposedly being a horrible person by virtue of her Jewishness, then yes, it would be anti-Semitic.
But it wasn't. It was a high-schooler suggesting that hiding in the attic for an entire summer is similar to what Anne Frank did. Just the sort of comparison a high-schooler just learning about Anne Frank would comment on.
Patrick at June 14, 2021 12:49 AM
It was not an anti-Semitic comment. As Patrick pointed out, it was in keeping with the characters' ages that, to them, Anne Frank is memorable for having lived in an attic.
Conan the Grammarian at June 14, 2021 5:37 AM
Your FB pal Larry Correia is a goto for author's issues here:
How to deal with review assassins would seem to be relevant.
Radwaste at June 14, 2021 5:51 AM
Also, Larry's publisher, Baen Books, has been attacked by the perpetually-butthurt.
(Your SW is rejecting submissions with two links.)
Radwaste at June 14, 2021 5:53 AM
And HERE is where Larry curses those who force an author to pull her work entirely.
Radwaste at June 14, 2021 6:45 AM
Fine, fine, here's your edit:
"You're suggesting I hide here all summer?" Vivi asks. "Like ... like Joe Biden?"
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at June 14, 2021 7:32 AM
"(Your SW is rejecting submissions with two links.)"
But for me, the site rejects all my links, and has for months now. That's okay. I'll just sit here, alone, in the dark, hungry. Don't mind me. Even Crid couldn't help.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at June 14, 2021 7:34 AM
That's because you omitted the candlelight ceremony of midnight bloodlust incantations!
All we can do is offer the solutions, Goggles.
Crid at June 14, 2021 8:46 AM
Seriousballs, are you on an Ipad or Android tablet or something? Have you tried other browsers?
Are you in trouble with your ISP?
Crid at June 14, 2021 8:47 AM
If you cannot have bad people in a novel, or people who do stupid things, or people who are racist, or.... then what can you write about? Propaganda art is always lousy art.
In addition, almost anything can get someone upset because life is upsetting. "Love Story" featured a women with cancer IIRC. Upsetting to someone. The harry potter books upset some christians (witchcraft).
There are also people who are gunning for "unauthentic" writing--ie you write about black people but you are white, about trans people but are not trans, etc. They have succeeded in getting some books pulled. The ironic result would be that a straight white male writer can't have any characters who are female or non-white or gay. ie segregation in literature.
cc at June 14, 2021 9:29 AM
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that the forces of PCness have yet to cancel "Springtime for Hitler and Germany" and its author, since the song promotes Naziism.
bill schlonkie at June 14, 2021 2:25 PM
Bill, if Mel Brooks weren't Jewish, they would have, long ago, I would think.
Btw, it's worth noting that in the first edition of Little House on the Prairie, in the first chapter, it said: "There the wild animals wandered and fed as though they were in a pasture that stretched much farther than a man could see, and there were no people. Only Indians lived there."
I realize, of course, that that was completely different - there was no real excuse for THAT blunder.
From 2018:
https://www.mhpbooks.com/recognizing-dehumanizing-language-in-laura-ingalls-wilders-writing-the-ala-decides-to-remove-her-name-from-an-award/
Excerpt:
...Little House on the Prairie was published by Harper and Brothers in 1936. In 1952, when the ALA decided to name its award after Wilder, a studious and alarmed reader wrote to Wilder’s editor, calling out the “there were no people” language. The editor wrote back, noting her own shock, and had “people” changed to “settlers.”...
Laura herself apologized profusely, according to several sources.
And, it's certainly true that on multiple occasions in the novel, Pa (and Laura) spoke of the Osages in positive terms. (The whole narrative, in which Laura is old enough to realize how angry the Osages would be about being pushed off their land - and in which the same thing happens to her own family, to Pa's angry chagrin - was completely made up. She was only three when they left, and they only left because they couldn't sell their Wisconsin house - so they went back to it!)
But...even after the editorial change in 1952, I would hope most parents, today, would only ALLOW kids to read it - not push them to. (My mother loved all the books, but SHE never read them aloud - I did that myself.) After all, it's pretty clear that ultimately, the reader is supposed to support manifest destiny, whether it's fair or not. (Never mind all the scenes where the Osages ARE depicted as savages with no real rights.)
lenona at June 14, 2021 7:10 PM
You kind of wonder what fantasy is being, um, congealed for the kids who'll be reading that kind of bleached literature. It seems like people want to erase evidence of conflict, so that the little darlings might presume that native Americans were always as deeply loved as fellows amongst British noblemen in the old country.
Crid at June 14, 2021 7:27 PM
I love the scene where she's like, "But doesn't it make the Indians mad to..." and her parents are like shut up and go to sleep
NicoleK at June 15, 2021 6:13 AM
And, of course, it's easier for Ma to hate them than to blame Pa for bringing the family there in the first place - so that's where she directs her hate.
And, just as neither Laura nor the reader wants to believe that lovable Pa would ever do anything that was morally wrong, Pa believes that nothing HE wants - AND that was allowed by the government - could be wrong, as he implies in his conversation with Mr. Scott at the end.
lenona at June 16, 2021 5:49 AM
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