I was hoping to get your take on Elizabeth Gilbert. Not a good day for art and a sad state of affairs when this is how we (or rather, very powerful and rich authors) decide what’s published and when.
I enjoyed the take below by colormeloverly, although I believe the whole article is behind a subscriber paywall (her being the one Substack I pay for other than yours). Still, in case someone is a paid subscriber and missed it, it’s very much worth a read.
A sample of her take that I find insightful and terribly sad:
I find this such a precarious approach to creating, writing, publishing. It seems like people are becoming so simplistic and one-dimensional in their interpretation of art, if they even bother to interpret at all. More often, if it is not on the page, explicitly, in flashing lights, it is not there — it does not exist. There is no reading between the lines, there is no interpreting something to understand others, to feel something other than your own emotions. Instead, as they read, more and more people now use only their own priors and refuse to consider others' lived experiences, so if it doesn't match their own lives, their own relationships, their own opinions, their own history and understanding of the world — well, then, It is Bad Art.
Goodreads has, unfortunately become an almost purely malevolent force when it comes to books and reading. It didn't have to be this way, but it's been abandoned by Amazon, and the total lack of moderation or guardrails is bad. I think it was Lincoln Michel who suggested the very sensible step of not allowing reviews to be posted of books until they were actually released. That by itself would've prevented this indecent.
A very meaty column. I’m not an Elizabeth Gilbert fan, but I was shocked by her decision. To pull the book at all is sad, but to pull it based on Good Reads reactions seems utterly nonsensical because that site is like the Next Door of literary criticism. The reasons she gave are inexplicable. I love McCarthy’s statement that he is the reader he’s writing for. But Gilbert has become a pop celebrity, always dangerous for artists.
While its true that Cormac & Annie lived in an old dairy barn and were poor, the barn itself was incredibly beautiful. Cormac was extremely talented and skilled. He remodeled that barn and made it into a home. The mosaic sidewalks he and Bill Kidwell made in downtown Knoxville are still there.
I'm not surprised to hear this, I think. I never got the impression that he embraced deprivation for the sake of deprivation, but that he instead was simply in touch with how his needs intersected with his work. Earlier in my career, I did a few things for the money, money I didn't strictly need, but which sounded good in the abstract, and in just about every case, I regretted it.
I worked for fifteen years in public libraries, where one thing we do is try to help people find books they want to read, for whatever reason. Prior to becoming a librarian I was in an MFA program, where all we did was talk about whether writing was "good" or "bad." Leaving that for librarianship was liberating--I wasn't assessing overall worth (whatever that is) but what the worth of a particular book for a particular reader.
I sometimes feel as though I come to the comment section of this newsletter solely to quote from CS Lewis's collection On Stories, but once again he proves instructive:
"If you find that the reader of popular romance--however uneducated a reader, however bad the romances--goes back to his old favourites again and again, then you have pretty good evidence that they are to him a sort of poetry."
Of course not everyone is a rereader or needs to be, but what's always struck me about that bit is Lewis's utter lack of judgment about what one wants to read and his embrace of the idea that people should read the things that bring them joy, that stick with them.
I've tried to read Cormac McCarthy on a few occasions and decided he was not for me, though perhaps I'll try again. I listened to Eat Pray Love out of curiosity and then decided Elizabeth Gilbert was perhaps also not for me. Happily there are many more writers out there, and we all get to choose.
I've read a couple of Elizabeth Gilbert's novels and found them quite satisfactory, or even better than that. I think that phenomenon of Eat Pray Love was exactly that, a phenomenon that came out of nowhere and the way it would shape how you view your work would be very difficult to navigate, so I do have some sympathy, but at some point, if you've written the book and you think it's good, you have to put it into the world.
I picked up the audiobook of Eat Pray Love for a road trip, as I recall, probably because it was part of a slew of books in those years that I refer to as the "I went and did this thing for a year" books (said somewhat derisively, but then arguably Walden was the first such American book, and I love Walden). I didn't realize it was going to become a cult thing at the time; I just thought "oh, distracting possibly entertaining thing about a white lady who goes and does a bunch of expensive stuff," which is more or less what I got from it. Then of course it did turn into a sort of cult of personality book, and I have Opinions about writing your book and then not publishing it due to some negative reviews, but not enough opinions to be worth airing.
I've been thinking a lot about the bit from Cormac McCarthy's first wife and how much weight it's been afforded given how little we know about the context. Was she talking about living in the barn nostalgically? Wistfully? Ruefully? Humorously? Bitterly? I think most people assume the last, and given that she became his ex-wife, that certainly possible. But I wonder. She stayed with him for some reason. Was it because she did love him and hoped things would change? Was it because she believed she had nowhere else to go? Was it because, realistically, she had nowhere else to go at that time and in her lack of resources of her own? We simply don't know. I'd like to know more of her story, but I doubt it's one that we'll hear, and not because she decides to pull it due to some negative online comments.
I've never been a Gilbert fan but couldn't understand any author not printing a book because of reviews. I kept thinking it must be a publicity stunt of some sort. I have been reading Cormac McCarthy since the early 90's and like the intensity of his books although they are hard to read because of the subject matter. While I read a lot, I often forget what I've read. But not so with his books. They stick with me.
Cormac McCarthy should have sold out. We've been robbed of a Warhammer 40k tie in novel by the man born to write one. In the grim darkness of the future there should only be periods. No commas, no colons, no parenthesis.
Ok, if nobody else is going to ask, I will. Favorite Peloton instructor? I’m a Cody Rigsby, Ally Love, and Adrian Williams fan, although there are a few others who are also my “friends,” they just don’t know it yet. Big para social relationships for sure, especially when I actually talk to them during workouts (whatever, it gets me through it).
My top ones are Christine, Denis, Jenn, and Emma. A lot of this is based on my age and similar taste in music to the instructors of my generation and the fact that in Emma seems to have been a kid in the 90s when a lot of the music that sticks with me was made.
For the yoga I also like Kristen McGee and Ross in addition to Denis. For the strength I don't really care who it is because the actual activity is absorbing to the point that I tune out whatever else is going on.
As I was reading your article on McCarthy and Gilbert, I realized that in your line of work, you spend
a lot of time not just thinking about books and authors, but also readers. I wanted to offer a topic that you would have some interesting takes on: book clubs. I don't know how you'd do your research, if you needed it, but I thought I'd offer up a few thoughts that have occurred to me. I have been in only one book club (the one I'm in now and have been for 7 years), and I have to say that in the beginning the experience was different than I thought. When we began, I only knew a couple of the members of the club, and I came to realize how very personal talking about my reactions to a book can be. It was a bit scary in that way. I hadn't realized that going in. Of course, after 7 years, I know all the members well, having discussed so many books with them. I really enjoy the club, as it "makes me" read books that are a bit out of my comfort zone and which I end up enjoying. I also like having folks help me figure out stuff in the book that I was unsure about. Anyway, I know every book club is different, but I think it would be an interesting topic to get your perspective on.
Im not going to write about book clubs because I despise most of those Ive seen because they mainly, 85 percent of the tiime read only American and British authors and most of them are white, and most of them are woman. Fine. Some of the finest American woman authors are white -especially such amazing poets as Muriel Rukeyser. Alicia Ostrike, Ann Sexton, Marge Piercy, and such blacklisted poets as Naomi Replansky and the radiical male white poets Thomas McGrath, John Beecher, Kenneth Faring. And even in reading British writers, the book clubs read the touted writers like Kate Atkinson or Rachel Cusp, but not a writer who wriites about workngclass peoplle such as Pat Barker's first two novels Union Street, about ONE street in industrial England, and her second Blow Your House Down about prostitutes seeking revenge for their murdered coworkers by demonic killeer.
Most book clubs and Amercan readers are conscouslly or unconsciusly unaware Ill be polite and not call them oblivous jingoists amd racists who have as much curiosity as a clipped tonail. But I can recommend some terrific poets and novelists.
1. It is a great irony of the twentieth century that two poets from very diffeent countries were both polticall very radical, and in their personal lives wrote some of the best lovel poems ever wriiten. This would be Pablo Neruda from Chile,Communist Party rep from the big salt nitrates area of Chile. The other poet Mahmud Darwish was, with his family driven into the hills at age 6 in a near blizzard during the 1948 war when Israel "won its war for independence." That's the official story most places.But you can get a diffeent story by reading the brilliant novels of one of the most underrated writers in the world. two in Fact
Of Noble Origins by the Palestinian novelist Sahar Khalifeh exploring the origins and machinations during the times ( for a while) during and afterworld world war adventkfw Very few international writers can write with the highest artistry about political crisis and the sheer desparation thousands face than such writers as Chinua Achebe or Ousmane Sembene
and for wonder and comedy:
The Tent of Miracles- Jorge Amado. Brazil. You will never think about learning or education the same way again.
The Grass Dancers - Susan Power. Three generations of the magical realism of Siooux women and their families.
Jubilee- Margaret Walker. A freed black man and his wife, a slave, withstand the horrors of the American Civil War and the challenges of Reconstruction. The substantial antidote to the cloying bias of Gone With With The Wind aka Bye Bye Hot Air.
and for all you historical fiction fans who think Forrest Gmp won World War II.
Life and Fate, and STALINGRAD. Vassily Grosssman. The War and Peace of the 20 and 21 century. Both books were smuggled out of Russia. The second part of the2000 word or so book was published FIRST. Then the FIRST part was found much late and published here about eight years. An astonishing achievemet/
Grossman's masterpiece gives a very different picture of how WWII was won and what were some of the more decisive military victories. The Germans were supposed to be so smart, one if not the most "civilized countries in the world wth all of the great philosphers- Kant, Heidegger,Sclagel,Nietsche, with Goethe and mu cm /k//
The claim is that Gilbert is romanticizing Russia is bc her story is based on the real-life story of the Lykovs, who were members of a fundamentalist religious sect, the Old Believers. OBs opposed the Russian govt for 350+ years (so not precisely “anti-Soviet”)& it’s really quite a disturbing story that she obviously mystified. (I make that claim based on her own promotional material.) And OBs no longer oppose govt or society but are reconciled & play prominent roles in it; eg, Aleksandr Dugin is an Old Believer.
I covered some of these details in a Substack post last week.
I was hoping to get your take on Elizabeth Gilbert. Not a good day for art and a sad state of affairs when this is how we (or rather, very powerful and rich authors) decide what’s published and when.
I enjoyed the take below by colormeloverly, although I believe the whole article is behind a subscriber paywall (her being the one Substack I pay for other than yours). Still, in case someone is a paid subscriber and missed it, it’s very much worth a read.
https://open.substack.com/pub/colormeloverly/p/goodreads-strikes-again?r=1r39b3&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
A sample of her take that I find insightful and terribly sad:
I find this such a precarious approach to creating, writing, publishing. It seems like people are becoming so simplistic and one-dimensional in their interpretation of art, if they even bother to interpret at all. More often, if it is not on the page, explicitly, in flashing lights, it is not there — it does not exist. There is no reading between the lines, there is no interpreting something to understand others, to feel something other than your own emotions. Instead, as they read, more and more people now use only their own priors and refuse to consider others' lived experiences, so if it doesn't match their own lives, their own relationships, their own opinions, their own history and understanding of the world — well, then, It is Bad Art.
Goodreads has, unfortunately become an almost purely malevolent force when it comes to books and reading. It didn't have to be this way, but it's been abandoned by Amazon, and the total lack of moderation or guardrails is bad. I think it was Lincoln Michel who suggested the very sensible step of not allowing reviews to be posted of books until they were actually released. That by itself would've prevented this indecent.
A very meaty column. I’m not an Elizabeth Gilbert fan, but I was shocked by her decision. To pull the book at all is sad, but to pull it based on Good Reads reactions seems utterly nonsensical because that site is like the Next Door of literary criticism. The reasons she gave are inexplicable. I love McCarthy’s statement that he is the reader he’s writing for. But Gilbert has become a pop celebrity, always dangerous for artists.
I wish it had been published and profits donated to Ukraine.
While its true that Cormac & Annie lived in an old dairy barn and were poor, the barn itself was incredibly beautiful. Cormac was extremely talented and skilled. He remodeled that barn and made it into a home. The mosaic sidewalks he and Bill Kidwell made in downtown Knoxville are still there.
I'm not surprised to hear this, I think. I never got the impression that he embraced deprivation for the sake of deprivation, but that he instead was simply in touch with how his needs intersected with his work. Earlier in my career, I did a few things for the money, money I didn't strictly need, but which sounded good in the abstract, and in just about every case, I regretted it.
I worked for fifteen years in public libraries, where one thing we do is try to help people find books they want to read, for whatever reason. Prior to becoming a librarian I was in an MFA program, where all we did was talk about whether writing was "good" or "bad." Leaving that for librarianship was liberating--I wasn't assessing overall worth (whatever that is) but what the worth of a particular book for a particular reader.
I sometimes feel as though I come to the comment section of this newsletter solely to quote from CS Lewis's collection On Stories, but once again he proves instructive:
"If you find that the reader of popular romance--however uneducated a reader, however bad the romances--goes back to his old favourites again and again, then you have pretty good evidence that they are to him a sort of poetry."
Of course not everyone is a rereader or needs to be, but what's always struck me about that bit is Lewis's utter lack of judgment about what one wants to read and his embrace of the idea that people should read the things that bring them joy, that stick with them.
I've tried to read Cormac McCarthy on a few occasions and decided he was not for me, though perhaps I'll try again. I listened to Eat Pray Love out of curiosity and then decided Elizabeth Gilbert was perhaps also not for me. Happily there are many more writers out there, and we all get to choose.
I’m so grateful for librarians like you!
I've read a couple of Elizabeth Gilbert's novels and found them quite satisfactory, or even better than that. I think that phenomenon of Eat Pray Love was exactly that, a phenomenon that came out of nowhere and the way it would shape how you view your work would be very difficult to navigate, so I do have some sympathy, but at some point, if you've written the book and you think it's good, you have to put it into the world.
I picked up the audiobook of Eat Pray Love for a road trip, as I recall, probably because it was part of a slew of books in those years that I refer to as the "I went and did this thing for a year" books (said somewhat derisively, but then arguably Walden was the first such American book, and I love Walden). I didn't realize it was going to become a cult thing at the time; I just thought "oh, distracting possibly entertaining thing about a white lady who goes and does a bunch of expensive stuff," which is more or less what I got from it. Then of course it did turn into a sort of cult of personality book, and I have Opinions about writing your book and then not publishing it due to some negative reviews, but not enough opinions to be worth airing.
I've been thinking a lot about the bit from Cormac McCarthy's first wife and how much weight it's been afforded given how little we know about the context. Was she talking about living in the barn nostalgically? Wistfully? Ruefully? Humorously? Bitterly? I think most people assume the last, and given that she became his ex-wife, that certainly possible. But I wonder. She stayed with him for some reason. Was it because she did love him and hoped things would change? Was it because she believed she had nowhere else to go? Was it because, realistically, she had nowhere else to go at that time and in her lack of resources of her own? We simply don't know. I'd like to know more of her story, but I doubt it's one that we'll hear, and not because she decides to pull it due to some negative online comments.
I've never been a Gilbert fan but couldn't understand any author not printing a book because of reviews. I kept thinking it must be a publicity stunt of some sort. I have been reading Cormac McCarthy since the early 90's and like the intensity of his books although they are hard to read because of the subject matter. While I read a lot, I often forget what I've read. But not so with his books. They stick with me.
Cormac McCarthy should have sold out. We've been robbed of a Warhammer 40k tie in novel by the man born to write one. In the grim darkness of the future there should only be periods. No commas, no colons, no parenthesis.
Ok, if nobody else is going to ask, I will. Favorite Peloton instructor? I’m a Cody Rigsby, Ally Love, and Adrian Williams fan, although there are a few others who are also my “friends,” they just don’t know it yet. Big para social relationships for sure, especially when I actually talk to them during workouts (whatever, it gets me through it).
My top ones are Christine, Denis, Jenn, and Emma. A lot of this is based on my age and similar taste in music to the instructors of my generation and the fact that in Emma seems to have been a kid in the 90s when a lot of the music that sticks with me was made.
For the yoga I also like Kristen McGee and Ross in addition to Denis. For the strength I don't really care who it is because the actual activity is absorbing to the point that I tune out whatever else is going on.
You recommended Piranesi to me; I read it. SO CREEPY. A slow start that makes sense after the plot unfolds. Thank you! Reading Hamnet next.
Creepy is exactly right. The uncanny/unsettling nature of it really gets to you. Not the kind of book I normally gravitate to, but it worked on me.
As I was reading your article on McCarthy and Gilbert, I realized that in your line of work, you spend
a lot of time not just thinking about books and authors, but also readers. I wanted to offer a topic that you would have some interesting takes on: book clubs. I don't know how you'd do your research, if you needed it, but I thought I'd offer up a few thoughts that have occurred to me. I have been in only one book club (the one I'm in now and have been for 7 years), and I have to say that in the beginning the experience was different than I thought. When we began, I only knew a couple of the members of the club, and I came to realize how very personal talking about my reactions to a book can be. It was a bit scary in that way. I hadn't realized that going in. Of course, after 7 years, I know all the members well, having discussed so many books with them. I really enjoy the club, as it "makes me" read books that are a bit out of my comfort zone and which I end up enjoying. I also like having folks help me figure out stuff in the book that I was unsure about. Anyway, I know every book club is different, but I think it would be an interesting topic to get your perspective on.
Im not going to
Im not going to write about book clubs because I despise most of those Ive seen because they mainly, 85 percent of the tiime read only American and British authors and most of them are white, and most of them are woman. Fine. Some of the finest American woman authors are white -especially such amazing poets as Muriel Rukeyser. Alicia Ostrike, Ann Sexton, Marge Piercy, and such blacklisted poets as Naomi Replansky and the radiical male white poets Thomas McGrath, John Beecher, Kenneth Faring. And even in reading British writers, the book clubs read the touted writers like Kate Atkinson or Rachel Cusp, but not a writer who wriites about workngclass peoplle such as Pat Barker's first two novels Union Street, about ONE street in industrial England, and her second Blow Your House Down about prostitutes seeking revenge for their murdered coworkers by demonic killeer.
Most book clubs and Amercan readers are conscouslly or unconsciusly unaware Ill be polite and not call them oblivous jingoists amd racists who have as much curiosity as a clipped tonail. But I can recommend some terrific poets and novelists.
1. It is a great irony of the twentieth century that two poets from very diffeent countries were both polticall very radical, and in their personal lives wrote some of the best lovel poems ever wriiten. This would be Pablo Neruda from Chile,Communist Party rep from the big salt nitrates area of Chile. The other poet Mahmud Darwish was, with his family driven into the hills at age 6 in a near blizzard during the 1948 war when Israel "won its war for independence." That's the official story most places.But you can get a diffeent story by reading the brilliant novels of one of the most underrated writers in the world. two in Fact
Of Noble Origins by the Palestinian novelist Sahar Khalifeh exploring the origins and machinations during the times ( for a while) during and afterworld world war adventkfw Very few international writers can write with the highest artistry about political crisis and the sheer desparation thousands face than such writers as Chinua Achebe or Ousmane Sembene
and for wonder and comedy:
The Tent of Miracles- Jorge Amado. Brazil. You will never think about learning or education the same way again.
The Grass Dancers - Susan Power. Three generations of the magical realism of Siooux women and their families.
Jubilee- Margaret Walker. A freed black man and his wife, a slave, withstand the horrors of the American Civil War and the challenges of Reconstruction. The substantial antidote to the cloying bias of Gone With With The Wind aka Bye Bye Hot Air.
and for all you historical fiction fans who think Forrest Gmp won World War II.
Life and Fate, and STALINGRAD. Vassily Grosssman. The War and Peace of the 20 and 21 century. Both books were smuggled out of Russia. The second part of the2000 word or so book was published FIRST. Then the FIRST part was found much late and published here about eight years. An astonishing achievemet/
Grossman's masterpiece gives a very different picture of how WWII was won and what were some of the more decisive military victories. The Germans were supposed to be so smart, one if not the most "civilized countries in the world wth all of the great philosphers- Kant, Heidegger,Sclagel,Nietsche, with Goethe and mu cm /k//
The claim is that Gilbert is romanticizing Russia is bc her story is based on the real-life story of the Lykovs, who were members of a fundamentalist religious sect, the Old Believers. OBs opposed the Russian govt for 350+ years (so not precisely “anti-Soviet”)& it’s really quite a disturbing story that she obviously mystified. (I make that claim based on her own promotional material.) And OBs no longer oppose govt or society but are reconciled & play prominent roles in it; eg, Aleksandr Dugin is an Old Believer.
I covered some of these details in a Substack post last week.
https://youreruiningme.substack.com/p/on-elizabeth-gilbert-and-the-snow?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2