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A protestor holds a picture of a blood spattered Neda Agha-Soltan and another of a woman, Neda Soltani, who was widely misidentified as Neda Agha-Soltan.
It was agonizing, just a few weeks before publication of Martyrdom: A Very Short Introduction, to discover that there was a minor mistake in one of the captions. Especially frustrating, as it was too late to make the necessary correction to the first print run, though it will be repaired when the book is reprinted. New research had revealed the original mistake. The inaccuracy we had been given had circulated the web and had been published by numerous press agencies and journalists too. What precisely was wrong?
To answer this question it is necessary to go back to Iran. During one of the demonstrations in Tehran following the contested re-election of President Ahmadinejad in 2009, a young woman (Neda Agha-Soltan) stepped out of the car for some fresh air. A few moments later she was shot. As she lay on the ground dying her last moments were captured on film. These graphic pictures were then posted online. Within a few days these images had gone global. Soon demonstrators were using her blood-spattered face on posters protesting against the Iranian regime. Even though she had not intended to be a martyr, her death was turned into a martyrdom in Iran and around the world.
Many reports also placed another photo, purportedly of her looking healthy and flourishing, alongside the one of her bloodied face. It turns out that this was not actually her face but an image taken from the Facebook page of another Iranian with a similar name, Neda Soltani. This woman is still alive, but being incorrectly identified as the martyr has radically changed her life. She later described on BBC World Service (Outlook, 2 October 2012) and on BBC Radio 4 (Woman’s Hour, 22 October 2012)how she received hate mail and pressure from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence to support the claim that the other Neda was never killed. The visual error made it almost impossible for Soltani to stay in her home country. She fled Iran and was recently granted asylum in Germany. Neda Soltani has even written a book, entitled My Stolen Face, about her experience of being mistaken for a martyr.
The caption should therefore read something like: ‘A protestor holds a picture of a blood spattered Neda Agha-Soltan and another of a woman, Neda Soltani, who was widely misidentified as Neda Agha-Soltan.’ This mistake underlines how significant the role is of those who are left behind after a death. Martyrs are made. They are rarely, if ever, born. Communities remember, preserve, and elaborate upon fatal stories, sometimes turning them into martyrdoms. Neda’s actual death was commonly contested. Some members of the Iranian government described it as the result of a foreign conspiracy, while many others saw her as an innocent martyr. For these protestors she represents the tip of an iceberg of individuals who have recently lost their lives, their freedom, or their relatives in Iran. As such her death became the symbol of a wider protest movement.
This was also the case in several North African countries during the so-called Arab Spring. In Tunisia, in Algeria, and in Egypt the death of an individual was put to use soon after their passing. This is by no means a new phenomenon. Ancient, medieval, and early modern martyrdom stories are still retold, even if they were not captured on film. Tales of martyrdom have been regularly reiterated and amplified through a wide range of media. Woodcuts of martyrdoms from the sixteenth century, gruesome paintings from the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, photographs of executions from the nineteenth century, and fictional or documentary films from the twentieth century all contribute to the making of martyrs. Inevitably, martyrdom stories are elaborated upon. Like a shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean, they collect barnacles of additional detail. These details may be rooted in history,unintentional mistakes, or simply fictional leaps of the imagination. There is an ongoing debate, for example, around Neda’s life and death. Was she a protestor? How old was she when she died? Who killed her? Was she a martyr?
Martyrdoms commonly attract controversy. One person’s ‘martyr’ is another person’s ‘accidental death’ or ‘suicide bomber’ or ‘terrorist’. One community’s ‘heroic saint’ who died a martyr’s death is another’s ‘pseudo-martyr’ who wasted their life for a false set of beliefs. Martyrs can become the subject of political debate as well as religious devotion. The remains of a well-known martyr can be viewed as holy or in some way sacred. At least one Russian czar, two English kings, and a French monarch have all been described after their death as martyrs.
Neda was neither royalty nor politician. She had a relatively ordinary life, but an extraordinary death. Neda is like so many other individuals who are turned into martyrs: it is by their demise that they are often remembered. In this way even the most ordinary individual can become a martyr to the living after their deaths. Preserving their memory becomes a communal practice, taking place on canvas, in stone, and most recently online. Interpretations, elaborations, and mistakes commonly cluster around martyrdom narratives. These memories can be used both to incite violence and to promote peace. How martyrs are made, remembered, and then used remains the responsibility of the living.
Jolyon Mitchell is Professor of Communications, Arts and Religion, Director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues (CTPI) and Deputy Director of the Institute for the Advanced Study in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh. He is author and editor of a wide range of books including most recently: Promoting Peace, Inciting Violence: The Role of Religion and Media (2012); and Martyrdom: A Very Short Introduction (2012).
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Image credit: A protestor holds a picture of a blood spattered Neda Agha-Soltan and another of a woman, Neda Soltani, who was widely misidentified as Neda Agha-Soltan, used in full page context of p.49, Martyrdom: A Very Short Introduction, by Jolyon Mitchell. Image courtesy of Getty Images.
A New York Post photographer snaps a picture of a man as he is pushed to his death in front of a New York City subway. An anonymous blogger photographs a dying American ambassador as he is carried to hospital after an attack in Libya. Multiple images following a shooting at the Empire State Building show its victims across both social media and news outlets. A little over three months, three events, three pictures, three circles of outrage.
The most recent event involved a freelancer working for the New York Post who captured an image of a frantic Queens native as he tried futilely to escape an approaching train. Depicting the man clinging to the subway platform as the train sped toward him, the picture appeared on the Post’s front cover. Within hours, observers began deriding both the photographer and the newspaper: the photographer, they said, should have helped the man and avoided taking a picture, while earlier photos by him were critiqued for being soft and of insufficient news value; the newspaper, they continued, should not have displayed the picture, certainly not on its front cover, and its low status as a tabloid was trotted out as an object of collective sneering.
We have heard debates like this before — when pictures surfaced surrounding the deaths of leaders in the Middle East, the slaying of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, the shattering of those imperiled by numerous natural disasters, wars and acts of terror. Such pictures capture the agony of people facing their deaths, depicting the final moment of life in a way that draws viewers through a combination of empathy, voyeurism, and a recognition of sheer human anguish. But the debates that ensue over pictures of people about to die have less to do with the pictures, photographers or news publications that display them and more to do with the unresolved sentiments we have about what news pictures are for. Decisions about how best to accommodate pictures of impending death in the difficult events of the news inhabit a sliding rule of squeamishness, by which cries of appropriateness, decency and privacy are easily tossed about, but not always by the same people, for the same reasons or in any enduring or stable manner.
Pictures are powerful because they condense the complexity of difficult events into one small, memorable moment, a moment driven by high drama, public engagement, the imagination, the emotions and a sense of the contingent. No surprise, then, that what we feel about them is not ours alone. Responses to images in the news are complicated by a slew of moral, political and technological imperatives. And in order to show, see and engage with explicit pictures of death, impending or otherwise, all three parameters have to work in tandem: we need some degree of moral insistence to justify showing the pictures; we need political imperatives that mandate the importance of their being seen; and we need available technological opportunities that can easily facilitate their display. Though we presently have technology aplenty, our political and moral mandates change with circumstance. Consider, for instance, why it was okay to show and see Saddam Hussein about to die but not Daniel Pearl, to depict victims dying in the Asian tsunami but not those who jumped from the towers of 9/11. Suffice it to say that had the same picture of the New York City subway been taken in the 1940s, it would have generated professional acclaim, won awards, and become iconic.
At a time in which we readily see explicit images of death and violence all the time on television series, in fictional films and on the internet, we are troubled by the same graphic images in the news. We wouldn’t expect our news stories to keep from us the grisly details of difficult events out there in the world. We should expect no less from our news pictures.
Barbie Zelizer is the Raymond Williams Chair of Communication and the Director of the Scholars Program in Culture and Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of About to Die: How News Images Move the Public.
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A New York Post photographer snaps a picture of a man as he is pushed to his death in front of a New York City subway. An anonymous blogger photographs a dying American ambassador as he is carried to hospital after an attack in Libya. Multiple images following a shooting at the Empire State Building show its victims across both social media and news outlets. A little over three months, three events, three pictures, three circles of outrage.
The most recent event involved a freelancer working for the New York Post who captured an image of a frantic Queens native as he tried futilely to escape an approaching train. Depicting the man clinging to the subway platform as the train sped toward him, the picture appeared on the Post’s front cover. Within hours, observers began deriding both the photographer and the newspaper: the photographer, they said, should have helped the man and avoided taking a picture, while earlier photos by him were critiqued for being soft and of insufficient news value; the newspaper, they continued, should not have displayed the picture, certainly not on its front cover, and its low status as a tabloid was trotted out as an object of collective sneering.
We have heard debates like this before — when pictures surfaced surrounding the deaths of leaders in the Middle East, the slaying of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, the shattering of those imperiled by numerous natural disasters, wars and acts of terror. Such pictures capture the agony of people facing their deaths, depicting the final moment of life in a way that draws viewers through a combination of empathy, voyeurism, and a recognition of sheer human anguish. But the debates that ensue over pictures of people about to die have less to do with the pictures, photographers or news publications that display them and more to do with the unresolved sentiments we have about what news pictures are for. Decisions about how best to accommodate pictures of impending death in the difficult events of the news inhabit a sliding rule of squeamishness, by which cries of appropriateness, decency and privacy are easily tossed about, but not always by the same people, for the same reasons or in any enduring or stable manner.
Pictures are powerful because they condense the complexity of difficult events into one small, memorable moment, a moment driven by high drama, public engagement, the imagination, the emotions and a sense of the contingent. No surprise, then, that what we feel about them is not ours alone. Responses to images in the news are complicated by a slew of moral, political and technological imperatives. And in order to show, see and engage with explicit pictures of death, impending or otherwise, all three parameters have to work in tandem: we need some degree of moral insistence to justify showing the pictures; we need political imperatives that mandate the importance of their being seen; and we need available technological opportunities that can easily facilitate their display. Though we presently have technology aplenty, our political and moral mandates change with circumstance. Consider, for instance, why it was okay to show and see Saddam Hussein about to die but not Daniel Pearl, to depict victims dying in the Asian tsunami but not those who jumped from the towers of 9/11. Suffice it to say that had the same picture of the New York City subway been taken in the 1940s, it would have generated professional acclaim, won awards, and become iconic.
At a time in which we readily see explicit images of death and violence all the time on television series, in fictional films and on the internet, we are troubled by the same graphic images in the news. We wouldn’t expect our news stories to keep from us the grisly details of difficult events out there in the world. We should expect no less from our news pictures.
Barbie Zelizer is the Raymond Williams Chair of Communication and the Director of the Scholars Program in Culture and Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of About to Die: How News Images Move the Public.
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Subscribe to only media articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
By Margot Minardi
The new Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington, DC, attracted criticism from an unlikely corner recently when poet Maya Angelou complained that one of the inscriptions made the civil rights leader seem like an “arrogant twit.” In a sermon on “The Drum Major Instinct,” delivered two months before
Happy Tau Day, the most exciting math holiday you’ve yet to discover! Today, June 28th is 6/28, which contains in order the first three digits of tau (τ), the rival of math’s most popular irrational number, pi (π).
In 2001, Bob Palais wrote an article for The Mathematical Investigator called ,“π is wrong!” In it, he insists that the choice of using π in our mathematical formulas for hundreds of years is no good. He argues that the use of τ would simplify many formulas and its derivation is much more intuitive. (Notice that the symbol resembles that for pi, but with one "leg" instead of two.)
The significance of our beloved irrational number π is that it is equal to the ratio of the circumference of any circle to its diameter--in notation, π = C/d. However, the most defining characteristic of a circle is not its diameter but its radius. A circle is defined as the collection of points on a plane that are exactly the same distance, its radius, from a point, its center. Palais argues that intuition should direct us to the use of a more elegant Circle Constant, tau, where τ is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its radius--in notation, τ = C/r.
Self-described “notorious mathematical propagandist” Michael Hartl takes the argument even further in his now-famous “The Tau Manifesto,” which he published on Tau Day of 2010, exactly one year ago. He demonstrates with many adapted formulas that the factor of 2 is unnecessary if we incorporate it into the ratio itself. For instance, the periods of basic trigonometric functions f(x) = sin(x), and f(x) = cos(x), are in both cases 2π. Why not change them to tau instead? Palais and Hartl each list numerous other examples from calculus and physics, in which the factor of 2 is rendered obsolete by replacing 2π with τ.
The really intuitive part is revealed if you think of angle measure. How things are done now with π, a half turn of the circle is π radians, and a full turn is 2π radians. Should we adopt τ instead, τ radians would be a full turn, τ/2 radians a half turn, τ/4 radians a quarter turn, and so on.
There are, of course, instances where π appears un-doubled. For instance, the formula for area of a circle: A = πr2. Hartl shows, in a mathematically sophisticated way, that the replacement of π by τ even in this instance is the more sound choice, since it is analogous to similar formulas in physics.
An article in today’s BBC News paints the issue as a violent conflict, with pi detractors up in arms over a lifetime of educational betrayal, which seems to this mathematician something of a manufactured controversy. (I can imagine you'd be upset if you are the sort of mathematician that has memorized pi to the nth digit. If you are one of these folks, here's the start for your new parlor trick: reciting tau, 6.283185307...)
Is it worthwhile to switch to tau use, an
2 Comments on Is Tau Better Than Pi? Irrational Arguments, last added: 6/29/2011
Great post. I almost forgot about tau since 6/28 is a special day for me. I guess the debate will go on, but probably not much change.
Anonymous said, on 6/29/2011 9:09:00 AM
You have explained this so well! I would like to try replacing pi with tau when I cover circles with my students. It will be a great opportunity for them to take a position and argue it one way or the other.
Filmmaker Mary McDonagh Murphy has created a new documentary about celebrated authorHarper Lee entitled Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird.
According to Shelf Awareness, the film will feature interviews with Anna Quindlen, Tom Brokaw, James McBride, James Patterson, Wally Lamb, and Oprah Winfrey. Some of those celebrities can be seen in the trailer embedded above.
Initially, the film will have a limited release in New York City and Los Angeles starting May 13th with a nationwide release to follow. Last year, Murphy published Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird for the book’s 50th anniversary.
I feel the need to weigh in on this, or at least to fling it out there. So apparently there's a new study out that says children's books are inherently sexist because of the disparity between female and male heroes. It was conducted at Florida State University and reported in the Daily Mail. Clippage? Don't mind if I do.
Overall, 31 per cent of the best-sellers featured a female lead character, compared to 57 per cent featuring a male. The remainder gave equal weight to a male and female protagonist, or had a gender-neutral character.
Hmm. Damning numbers, those. And yet, we've been bewailing the dearth of "boy books" for awhile now.
What to think? I think it's too late at night to be reasonably coherent about this, especially on the same day as a major program (head-to-toe pinata paste here, people. Hot tip: pack extra clothes).
Those of you in the trenches with me (hi!), be my brain. What do you think? Is sexism alive and well in the children's section? And here's more: do you think there are differences between different age levels? Are picture books more or less sexist than chapter books? Are different genres more or less sexist?
2 Comments on Sexism in Children's Books?, last added: 5/5/2011
I wish they'd linked to the study itself. I'd like to know more about their methodology. Certainly looking at today's NYT bestselling lists, the children's books seem pretty evenly split in terms of main character's gender.
Regardless, I feel like these discussions turn into a comparison of apples and oranges. Boys are observed to lag behind girls in reading, so many people assume the solution is to publish more fiction literature with boys as the main characters. But research has also shown that boys are more likely than girls to take pleasure in reading elsewhere: nonfiction, magazines, etc. If that's true, all the male main characters in the world won't change that trend.
In my ideal world, there's balance in all areas of literature. I do believe that our world is sexist and that children's publishing is, too -- but we're so accustomed to it, we've become blind/complacent. We don't think about the fact that Pooh and Curious George are male, yet Fancy Nancy is undeniably "girls only." We're surprised when a female character such as Katniss grabs hold of readers across gender lines because it *is* unusual in our culture. Sexism doesn't need to be malicious to exist.
I'd like to see the methodology too. Did they examine everything published or just major publishers? Just US books, or imports as well? Did they weigh bestsellers differently? I also find the language somewhat loaded. I think the word annilhation was used at one point, suggesting a deliberate maliciousness rather than it being a result of our admittedly flawed culture. It's providing food for thought anyway.
In her memoir (Hiroshima in the Morning) and personal essay (“Why I Left My Children“), authorRahna Reiko Rizzuto explained why she left her husband and two sons (ages three and five at the time) to become a part-time parent.
The video embedded above features a Today Show clip with Rizzuto and relationship expert Argie Allen. A recent profile of the author on Shine generated more than 16,000 comments, 360 re-tweets on Twitter, and 75,000 “likes” on Facebook.
What do you think? Here’s an excerpt from the article: “In any case, it’s evident that there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to motherhood. But does striking out on your own or being a ‘Hiroshima Mom’ take free-range parenting to an extreme?”
What a great weekend this was! I love meeting the people whose blogs and books I've been reading. I hung out and talked books, blogging, general geekery, and all manner of other things.
As to the conference itself, here's what we did.
The Blog Within: This was a solo presentation by MotherReader, about the 5 W's and one H of blogging. It wasn't so much a presentation as a rather Zen reflection on why we blog, who we blog for, etc. She also recommends doing this at specific times during the year to return yourself to your original intentions for your blog, and re-energize yourself.
Building a Better Blog: MotherReader and GalleySmith did this one as a team. They talked about such nitty-gritty, nuts & bolts things as the design of your blog to make it a better experience for your readers and how to comport yourself online knowing that the Internet is forever. While they gave a lot of great tips, it all boiled down to three things to keep in mind: purpose, passion, and professionalism.
At this point, we split into concurrent sessions. I went to It's All About the Book, presented by BookNut, BiblioFile, The Miss Rumphius Effect, and A Year of Reading. We talked about writing reviews, content vs. filler, and ways to participate in the larger blogging community. By the way, what do you guys think about comments? I don't often get the chance to leave comments, but there's a difference between "Cool post, yeah" and "Interesting, here's my thoughts." Greg Pincus of The Happy Accident thinks blogs should have a "Like This" button like Facebook, and I agree. It's a way to participate a little if you don't have time for more. Google Reader did recently add a "Like" option, but it only works for readers, and the blogger doesn't get notified. Hmm. Something to think about.
Then it was back to the big ballroom for Meet the Author. My inner fangirl really comes out to play at these things. I got to talk to Varian Johnson (who gave me one of the two ARCs he'd brought with him, largely because I begged shamelessly), Elizabeth Scott, Joan Holub, Jacqueline Jules, Paula Chase, Pam Bachorz, and too many other authors to count. Between this session and the ARC table in the back, I ended up mailing boxes to myself. It was either that or lug it all in my carryon luggage, and then the plane would never get off the ground.
Then it was time for the last-minute, special surprise treat of the conference: FTC Regulations for the Blogger. Okay, that's not the formal name but it was so last-minute that it didn't even have a formal name. Pam got ahold of the FTC last week and managed to get a representative to come out to us. Mary Engle, Associate Director of Advertising Practices, agreed to visit and hear our concerns, and give the answers that she could. This was probably the most useful session in a whole valuable day. There are excellent, thoughtful recaps from Galleysmith, Jennifer R. Hubbard at WriterJenn, A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy, and any number of others. Here are the main points I got out of it:
There's a difference between an impartial reviewer and someone who's part of a specific marketing campaign. We're the former; they're looking at the latter.
The FTC is targeting corporations who are advertising unethically, not individuals who are the medium by which the corporations are advertising. They have no ability, or desire, to patrol the entire blogosphere and bring the hammer down on individual bloggers.
That scary $11k figure that was getting thrown around is a miscommunication. That fine is for the hard-and-fast rules, and the recent blogger regulations are more guidelines. Like the pirate code.
It's a smart idea to disclose review copies, but the FTC isn't requiring it. (That being said, the kidlitosphere has pretty well agreed that disclosing ties like free reviewer copies, Amazon Affiliate/Vine membership, etc, is the professional and ethical thing to do.)
However, if you do disclose, especially things like Amazon Affiliate membership, it needs to be upfront and prominent. In Engle's words, readers should not have to search for it. The best way is probably a short line right in the post. For instance, LizB at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy has taken to noting her Amazon Affiliate membership at the end of every post.
This is all a work in progress. Engle admitted that they could have set more definitions to clarify the difference between reviewers and marketing programs. The FTC has set up an email address, endorsements@ftc.gov, for concerns. They can't answer individual questions, but it sounded like they were going to use the emails they get to write a FAQ for bloggers.
Awesome work by MotherReader getting that set up, and thanks to Mary Engle and the FTC for taking the time for us.
After that, it was lunchtime. Part Two of the day is coming your way tomorrow! By the way, if you want some more dimension than my brief comments provided, check out other roundups around the blogosphere (here are a few, in the comments of MotherReader's post) or check out the Twitter transcript that Greg Pincus posted at the Happy Accident on the evening after the conference.
6 Comments on KidLitCon: Overview Part One, last added: 10/21/2009
I have read a number of posts about the KidLit conference and it's amazing how each one mentions similar but also different aspects. Thanks for your overview; it reminded me of why I enjoyed it so much (and was so tired Sunday!).
Thanks for the insight on the FTC blogger-reviewer thingy-impending fiasco. Somehow, I got the impression that some misguided regulator was trying to save newspaper review columnists, though only a feeling. Did you sense that the FTC was backpedaling from an indefensible and arbitrarily targeted stance they had taken? I can't imagine it would have stood a court test.
Mary: That's what I love about these roundups too! The more posts out there, the fuller picture you get.
Dan: I don't get the impression that it was backpedaling so much as they put what they had out there without much clarification. Then somebody got ahold of it and went "DOOOOOM" without getting all the facts straight, and of course stuff like this spreads like smallpox on the Internet. I am happy that they're making an effort to respond to it. Engle told us that the FTC is in reality quite a small agency in terms of manpower--another reason they have no desire to police all the blogs on the Internet.
Melissa: The geek flag flies high with me. Glad to know I'm not alone.
With the recent release of Vladimir Nabokov’s never-before-published and not-quite-finished novel, The Original of Laura, I thought it might be interesting to touch on the debate that was brought about because of its publication.
After having written the incredible Lolita, and some of my all-time favorite short stories, Nabokov was working on The Original of Laura at the time of his death, in 1977. With strict instructions for his yet-to-be-finished novel to be burned upon his death, the manuscript was not burned, but rather placed in his wife’s hands, and then, upon her death, passed on to his son, Dimitri. A great article on the matter was written by Ron Rosenbaum for the New York Observer back in 2005, pleading for Dimitri Nabokov to allow the manuscript to either be published or gather dust, but to never let it burn. I suggest you read the article to see just how passionate some people are in the literary world--the poor guy is at the point of panic towards the end of his article. So, I’m gathering he’s pleased now that Nabokov’s unfinished, semi-unauthorized work has finally been released.
Message boards have been filled with comments regarding the publication, and the topic was touched upon in morning news shows as well as in blogs and newspaper columns. Rosenbaum stated that Nabokov’s son, Dimitri, had a "responsibility to the literary world” to publish the “last fragments of his father’s genius."
Many questions arise from this debate: Did Dimitri really have a responsibility to publish his father’s work, despite being told not to? In Leland de la Durantaye’s Boston Review article, "Last Wishes," he writes that Vladimir Nabokov’s wife had to stop her husband from burning a draft of Lolita. Lolita! Was his son, then, afraid of a possible new masterpiece being overlooked, never to be appreciated?
With all these thoughts filling my head, I tend to get a little philosophical and start to wonder about the ethics of the situation. It’s certainly sad to think that another masterpiece could have stayed locked up in a safety-deposit box forever, but was it ok to go against Nabokov’s final request?
How much say or ownership can an author really have upon their death? And, do you think it’s ok to go against an author’s wishes for the sake of art?
7 Comments on Reading forbidden material, last added: 12/24/2009
I think it depends on how the author viewed most of his work.
If he was one of those who never thought anything was "good enough" - then maybe it was perfectionism that led him to request it not be published ... and maybe it's a beautifully wrought piece of work - ready for the light of day.
But what if it were a "shitty" first draft? Not perfected and polished. I'm not sure I'd want a "less than my best effort" included in the canonical record of my work.
And God forbid someone post-passing comment on how it didn't stand up - and maybe the other works were "flukes".
The problem in this case, I think, is that Nabokov was once asked in an interview if he would ever let critics / scholars have a look at his first drafts. He said never, and said it would be like offering up his sputum for examination.
The Original of Laura is a very rough draft, and reads as such, egregious misspellings and all. I don't think Nabokov would have approved. But he's dead. And I, for one, and glad to have the chance to catch a glimpse of Nabokov's inner workings. It reveals him as human, for one thing, and not a Writing Deity as his superlative prose sometimes makes him appear to be.
I'm actually not in favor of going against an author's last wishes, because I would not want someone to go against my own wishes like that. My first drafts are rough. Often, when revising, I find that some of my points didn't come through the way I intended, and I would not want the world to judge me off something that just came out wrong. I feel like my writing is mine until I choose to share it, and would resent someone else making that choice for me. It'd be even more so if a past work of mine had been considered genius. Perhaps the newest one would have been too if I'd had time to finish, but releasing it while sloppy just casts doubt on everything I've ever written.
Well yes, I do think it's OK for someone to override a writer's instructions to destroy that writer's work after death. Apart from Nobokov, I think only one other example need be cited to illustrate the point: Franz Kafka.
Mischa KK Bagley.
Anonymous said, on 12/24/2009 2:21:00 PM
It's always OK to disrespect somebody's wishes because it suits you!
If it were me, I'd come back to life just to strangle the bastard. And possibly eat his brain.
Unlike some of the people who have blogged about the fail, I do not like this cover – it’s a run-of-the-mill, assembly line cover just like many, many other covers. It seems some marketing departments figure they’ve discovered the formula for selling lots of books. Boy, I like to think it’s not true.
Some have asked “where is the outrage” on this issue. I thought there was plenty of outrage with the first blog outing of a “racefail” cover. I guess not enough. I’m hoping this second run does the trick.
I, for one, will be looking to see/highlight people of color on more book covers. And real people, not just the beautiful ones.
6 Comments on Oh, no. Not again!, last added: 1/20/2010
I totally agree with you about the cover – it just doesn’t look interesting to me. I’d seen some reviews and talk about this book before the controversy, but I didn’t even dig far enough to find out what the book was about because it looked like dozens of other fantasy books. Meh. I would have been MUCH more intrigued if it had had a dark-skinned girl on the cover.
Julie Larios said, on 1/17/2010 8:59:00 PM
I haven’t even seen the book, so I may be speaking out of turn here, but part of the outrage about LIAR came about because Justine Larbalestier came out with her own response to the disappointing cover – she, also, was stunned by the “racefail” (that term is new to me….) I’m curious – has anyone heard Jaclyn Dolamore, the author of Magic Under Glass? She is not a person of color – has she weighed in on this? I’m also curious about the, UK cover, which doesn’t come any closer to portraying people of color -it just shows two slightly Edwardian children – I’d say both white – next to a piano. What’s up with that? You can see it if you click on the My Books link at Dolamore’s website – http://jaclyndolamore.com/
L. said, on 1/18/2010 1:07:00 PM
First thing I did when I read about this was go to Dolamore’s website. Didn’t find any reference to the coverfail. I’m sure other bloggers will be commenting on it.
I think that Larbalestier waited to comment as well – it’s my recollection that there was a lot already said before she weighed in. The controversy gained outrage, maybe, when we found out that the author was not in favor of the cover. I imagine that if you’re an author of a book that does this, it makes you pretty uncomfortable. I would think it required a lot of consideration of multiple issues before commenting.
mclicious said, on 1/18/2010 3:43:00 PM
That’s a good post you linked to. I vote for boycotting and annoying them with intelligent but rude emails telling them what assholes they are. Clearly there is more to be said about this. I think it needs to move from blogs (well, not disappear from blogs, just grow out of them) and go to bigger news sources. Why isn’t the Times reporting on this? Or Publisher’s Weekly? Or Writer’s Digest? We need to make people who aren’t already attune to publishing issues attune to this.
Julie Larios said, on 1/19/2010 10:32:00 AM
Rethinking my earlier comment: It’s a very different thing for a debut author to have to buck her publisher’s cover decisions than it is for Justine Larbalestier to do so … I don’t think Dolamore should really be asked to explain her silence (well, it’s not even silence, since the video trailer she’s responsible for does show a person of color) – but I do think Bloomsbury should have to explain their decision. Last time, with LIAR, they said the cover reflected the unreliable narrator, and I thought that was quite a stretch.) I’d be much more interested in how they explain the latest lapse in judgment – not having read the book, I don’t know what kind of metaphor the marketing people thought the race switch could reflect – it’s going to be another stretch, I’m thinking…..
Nothing causes author duress like the unveiling of the book cover. In my experience, it’s one of the most stressful parts of the publishing process, and there are days when I wish we could go back to the days of unjacketed books, when the only thing to get fired up about would be the font type! I’m sure Bloomsbury Children’s Books is wishing the same thing right about now.
This past summer, Bloomsbury had a big controversy on their hands when people noticed that the cover model for the book Liar by Justine Larbalestier didn’t exactly match the description of Micah, the protagonist in the book. At first, Bloomsbury tried to explain away the decision, saying that this was somehow a reflection of the character’s compulsive lying. They eventually relented, and a new jacket was prepared in time for publication. Though there was some residual blogger anger, things simmered down.
Until Bloomsbury did the same thing again. This time with Jaclyn Dalmore’s Magic Under Glass (a great book, by the way). This time, there were no liars to blame. While the book describes the protagonist, Nimira, as “dark-skinned,” the cover depicts a fair-skinned, corseted girl. While people were upset about Liar, the reaction to this cover was scathing. Jezebel’s (linked above) headline read “The White-Washing of Young Adult Fiction Continues.” Some bloggers went so far as to call for a boycott of Bloomsbury, though they realized they’d be hurting the authors as much, if not more, than the publishing company. And there’s much more to read on the subject at Reading in Color, Bookshelves of Doom, and Chasing Ray, as well as many others (you could spend all day linking between the blogs—and I hope you do).
So why do I bring this up? I think it’s important that we’re all paying attention to the issues involved here, and by linking to these other smart people and their opinions, I hope to generate more good, healthy discussion. As Justine Larbalestier pointed out when the controversy erupted around her book, the reason this happens is that booksellers believe that books with people of color on the cover don’t sell. Yikes. I really don’t think that’s true, despite what people tell me. The publishing industry has neglected people of color in the past, claiming there was no audience for books by and for people of color. Can you imagine? They learned their lesson when authors started self-publishing and selling hundreds of thousands of copies of the books that the publishers turned down. And now those same authors do big business with New York publishers, making them millions.
I hope some progressive, enterprising publishers start to prove these booksellers wrong by designing covers that prominently feature people of color. And when one breaks out and becomes a huge bestseller, maybe we can stop being so cynical. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this, and as always, let’s keep the conversation respectful and positive.
8 Comments on Cover controversies, last added: 1/26/2010
I find this hard to believe too, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I remember the first depictions of African-Americans in books; they were essentially white people made to look dark. I've also seen other book covers featuring Caucasian-looking black characters. It's hard to imagine the opposite happening.
There's another issue here too. It's always struck me as odd that some artists obviously don't read the books they're illustrating. As a child, it really used to bother me when a character was described one way in a book and rendered in an entirely different way by the illustrator. Surely this could be easily remedied by better communication between illustrators and publishers.
Here Here. Obviously if YA of color cannot be depicted on the cover, they shouldnt be reading these books either (and paying for them), or for that matter, when we... er... they, grow up, not be writing them either!
What a "ridonkulous" assumption on some publishers' part. By that reasoning, I guess The Color Purple cover should have featured violet-colored characters? The film industry obviously (and thankfully) doesn't take this stance, and it hasn't seemed to hurt their box office takes. grr
Linda said, on 1/26/2010 11:45:00 AM
That surprises me as one of my all time favorite books, that I read as a child over 30 years ago, is "Phillip Hall Likes Me I Reckon Maybe" and the cover is very true to character, a lovely young girl of color. As a typical elementary student it was the cover that made my decision to read it.
I think the "books with people of color on the cover don't sell" argument is inherantly wrong because, as far as I've seen, there's been no study to prove it. Has there been a study to compare how books with people of color on them sell compared to books with white people on their covers? And if they do sell less, is there another reason (e.g. they were aimed a niche audience, shelved obscurely, just happened to be more poorly written and reviewed, etc.)? I don't think publishers can make this claim until they start putting people of other races on their covers and compare how they sell. As Colette said above me, books with people of color on the cover can't sell if they don't exist.
Furthermore, why wouldn't they? I'd like to believe our society isn't that backwards still. Our president is black, as are many of our biggest entertainers. Are we really willing to watch them on screen, but can't face seeing them on the books we read?
I hope people continue talking about this because it's the only way to make the publishers see. If we boycotted these books, we'd only be hurting the authors, who have little-to-zero say in the cover design, and that would only give the publishers ammunition for their arguments.
I still can't believe they did it, and more than once. It's underestimating the buying public, and like Colette and Kristin have said we can't buy stories about people of colour if we don't know they exist. Give us some credit publishers.
Amazon’s recent move to remove the “buy” buttons for nearly all of Macmillan’s books including bestsellers, top releases, and Kindle editions was in my opinion incredibly short-sighted and could in the end really hurt the retailer. And now it seems it has backfired.
This move occurred during the same week that Steve Jobs and Apple launched the iPad which could compete head to head with the Kindle. Apple has met with at least five of the six major publishing giants with regard to pricing (of the Big Six, only Random House’s logo was missing from the iPad announcement, though they’re said to be in discussion with Apple). In this model, publishers will be able to set their own prices for books and pay a commission to Amazon, as opposed to the Kindle model where Amazon sets the price.
Hopefully, a lesson has been learned here. Amazon should not be bullying publishers. Rather we should all be working together in this electronic age to keep the publishing industry alive and healthy. There are too many people predicting the death of book publishing these days. We all need to work together to make sure this is far from the truth.
If you subscribe to Publishers Lunch Deluxe, you can see the whole story as it developed here.
9 Comments on What was Jeff Bezos thinking, or John Sargent is my hero, last added: 2/1/2010
This isn't an easy situation with clear good and bad guys. The joke is that it's neither Macmillan or Amazon who are the bullies here.
You'd be very hard-pressed to find anyone in the record industry with a good word to say about Apple and iTunes. Apple have locked the music industry into a deal that's great for Apple, terrible for the people who make music, and extremely inflexible and tenuous for the consumer. It's not entirely clear exactly what you're buying when you buy something on iTunes, it is clear that Apple can take it away from you at will.
If the publishing industry goes down the Apple route, it'll go the way of the record companies.
Amazon are not saints here, but they are people who buy books in bulk, and when they run something as a loss leader, they bear the brunt of that loss. If they agree a wholesale price with the publisher, then the retail price is Amazon's business - literally.
We're in the early days of ebooks. We don't know how consumers will adopt them, what they'll use them for, we don't know all the advantages and disadvantages, yet. Amazon's model is flexible, can adapt and be revisited. Apple's model is old-fashioned and exploitative, they've basically mesmerized the publishing industry and convinced them to iPad or die.
Apple lose more if the publishing industry stands up to them than the publishing industry gains if it cedes all rights to them.
This is a time to keep options open, to have the people who own the intellectual property and copyrights understand that *they* are the ones with the valuable commodity, and to let consumers work out what they want, rather than lock everyone into a model that's based on what some marketing strategist in a computer company would like it to be solely to maximize hardware sales.
I think it's all a matter of perspective, really. Many large corporations like the big profits, without having to spend much to get them. The music industry complained about iTunes because it mean a smaller income for the labels - still ridiculously good to the average joe, but to corporations who are used to billions in profit losing a billion or two they treat it like it's the end of the world. Now I totally think that musicians should be getting paid for their craft and paid reasonably, but I don't think Apple's the culprit in that industry.
It's the same with Amazon. Amazon wants big profits with little outward cashflow. Macmillan wanted to set their own prices which meant Amazon wouldn't get the ridiculously high profits, so they decided to play hardball. And backlash ensued. Someone on another site said that Amazon needs publishers far more than publishers need Amazon, and I agree. They're not the be-all that they think they are.
Anonymous said, on 2/1/2010 9:04:00 AM
I'm a writer and I'm following all this as best I can (and I have a brain for business, so I'm not totally lost or anything), but I have to say, THANK GOD I HAVE MY AGENT TO REALLY UNDERSTAND THIS.
Anonymous said, on 2/1/2010 9:13:00 AM
"but to corporations who are used to billions in profit losing a billion or two they treat it like it's the end of the world."
The problem with that is that the billions are still there - they just go to Apple instead. Not to the musician, not to the record label, not as savings to the consumer - just straight from the consumer to Apple. So, yes, the record company looks at all those billions and goes 'not fair'. And they don't buy as well, they buy instead.
Because it's computers, publisher see the iPad as some holy grail that will get kids reading and make all their books shiny and all singing, all dancing. They think Apple are doing them a favor.
Just imagine, for a moment, that it was just another size of paper book. Call it a padback. Now read the terms of the Apple agreement, pretending it's just some new format of book. No agent or publisher would fall for it. But the iPad's got wireless, so WOW, better just hand over the content for practically nothing.
I think the words in a book are a pretty important component. There are actually plenty of people in publishing who laugh at that idea, but call me old-fashioned.
People will buy an iPad if the content justifies it. They won't if it doesn't. Apple want to get as much content for as little money as they can, and they're going to succeed, because the publishing industry is like a little old lady who falls for the man who comes round offering to take away all her clutter, and he'll do it for only $20, just hand over the house keys. And it's almost funny, because the iTunes model is right there, the old lady next door who did the same with the same guy and woke up the next day to find her house had been stripped bare.
Amazon are on the side of the angels, here. Or, at the very least, they're the ones supporting the core business of publishers - selling actual books for actual money.
From link - Amazon: "...we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillian has a monopoly over their own titles..." [italics added]
To a monopolist, everything is a monopoly, or attempt at monopoly, is it not?
It reminds me of an article I read in some tech magazine I was browsing through, when I was working as a temp, bored out of my mind - software developers were talking politics - one was saying he was a libertarian, because, see, now that we have computers, we don't need government anymore, people should just be free to do whatever they want, unleash their creativity, we'll all be awash in money anyway [I paraphrase and satirize, slightly], so we just don't need that pesky regulation'n'legislation, or extra-pesky concepts like "fairness," or even "justice," all that creaky irrelevant pre-computer socioeconomic "architecture," so to speak.
It's almost a talismanic faith in small devices - because I carry X, therefore (for instance) socialists and fascists will never be battling it out in the streets of my suburb! I'm protected by my iPod! As if certain social disturbances, brought on by economic imbalance (to put it nicely), are precluded by the mere existence of a Kindle or an iPad. But then how'd that hoary word "monopoly," bewhiskered and with a chest full of medals, get into the discussion in the first place?
"Amazon are on the side of the angels, here. Or, at the very least, they're the ones supporting the core business of publishers - selling actual books for actual money."
Can't say I agree with this. Bookstores still account for the majority of book sales, as I understand it Amazon doesn't account for a huge part of them. I still stand by the statement that Amazon needs publishers more than publishers need Amazon. Bullying them is not the way Amazon should have gone.
Their removal of books was an attempt to show Macmillan that they needed Amazon not based on money, not based on what we involved in the industry think, but by getting a rise out of the fans.
By capitulating on Sunday night, Amazon made certain that they would get the whole story included in the papers come Monday morning, and appear to be the good guy in the fight to the group that really matters - consumers.
Amazon was pricing at $9.99 because it's a price point that is supported by market research to maximize profits through volume. To achieve market saturation, Amazon was willing to take a loss on each sale in order to grow the market at what they believe to be a sustainable level. That's a hell of a commitment.
Under the Macmillan deal, Amazon will make between $4 and $5 per book which is a mathematically infinite improvement over the previous deal.
Macmillan now does have near-complete control over their own pricing and are capable of adjusting prices at will (or reasonably close to it). This leads to two questions - if publishers won't price books at a level that the market will tolerate, is publishing ready to counter actual eBook piracy? And second, what type of structure does Macmillan have in place to keeping up with royalties owed to authors in an age of dynamic pricing?
Anonymous said, on 2/1/2010 1:23:00 PM
"Bookstores still account for the majority of book sales, as I understand it Amazon doesn't account for a huge part of them."
In the recent controversy between Amazon and Macmillan over pricing of ebooks, Amazon took the unusual step of pulling all “buy buttons” from Macmillan books; that is, you couldn’t buy Macmillan books on Amazon.
WhoMovedMyBuyButton.com
(This is the text of an Author’s Guild announcement to its members, used by permission.)
The Authors Guild is pleased to announce the launch of WhoMovedMyBuyButton.com, which is now live in fully-functional beta form. Who Moved My Buy Button? allows authors to keep track of whether Amazon has removed the “buy buttons” from any of their books.
Simply register the ISBNs of any books you’d like monitored, and our web tool will check daily to make sure your buy buttons are safe and sound. If there’s a problem, we’ll e-mail you an alert.
Ongoing monitoring. Although we’ve launched WhoMovedMyBuyButton.com in response to Amazon’s wholesale removal of buy buttons from Macmillan titles, we believe Amazon should be monitored for years to come. Amazon’s developed quite a fondness for employing this draconian tactic (there’s a chronology at the website); it’s only grown bolder with its growing market clout.
Vigilance is called for: sounding off is our best collective defense. Register your ISBNs today — it’s free and open to all authors, Guild members and not. (Though we’d prefer you join.)
The majority of authors are concerned with having some control over the way their books are published. They (rightfully) want to have a say in the title, the quality of the paper, the look of the interior, and the cover art and design. And, often, publishers fight authors on these things–sometimes tooth and nail.
So when I read this piece in last week’s New York magazine, it was nice to see, for a change, what might happen when an author doesn’t maintain the control he wants over his book’s publication.
I would be interested to hear what you think.
10 Comments on The blown “publishing coup of the century”, last added: 4/13/2010
Some years ago I sold a collection of short fiction to a well known UK publisher. They wanted an 'Irish style' cover and asked me to recommend a designer/artist which I did. They looked at samples of the artist's work and picked out the one piece of his that I really did not like. I thought it had no relevance to the stories and protested. Too late...mock-up arrived the following week. I should say that I didn't have an agent, if I had, maybe things would have been different.
The saddest part is that it seems Lathbury tried his hardest to abide by Salinger's wishes. He let Salinger have say over the spine, the paper used, etc., and extenuating circumstances and miscommunication (or misattribution of motives) got in the way. Applying for CIP data should be fairly standard, but given Salinger's fame, it tipped off a bunch of unwanted media. The fact that some bookstores jacked the price up didn't help either, and undermined any trust Salinger had invested in Lathbury. How heartbreaking for the publisher.
The thing is, only someone big like Salinger could have the luxury of being so picky, and obviously he wasn't as anxious to publish as some of us novice authors are. It's such a competitive business, how can debut authors go about fighting for what we want without being unrealistic or having the publisher cut the threads? They've got enough people knocking, yet I do think authors should have a heavy say, cover-art included.
I remember a best-selling, award-winning author say as he signed the cover of a certain book, "I hate this cover art." Seriously if that guy doesn't get a say then nobody gets a say. And as a side note, I agreed with him. The cover-art was heinous.
I know it's what's inside that counts but it's like an ugly face on your baby. You may love it still, but everyone else is judging your baby by the cover.
Jane, thank you for this link. What a lovely, sad story. Beyond the outcome, I so enjoyed the crumbs of insight into a writer I have long admired so greatly.
Then there was the irony that, in this case, the publisher was in such awe of the writer and so nervous of losing such a coup that he dared not argue any points or differences of opinion with the writer. As Liesl and eddiestack pointed out, that is much more frequently the experience of the writer, afraid to speak up for fear of losing their publishing deal or imposing their personal taste over marketing know-how. Certainly that's how I feel.
I guess there’s a small moral to this story – beware the press – but, for the most part, I will just take away the tenderness and honesty in this recollection.
Beautiful and interesting story. I think the author was way too demanding, but he kind of earned the right to be. After all, it wasn't he who submitted his work to the publisher, but rather the publisher who approached him.
Still, everyone involved must have learned some great lessons from the experience.
I love it that Lathbury won't sell or publish the letters. Salinger must have been hellish to work with, but there is something refreshing about an author who bends over backward not to promote himself.
It's a shame that Salinger interpreted the media attention as a betrayal by the publisher instead of the inevitable reaction of the press to something that the publisher could not have avoided. Especially since the publisher tried so hard to appease and mollify Salinger, catering to his whims.
I particularly like the fact that the publisher won't sell or publish the letters. That in itself tells me that the man has integrity.
Been doing a bit of reading on Laura Ingalls Wilder's portrayal of Native Americans in Little House on the Prairie, and if one more historian sees fit to remind me that "Wilder's genre was fiction -- and children's fiction at that," I'm going to blow a gasket.
1 Comments on Sunday grumble, last added: 7/28/2010
I never felt like Laura portrayed Native Americans in a deliberately negative light; at times there even seems to be some sympathy for their plight in the face of the political situation created by westward expansion. I also think there is a bit of implicit admiration, or perhaps just curosity as a young girl has her first contact with a people and a culture she has only heard about second hand. No, it's certainly not completely accurate, and you're well aware of all the filters and changes in perspective that are between the real events, the written story, and the reader. But I'm not going to let it diminish my enjoyment of the story, or keep my children from enjoying it as I did. That's not just because it's "historical fiction" or "children's literature", it's because there are really 3 stories worth studying: the actual historical events, Laura's fictional account, and the writing of the book itself. And that might be the ultimate criteria: right, wrong, or indifferent, how does it compare to other accounts published at the same time?
So a man and his 5-year old pooch, Trapper, walk into an Anglican church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the man wants communion. Nothing wrong with that - right? Think so? The priest welcomed the pair and when it was time for the human to receive communion, his dog followed him. The priest, Margaret Rea, didn't see anything wrong with giving both human and pooch communion, an act which is causing an uproar.
Rea said she had nothing to add to the apology she has already offered to her congregation.
"The incident is done, it's over and I have no more comment about it," she told AFP. "I am not going to discuss anything about it."
Thing is, presumably, the offense is giving a non-human communion. One wonders if the Higher Power finds it as equally offensive as some church members. The whole incident has made some people smile but one parishioner took it further and filed a complaint with the Toronto Diocese.
There's a nice photo of Trapper who is luckily oblivious over the stir he caused here:
Jim, Miriam, Jessica have already tackled two of this late summer’s most hotly anticipated releases, but the one I’m most excited for is one that I’ve already read. Emma Donoghue’s Room is on the Booker longlist and recently came out in the UK, where it’s receiving some very nice reviews. My BEA galley made the rounds in this office and has also been read by many of my friends, even though it’s not released in the US till mid-September. No one could deny Donoghue’s genius.
Apparently, though, at least one person feels that the book’s quality as a work of fiction is irrelevant given that it’s inspired in part by real events. The idea for Room came from the idea that when Josef Fritzl was captured, the children his daughter had borne while his captive had never seen the world outside where they were held. The story isn’t about the Fritzl case, and it’s not (unfortunately) the only case of that nature, but Donoghue admits to getting the idea for the book because of it. Writing in the Guardian, Darragh McManus objects to using a major tragedy as inspiration for a fictional work, presuming, apparently, that it’s a cynical choice motivated by greed. McManus grants an exemption for those with personal ties (Maus is okay, because of Spiegelman’s father) and apparently reserves no such negative judgment for people writing about smaller, less “newsworthy” tragedies, which I suppose is for the best given that it’d leave novelists with precious little to write about.
I think that McManus’s conclusion in the piece really misses the mark, in that I don’t think Donoghue is doing those things he claims are the reason for his “no big tragedies” policy in his concluding paragraph. That aside, though, I’m just not convinced that it can reasonably be considered wrong to write novels based on real events. Can it be crass and cynical? Absolutely. Though I doubt that most people writing stories inspired by, say, the Holocaust are being deliberately, consciously manipulative, I’m certainly not beyond finding some of them to be schmaltzy and cheap. But for me, it doesn’t follow that they shouldn’t have done it because I happen to feel that way. I’m just not comfortable with the notions that a) anyone owns particular tragedies, b) some tragedies are more important or sacred than others, or c) we’d be well served by declining to fictionalize them. Novels are a large part of the way that we understand the past and process our feelings about it in the present. I can only imagine how much we’d lose of our understanding of life, death, and what came before us if we saved it for the history books that many never bother to read.
In this case, I’m taking the old standby: if McManus isn’t comfortable with it, he doesn’t have to read it, but that doesn’t mean Donoghue shouldn’t write it.
5 Comments on Lines being crossed, last added: 8/28/2010
You really can't help it if something inspires you can you? In as much as Mcmanus has his freedom of speech Donoghue has her's too, so we'll just let the readers decide. ugh freedom of speech!
This is silly. Writers are intrigued by news stories like everybody else. I know of several writers who are already working on things inspired by the plight of those miners in Chile. They're not exploiting it; they're examining it. That's what fiction does.
In fact, aren't MOST fictional works inspired by real events? Most of my work is sparked by the "what if?" that happens in my head when I read a news item or hear somebody with an interesting personal tale.
But if his rant is getting publicity for Emma Donoghue, great!
Are we not supposed to be inspired by the world around us? It sounds as if Donoghue had a what-if moment, and the distaste towards it stems from the fact that the case is relatively recent. What about writers who are inspired by historical events? Arthur Miller used the Salem Witch Trials in The Crucible, too many authors to count drew from history and legend (including Homer and Shakespeare), and so on. Were many of those things not tragedies at the time? And seriously, what makes a tragedy "major" or "minor", since apparently minor tragedies are OK for McManus? One could argue that the Fritzl case is a minor tragedy since it only affects one family, if compared to something like 9/11 or the Rwandan genocide or the Israel-Palestine conflict or, yes, the Holocaust. The Fritzl case has just gotten a lot of news time.
But really, tragedy is tragedy, no matter the scale.
I think it's OK to be inspired by something in the current world, and there's a difference between being inspired to create an original story and writing a fictionalized account. The latter would be tasteless in my opinion, especially since the victims are still alive. I haven't read the book so I can't say, although I'll trust your judgment here.
I was on vacation last week, trying to keep off e-mail and the internet, and failing on both counts. When I found myself needing a break from the non-stop thrills of The Hunger Games trilogy, I’d wander over to the computer and check out my favorite news sites to see what or who was going to hell now. Paris Hilton banned from Vegas? Jan Brewer smiling idiotically at the camera for an hour and a half or so in the worst debate ever? Stephen Hawking jumping on the Christopher Hitchens bandwagon and dissing God? (Well, it does seem to sell books….)
But then my pleasure reading dovetailed nicely with my need to keep up with the relentless news cycle. I was still savoring Collins’ wonderful referencing of Fahrenheit 451 in Mockingjay when I read about the Florida pastor who seems to think it a novel and fine idea to burn the Quran as a 9/11 protest and I was once again struck by the thought that it’s amazing that our civilization has managed to survive our seeming inability to learn anything from history. And, why is it that religious and political zealots always seem to vent their general hatred of humanity on books? From Savonarola to Hitler to all those crazy fundamentalists who feel threatened by the dictionary, it seems that every time someone’s pissed off about something, there’s a marshmallow roast at a literary bonfire.
Now, we here at DGLM try to stay out of the political fray as much as possible. One of the tenets of our business is the freedom of ideas and expression. Most of us who work in publishing understand that no matter how loathsome an idea it is necessary to defend its author’s right to communicate it. As readers, we can choose not to buy the book. Or, we can choose to debate and counter that author’s arguments and defeat his/her position with rational and well-conceived rebuttals. Everyone who has been a publishing professional for any length of time has occasionally had to be involved with the publication of a book whose message or viewpoint s/he did not agree with. And most of us are appalled when certain groups rally together to boycott or ban a certain title on political, religious or moral grounds.
The Florida pastor planning the latest book burning is just following in a long tradition of intolerance and ignorance. Clearly, he doesn’t understand that books, like phoenixes, rise from the flames of censorship. The Quran, the Bible, and the Torah, have survived many of these gory ceremonies and come back stronger than ever. As have Anne Frank, Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, and Webster’s dictionary (last I heard they keep adding new words, some of them objectionable). Of course, that kind of attempted repression often (and perversely) makes for the premise of great literature.
What do you think? Is it ever okay to burn books?
11 Comments on FARENHEIT 451 redux, last added: 9/8/2010
It seems to me that most people assume if a book is worth burning, then it's worth reading. People who try to make a stand this way just end up having it blow up in their faces.
The only way I can see burning a book being acceptable is if you have to do it for survival purposes. Say, if the Ice Age comes and you have a choice between burning books and freezing to death.
Quoting from a friend's facebook comment (because that idiot is about 5 miles from where I live and I'd just joked about the third thing we have --after the gators and "don't taze me bro" --that made national news). Anyway she said, "Pointing out to non-Gainesvillians, the whole "Burn a Koran Day" thing is 30 people from the same Westboro supporting, koolaidy church. All their publicity stunts (including sending little kids to school in "Islam is of the Devil" shirts) tend to be geared towards selling their leader's book about Islam (although it's clear he's never studied any religious text, Bible included)."
And she's right. And it made national news immediately after the city denied them a burn permit. So I'm waiting to see if they do it anyway and get arrested or if they find a spot outside of town burn ordinances or if they give up because all they wanted was the publicity of the moment.
But now that that's out of the way: My first thought on book burning is: NOOOOOOOOO!
Second thought is: Well, if they legally buy all the books they plan on burning, well, they have every right to do it.
If I had a physical book, I'd be happy to sell 100 copies -- at discount even -- to a cult just so they COULD burn them on national news.
Think of the PUBLICITY. What a sales bump that would be.
That's another drawback to ebooks. Burning a hundred digital copies on a Kindle doesn't have the same flair (flare?). The Kindle just sort of melts quietly into a puddle.
It won't be long before a good old-fashioned book burning is passe.
Seriously, you can burn things in effigy (people, national spirit, ideas), but the things themselves will go on. No radical group can squelch majority opinion -- at least not for long.
I'd burn a book if I was freezing to death... even then I might let my fingers go a little frost-bitten before I lit the match.
I find it odd that someone could hate a book so much that they would burn it. They're so terrified by the ideas in those pages that they have to get rid of them. But ideas outlive their corporal forms and burning books is nothing more than showmanship in the end.
I loved the XKCD comic about book burning a few weeks back.
Is it ever "ok" (i.e. acceptable) to burn a book? If I'm freezing to death, sure.
There was one book I bought a copy of, read, and then destroyed, because it was actually physically dangerous. (It urged readers to do things that could kill them and never warned the readers that this stuff was dangerous, and it sounded innocent to anyone that didn't know what was involved.)
I didn't want to give that book away and be responsible for someone else's death. I didn't want to throw it in the trash (where it belonged) because I didn't someone else to find it. I didn't want it on my shelves, where someone might think I endorsed the ideas. So, I shredded it.
Did I hold a party and invite people to the shredding? No. Will I name the title or author in this post? No. I wish I could have thought of something else to do, but I didn't know what else I could ethically do. It was like trying to get rid of a gun.
Through reading the blog and comments that follow, I recall a quote from my all-time favorite movie, V for Vendetta. "We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world."
Case in point, you can burn the book or as many copies as you have. The idea still remains. Burning the book does not kill the idea, or story or the lessons contained within. It matters not the media, nor the method of destruction, the very act is a useless waste of resources and fails to its very core.
We, as authors, take our passion seriously and it is hard for me to even think of burning a book. I find it totally absurd. I do, however, respect the right to protest. Even the ignorant deserve a voice…unfortunately.
Benito said, on 9/7/2010 8:26:00 PM
In the last four months Jan Brewer has been caught lying, three times and counting.
The comments made on June 16, 2010, and June 27, 2010, clearly indicates that the Brewer says that immigrants are beheading people in the United States desert. She first ran away from the question and the press when confronted with the question. She finally when to FOX/ FAKE News to recant her lie.
When Brewer was confronted with the fact the two of her top Advisors (Paul Senseman, Chuck Coughlin) are lobbyist for “Private Prisons” giant CCA she first ran away from the question and the press.
In an attempt to gain sympathy, she first said her father had died in Germany fighting the Nazi in World War II (which ended 1945) but of course we find out the truth that her father was never in Germany and died in California in 1955. Do you see a trend here?
Brewer signed into law SB 1070 Bill (Did she even read it?), lied about the crime rates in AZ (even Janet Napolitano knows that all crimes rates went down), and now we find out that she is in the pockets of PRIVATE PRISONS who stand to benefit with the increase Federal jailing, and thus they will pay her back, I wonder if it has to do anything about the fact that her son was transferred to a brand new prison, he was convicted for rape and sexual assault, I guess the fruit does not fall far the tree.
I don't think they are burning books to destroy Islam. I don't think anyone can think that.
If I went out and torched every copy of Nigella Lawson's Nigella Bites I wouldn't expect to find out that suddenly people completely forget how to Cook. Young professionals freeze suddenly, confused as to why they have diced chalots and tomatoes on their chopping board, or why there's a knife in their hand, or what that hot box in the kitchen is.
Having said that, these people are so batsh!t crazy there's a chance that is EXACTLY what they believe
Banned Book Week is coming up again (huzzah?), which means that book banning is in the news. Banned Books Week happens one week a year, but that doesn't mean the banners and challengers and nay-sayers and finger-wavers go away for the other 51. Y'all, I puzzled over this deeply last year before realizing that when Banned Book Week is nigh, the reporters notice news of book banning more. Face, meet palm.
This week's book-banning news/reason for crawling under your bed and sobbing gently over the future of America comes to us from Missouri, where a university professor (I know. I know!) has decried the curriculum of his local school district. Under attack: sex ed (natch), and required reading, specifically the high school's, which asks students to read the Vonnegut anti-war classic Slaughterhouse-Five, Sarah Ockler's beautiful and sensitive Twenty-Boy Summer, and Laurie Halse Anderson's yes-yes-yes-it's-really-that-good Speak.
But you know what burns my butter? And that of a lot of other people? This quote:
In high school English classes, children are required to read and view material that should be classified as soft pornography.
One such book is called "Speak." . . . As the main character in the book is alone with a boy who is touching her female parts, she makes the statement that this is what high school is supposed to feel like. The boy then rapes her on the next page. Actually, the book and movie both contain two rape scenes.
Pornography.
Jeebus Christmas.
Some more facts about this prof: his children do not go to the school under attack. So apparently he's prompted by his deep sense of . . . community welfare? Or something? He was also a speaker at a recent seminar called "Reclaiming Missouri for Christ."
I am religious. Some of you know this, some of you don't. (Now you do.) It's very dismaying to see an entire group of people painted with the Crayyyy-zee Brush because some isolated members choose to use religion as a club. Y'know what? Most of us want to live our lives and love our neighbors, not batter them into a fine paste that can then be reshaped in our own image. There's only One who gets to do that, and trust me, Scroggins, you ain't Him.
Something fascinating and new this year is the amount of religious response to this book banning. Like this, from Paul, who writes his post as a dialogue between himself and Christ. This is the final line:
“Paul (I love it when Jesus calls me by my name), I got crucified by a mob. Mobs come from fear. And fear happens when you don’t trust people to think for themselves… For the love of God, give your kids the freaking books.”
Thanks to David Lubar for that link, which almost made me cry at work.
Laurie Halse Anderson's post on the challenge to Speak has some great links by which you can respond to Scroggins, the school board, and the news media in Republic, Missouri.
Author Shannon Hale, blogging from bedrest (the woman is expecting twins any day now and still blogs! Hard-core, Hale. Hard. Core.) had this to say:
"The purpose of literature is not to represent perfect characters, an ideal world, where everyone acts kindly and appropriately. There's no benefit to reading that story, there's no learning, no questioning, no growing for the reader. I want to share just one more thing about the power and importance of great books, and why we need them free and available in libraries."
She then quotes from another blogg
1 Comments on Banned Book Week Ahoy, last added: 9/24/2010
wow. Speak? really?? someone has issues. one of the most important things a book can do for you is to open you up to new ideas/experiences/ways of thinking. learning! aargh. okay, sorry, preaching to the choir, i know . . . :)
When I have children, these will be among the best books on their shelf, but people around the country have found them much more controversial. So instead of saying “why not”, here’s WHY they are so great:
1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell / The adorable true story of two male penguins in Central Park who, with the help of the zookeeper, hatch a beautiful baby daughter. While one of the most challenged books in 2008-2009, this may be my favorite story about a “modern family”.
3. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling / Obviously. Since I am the kind of person that labelled myself as a “Christian witch” when I was 12.
4. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary / If kids are reading the dictionary (even if it’s to look up the definition of “oral sex”), the only consequence is that they’ll probably do better on the SATs. Also, if your children have to look up what sex means, you probably need to work on your parenting skills.
5. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison / Ooh muttis and vatis may have a nervy spaz because Georgia’s diary contains gorgy sex gods, but if you cannot grasp the hilariosity, you are probably a wet tosser and in need of a duffing up. Now let’s go down the disco!
I’m not actually allowed to read In the Night Kitchen to my class because of the naked baby. It’s a shame because I read it in my first class before I knew of the ban and the entire response to the “explicitness” involved me saying, “Yup. You’re right. That’s a peepee. Let’s move on.”
Maine Character said, on 9/30/2010 4:35:00 PM
Great choices. I’d never heard of Rabbit’s Wedding, but now I got to find a copy.
Sarah W said, on 9/30/2010 7:52:00 PM
I second finding The Rabbits’ Wedding.
I wish some people wouldn’t make life so complicated . . .
walkinginpublic said, on 10/2/2010 4:31:00 PM
Thanks, y’all! The Rabbit’s Wedding is just an adorable classic and I’d highly recommend to anyone…
I have an uncanny ability (see also: curse) to agree with both sides of an argument. Although I am an avid fan of sports programs where everyone yells their hastily-formed, yet brazenly unwavering opinions at each other, I personally try to avoid blowhard-ism at all costs. I try to see both sides.
Which is why I’ve waited to say anything about It’s a Book by Lane Smith, which has been stirring up a bit of controversy lately for its use of the word “Jackass”.
School Library Journal recently published a story describing the book and the hubbub surrounding it. Interesting stuff. Click the image below to read it.
Part of the reason I didn’t feel the need to chime in earlier is because others were covering the topic pretty well.
I agree with Philip Nel’s assertion that Smith’s word choice isn’t simply an “easy” joke.
I’m with MotherReader, who expressed that reading the conclusion with youngsters causes a certain level of discomfort.
I can’t argue with A Chair, a Fireplace & A Tea Cozy and Kids Lit who both say that the themes of It’s a Book make it better suited for readers who are older than the standard picture book audience.
So what do I think? I look at it from an elementary school librarian’s perspective. While I’ll certainly have this book around, I don’t see myself reading it aloud to a group. Am I a prude? Maybe. But I also am not a fan of using what is, in many families, an off-limits word in a group setting. Should the book be in libraries? Yes. Would I read it to my child? No question. And while I’m with Kirkus Reviews in calling the use of the word in question a bit “gratuitus”, there’s no real harm done here.
What say you?
0 Comments on Controversy Report: It’s a Book as of 1/1/1900
In October, film critic Christopher Smith (pictured) self-published the thriller, Fifth Avenue. When his book cracked Amazon’s top 10 bestseller list, he faced homophobic insults and death threats in a now-deleted post on an Amazon.com discussion board.
We caught up with Smith to talk about the controversy. Our interview follows below…
Q: Did you expect to deal with controversy when you put Fifth Avenue out there?
A: I did ask friends about a few specific scenes in the book and wondered if I should censor myself from telling the truth in those scenes. I don’t believe in censorship, so I decided not to self-censor, especially after reading Stieg Larsson‘s books, which can be brutal.
A librarian who came into my workplace recently told me about this story that she had heard on NPR’s Story Corps. It’s a day off (Columbus Day) and I finally found the time to listen to the story.
From the NPR transcript “Neal remembers it being ‘risque — a drawing of a woman who appeared to be wearing something that was basically see-through. But the symbolism was really great for me at that age of 16.’”
I went looking around the internet for that cover that helped to morph one troubled African American teenager into a judge – and the covers I found are shown below. The book was Frank Yerby’s 1955 historical novel, The Treasure of Pleasant Valley (Dial). None of these covers quite match Neal’s description. But maybe we get the idea.
When I was a teen, my reading friends and I loved Fairoaks (1957). I sure don’t remember thinking/knowing that he was an African American author – the first, noted by this Frank Yerby encyclopedia article, to “to write a best-selling novel and to have a book purchased by a Hollywood studio for a film adaptation.”
It reminds me of conversation around the blogs, about the Liar controversy. You sure can’t tell from these covers that the author is African American. We just haven’t far enough…
Treasure of Pleasant Valley: Here’s a blurb from Jet Magazine (November 2, 1955 page 46), where the book was featured as “Book of the Week“
“When young South Carolina-born Bruce Harkness walked into a San Francisco saloon in the daring days of the Gold Rush, his pulse pounded at the sight of the costumes worn by pretty waitresses. The fronts were full, ruffled skirts falling below the knees. ‘But the backs of the costume,’ Bruce observed, ‘was something else again: the skirts, seen from the rear were merely aprons, cut well above the hips, so that, since the girls were also required to wear black silk stockings held up by a garter belt, and absolutely nothing else, the effect when they wheeled smartly about and marched away after taking an order was a trifle startling.’
“In The Treasure of Pleasant Valley historical novelist Frank Yerby turns to the California of the 1840s to tell the story of the young southern adventurer, Bruce Harkness, in a world where men are driven mad by the greed of gold and the scarcity of women. But in this land of lawlessness Bruce’s life took a new turn when he went to a stream for a drink of water and saw the lovely Juana ‘glistening like a golden statue of a tribal goddess’ as she stood undraped in the water.
“Tormented by the love that he later held for her, Bruce takes flight from the gold fields upon learning that she is the wife of the reckless Pepe de Cordoba, who had become his companion. Finding himself hopelessly ensnared by Juana’s love, he returns to her in one of the most turbulent climaxes Yerby has ever written.
“Like his first nine historical novels, The Treasure of Pleasant Valley is destined to become the 20th best-seller in Yerby’s incredible career as an author. R.E.J”
2 Comments on Book Covers Change Lives, last added: 10/12/2009
Oh, how I love, love, love, love, LOVE Story Corps. And no, these are not books that you can tell were written by an African American. I don’t suppose they’re ABOUT African Americans… not from the description, and based on the fact that they actually SOLD…? I guess they were about Caucasians.
Wonder what Ol’ Frank Yerby would have thought of LIAR.
L. said, on 10/12/2009 8:36:00 PM
It’s a shame, I think. That an African American author had to write about white guys in order to be successful…
Happy Tau Day, the most exciting math holiday you’ve yet to discover! Today, June 28th is 6/28, which contains in order the first three digits of tau (τ), the rival of math’s most popular irrational number, pi (π).
In 2001, Bob Palais wrote an article for The Mathematical Investigator called ,
There are, of course, instances where π appears un-doubled. For instance, the formula for area of a circle: A = πr
Is it worthwhile to switch to tau use, an
In October, film critic 
Once again, an Olympics graphics controversy…. not my favorite design in any case, “zionist” or not.
Great post. I almost forgot about tau since 6/28 is a special day for me. I guess the debate will go on, but probably not much change.
You have explained this so well! I would like to try replacing pi with tau when I cover circles with my students. It will be a great opportunity for them to take a position and argue it one way or the other.