As a teacher in a US state in which book banning (from the right) has become a real life concern, I am also deeply troubled by the pressure campaigns to pull books coming from the left. As you note, Goodreads has become a tool for this. I first noticed it last year with a YA book that didn't even have a publication date yet, so no one had read it, about a Jewish-American girl exploring her queer and Jewish identities on a summer trip to Israel. There were hundreds of one star reviews denouncing the book as Zionist propaganda. I wrote to Goodreads expressing concern about the treatment of this book, but also the wider issue of why people are allowed to leave "reviews" of books that no one has even read yet. One of the purposes of books is to inspire and provoke passionate discussion and debate, even protest. But people should at least have the option of reading them to make up their own minds.
Shutting down that possibility by pressuring authors to withdraw books before publication, in a world in which not long ago Salman Rushdie was literally stabbed on stage during a literary festival and many more people - especially women in the public eye - are subject to horrific campaigns of online abuse, doxing, and now even pornographic deepfakes - is simply another type of banning. But perhaps even more insidious, because these are books that won't get placed on defiant "Banned Book Month"-type tables in bookstores and libraries.
If we never have to read or hear the word "Russia", does Russia cease to exist? In an Orwellian sense, I suppose it would cease to exist.
Should we search out all public maps and globes and substitute the words "Terra Incognita" for "Russia"? Actually, Terra Incognita may be a better descriptor for the geographical entity than Russia at least for us in the West.
I was already quite familiar with the real story of the Lykov family (who lived in the wilds of Siberia for 40 years). The self-cancellation of “The Snow Forest” is appalling to say the least. Of course, it should be noted that all of the works of Elizabeth Gilbert are worth canceling. The basic message of “Eat, Pray, Love” is hostile to the continued existence of human civilization.
Note, her cynical shrewdness. She pulls the book now to avoid the flak. Later she fully intends to make money from the book (presumably when the current war is over)
I should say that I have many ties to Russia and the Ukraine.
This is a good example of the over-use of the term “cancel”. Her novel, her choice. People monitor and mold their behavior to the circumstances as they see them. Same here.
As a teacher in a US state in which book banning (from the right) has become a real life concern, I am also deeply troubled by the pressure campaigns to pull books coming from the left. As you note, Goodreads has become a tool for this. I first noticed it last year with a YA book that didn't even have a publication date yet, so no one had read it, about a Jewish-American girl exploring her queer and Jewish identities on a summer trip to Israel. There were hundreds of one star reviews denouncing the book as Zionist propaganda. I wrote to Goodreads expressing concern about the treatment of this book, but also the wider issue of why people are allowed to leave "reviews" of books that no one has even read yet. One of the purposes of books is to inspire and provoke passionate discussion and debate, even protest. But people should at least have the option of reading them to make up their own minds.
Shutting down that possibility by pressuring authors to withdraw books before publication, in a world in which not long ago Salman Rushdie was literally stabbed on stage during a literary festival and many more people - especially women in the public eye - are subject to horrific campaigns of online abuse, doxing, and now even pornographic deepfakes - is simply another type of banning. But perhaps even more insidious, because these are books that won't get placed on defiant "Banned Book Month"-type tables in bookstores and libraries.
This is not a tricky topic. The idea that one should not release a novel set in 40s Soviet Siberia because of the current war is utter lunacy.
If we never have to read or hear the word "Russia", does Russia cease to exist? In an Orwellian sense, I suppose it would cease to exist.
Should we search out all public maps and globes and substitute the words "Terra Incognita" for "Russia"? Actually, Terra Incognita may be a better descriptor for the geographical entity than Russia at least for us in the West.
I was already quite familiar with the real story of the Lykov family (who lived in the wilds of Siberia for 40 years). The self-cancellation of “The Snow Forest” is appalling to say the least. Of course, it should be noted that all of the works of Elizabeth Gilbert are worth canceling. The basic message of “Eat, Pray, Love” is hostile to the continued existence of human civilization.
Note, her cynical shrewdness. She pulls the book now to avoid the flak. Later she fully intends to make money from the book (presumably when the current war is over)
I should say that I have many ties to Russia and the Ukraine.
This is a good example of the over-use of the term “cancel”. Her novel, her choice. People monitor and mold their behavior to the circumstances as they see them. Same here.
People do not buy Elizabeth Gilbert books for their intellectual rigor.