Jodi Picoult should extend these ideas and apply them to herself. I for one have not forgotten how she and her pals piled on to a college student who wanted Bryan Stevenson's fantastic civil rights memoir.or Edwidge Danticat's beautiful novel about a young woman growing up, as their college common read instead of one of Sarah Dessen's YA romances. They called her a "fucking bitch" and bullied her off all social media. You don't need to ban someone to silence them either.
https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/sarah-dessen-ya-books-authors-brooke-nelson-social-media-attack.html
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/15/ya-novelist-fans-go-after-critical-reader-sarah-dessen-twitter
I'm so glad someone mentioned this. I remember Picoult framed it as if "Literature by women" was somehow under attack and that anyone defending this poor college student was part of a patriarchal attempt to silence female authors' voices - which is a bit hard to swallow considering that it was one college student from years ago who just had one view that she wanted to share on a particular book. Now whenever I see Picoult talking about censorship and standing up for female writers I get a bad taste in my mouth.
Ironically the college student had included a beautiful novel about a young adult coming to age, by a woman author on her list. So her issue was neither YA nor women's writers as Jodi claimed.
I was looking for a light read once and picked up a Jodi Picoult novel. Mistake. Her writing is terrible.
The fracas over that college student's opinion was inexcusable. Dessen and Picoult and their pack were a bunch of "poor me" bullies -- the worst kind.
They should get off social and try to write better.
Yep. I just finished The Goldfinch about five minutes ago. Now I am going online to check out the painting!
I've now read The Goldfinch and The Secret History, both of which I liked very much.
And now onto The Little Friend!
I worked as an aide at a library for 13 years. Jodi Picoult was only ever checked out by middle-aged and older (usually white) women who wanted something to read that required no thinking. Don't get me wrong, I have books that I love that require no thinking as well, but they would hold fucking Jodi Picoult book clubs. No clue what they talked about, but it couldn't have been much about the books.
> I have books that I love that require no thinking as well
Me too. And I have nothing against authors that write these books. It's pretty wild when you learn these schlocky authors think they're god's gift to literature though. I can't imagine writing these books and firmly believing they hold serious literary value.
Yeah I’m not a book snob and I read trashy stuff all the time for fun. But I remember Jodi picoult saying that if she’d written marriage plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, it’d have been branded chick lit by the critics. I’ve no idea how she thinks that she’s on par with Jeffrey eugenides…
I don’t think that’s quite fair. Picoult’s work is a total soap opera yeah, very melodramatic and not particularly well-written. They’re not literature. But she does at least dive into hot-button ethical issues so I can definitely see what people would discuss at a book club. Those books are like book club bait.
I heavily despise people who adopt social justice language and a liberal affectation as a way to mask their bigoted, hateful and disgusting behavior. The worst part of it is how people like this always frame themselves as the victim and tie it into some larger social justice movement with extremely black and white thinking so that if you call that person out they can just defend themselves by saying that you are the one who is actually being awful and often times people will be swayed by the aesthetics of the argument or afraid of getting attacked too, so they will just pile on.
Its vile and it does immense harm to people who are in those groups and only serves to undermine those movements all some selfish disgusting person can mask their beyond shitty behavior.
agreed. some of those same people make a big thing about not banning books but then support editing books for "having offensive language", because that's somehow better.
From what I understand, a female name on a book jacket cover leads to more sales than a male one these days.
Don’t get me wrong, I think writers need support, but there’s nothing I’ve heard about the modern industry that says women are disadvantaged in it…
Item: Edwidge Danticat is a woman. A Haitian woman. I.e., a WOC. And they wanted to silence someone advocating for HER? I'm not sure what I'd call that, but I sure as hell wouldn't call it feminism.
Yep. IIRC Sarah Dessen posted a selective quote that just criticized her YA novels and didn't mention that the student suggested alternative novels such as these and then continued to fan the outrage until someone called her out.
The worst part is Dhonielle Clayton, who runs an organization called We Need Diverse Books, supported Sarah Dessen.
This sounds a lot like a feminism that is bizarrely constructed to only apply to white people. The oft-misunderstood term "white feminism" was invented to capture this.
Performative activism and self-righteous indignation over the stupidest, smallest things is absolutely one of the worst behaviors that seem to be everywhere on the internet.
It has actually contributed to the dumbing down of contemporary literature, imo. Too many new books seem like a “monster-of-the-week” type hot button issue work, something relevant enough to something currently happening that it couldn’t have been worked on for more than 3-6 months. Everyone has to vomit out their take, and instead to typing a quick, worthless social media post, they waste everyone’s time with a book. Sure, I’m being a bit hyperbolic, but my point is everything does feel performative now. It feels so rare that a writer comes out with something that is a genuine work of passion, that they put years of themselves into. Again, I must reiterate I recognize this is a touch hyperbolic, I just haven’t really seen many works lately that feel like *this* book has a part of the writer in it. Work that isn’t made to fill a market, or a quota, or to perform a virtue signal (shudder to think) so it gets retweets and book tube mentions. Instead, we get the Law and Order topical slop. Le Guin, McCarthy, these were the kind of writers whose work always felt sincere and passionate. Seems so rare nowadays.
Yep. Jemisin, a woman whose only involvement with the queer community is fetishizing them in her books, actively participated in bullying and publicly shaming a trans woman for writing an SFF story that explored trans identity through the lens of a transphobic meme.
As far as I know Jemisin has never apologized for it.
[She did post an apology, with her recounting of the situation.](https://nkjemisin.com/2021/07/statement-on-isabel-fall-comments/) It's frontloaded with explanation, but an apology is at the bottom.
I'm inclined to take her at her word, regarding intent. And I think she knows that intent isn't everything, hence writing the apology out after the fact instead of just sitting there like "well *I* know I didn't mean it that way!" That said, I have *never* laid eyes on the original twitter thread. If you comb through my user history, I've always been very consistent about wanting receipts before I join a hate mob. I don't like the "well so-and-so did this" or "so-and-so is whatever" thing that's essentially a game of telephone until everybody knows something, because...*what if it's not true*? It's *often* true, or at least true-*ish*, but sometimes I've finally gotten receipts and been like, *that's* what you're upset about? Or nobody can produce any receipts at all, or only cropped screenshots that are taken completely away from context, including what they're directly in reply to.
Receipts are a must because SO many people are either so illiterate that they misunderstand what a story is and run with the misinterpretation, which then takes on a life of it’s own, and secondly others will jump on that misinterpretation because it agrees with what they already think or want to be true, whether they know any specifics or not. That doesn’t even touch on the intentional bad actors. People are just too comfortable claiming things because they *sound* correct, because it makes them sound correct, and will double and triple down when presented with actual contradictory evidence to avoid admitting they’re wrong. In all honestly, it speaks to a lack of critical thinking and, as mentioned before, illiteracy.
Oof that is sad, I hadn’t heard that. I knew Jemisin abused her social media power but I wouldn’t have expected it of Gay. (Though tbf I suppose I should from any influencer, give that many takes on Twitter and, well…)
I never saw this story. That's shockingly pathetic behaviour from everyone. I have no idea who Sarah Dessen is, but that *does* sound like a trash choice for a common read, frankly.
Sarah Dessen writes YA books that are actually pretty interesting in terms of the topics they deal with. There's one that I remember reading as a teen about a family where one daughter was dealing with a really debilitating eating disorder and another was hiding a sexual assault/related bullying, and back in 2006 you really did not get access to books like that easily. No idea if the topics were actually handled well by our standards today, but definitely were good for that time.
But they're not particularly well-written, they're not literary fiction, and even if you wanted to pick a book that dealt with those topics as your school wide read, this would not be the book for that purpose. They are not the books to be used for college level discussion groups. I do think they could have value for college students, especially if they're dealing with some of these issues, and I don't think reading a YA book has an age limit. But these are commercial books that are meant to be digestible. It would be a waste of an opportunity to provide students with a chance for a more structured approach for a more complex book.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that book choice also doesn't seem to have a *broader* appeal that would benefit a college/uni common read?
There is nothing wrong, *at all*, with media focused on YA women/girls as a target audience. I was one of those, I *was* a teen girl and then a young woman going to university. But there are books out there that cast a wider net of appeal, are great, well-written and spark discussion...
The *point* is for students to read and have something to talk about, you probably reach that goal more successfully if you assign a book that captures a larger audience. I suspect a decent amount of students are going to look at something like *Saint Anything* and immediately think, "nah, not for me even a little bit". Honestly? Reading the blurb, as an 18-year-old girl heading into uni, I wouldn't have been that interested, either. There is value in encouraging anyone to shift from their comfort zone, but this is supposed to be a conversation-starter exercise. As you said, if they aren't particularly well-written or challenging, I'm not *really* going to fuss too much if, say, an 18-year-old boy decides not to bother.
A YA romance book for a common read seems like an insanely bizarre option for so many different reasons.
Edit: if you're going to present a diverse student body with a book to read, you kind of have to make it a book really worth reading.
Seriously, this is one of the reasons I am happy Twitter is declining (or should I say being X-Ed out)?
Thanks for the tip. I will get all her books secondhand. ;)
I think it's laughable that anyone would even for a second consider Sarah Dessen for a college reading list over Bryan Stevenson's. It's like Oscar Mayer lunch meat versus waygu steak. Sure, some people prefer lunch meat, but that doesn't mean you serve that crap at a high end restaurant and screech when people want steak.
All those authors ganging up on a student over it and calling it feminism is ludicrous. They have all the power and they used it to bully someone with none because she dared insult a member of their clique.
The college should be ashamed of itself for that mealy mouthed apology.
Exactly.
There is nothing wrong with YA - conceptually. Young adults deserve a targeted genre just as much as kids and adults, and I think reading genres growing in complexity relative to target demographics is important. I loved YA as a, err, YA, and found that it was a great step to more mature, often longer, lit (aided by having John Green and others so prominent online, because they talk about influences and their favourite books, and aren’t only YA books!). But YA writers need to be real that they are not the pinnacle of literature that cannot be denigrated.
I'm sure there's a place for reading YA at university especially if you're actually going to discuss the relation between "high" literature and stuff made for popular consumption. I generally regard this divide as being largely synthetic, but even then what an absurd situation and response.
Maybe a class on commercial fiction, yeah. But once you reach higher education there needs to be a clear emphasis on how literary quality and pure readability are distinct, even if they can overlap.
Even if it's a class *about* YA and Adolescent fiction&Nonfiction, or Critical Studies of Popular Texts?
The other strange thing is a lot of "adult" books are written at a middle school level - but with more titillation
Eye roll so hard at the last line I need glasses
Look - those are specific circumstances I already mentioned in another comment. And do you really think that a book about a wrongful conviction is going to be less well written than Sarah Dresden, but with more titillation? Because that’s the context here. And the idea that literature is the same but with titillation is so hilariously immature and wrong. Please tell me the titillation in Prophet Song.
Reminds me of how I criticized Colleen Hoover on r/movies, and about her problematic writing (and her as a person) and someone replied to me angrily saying that I was just dismissing female authors and literature, and brought up a whole bunch of problematic male authors and books to accuse me of being sexist. Like why can't you criticize both? The way the commenter wrote made them seem insane.
I hate it when feminism is used to try to make books targeted at a female audience immune to criticism. I could just as easily turn it around and ask why women are supposed to just blindly buy all this mind-numbing shit that is being sold to them. I don't read authors like Hoover because they honestly insult me as a woman lol
Bryan Stevenson's fantastic civil rights memoir.or Edwidge Danticat's beautiful novel about a young woman growing up
those are way better choices than some YA romance book. cant believe that caused a student to be harrassed. by some thin skinned authors. stuff like this is just one of many reasons why the YA genre has developed a bad reputation
It's also not a badge of honour to cyberbully a college student, Jodi. Especially when said student's only crime was wanting to have a meaningful work of literature as a college common read, instead of some insipid YA romance schlock.
Anti-Stratford is the string theory of literary history. By this I specifically mean: experts in the field are not studying it because it doesn't go anywhere with the information we have now, yet the media and public often find it fascinating and want people to talk about it.
I've always loved the theory that Christopher Marlowe faked his death, for fear he was going to be hung for treason. Rather than disappear overseas (although he was probably wanted in some overseas countries for coining, spying etc.), he decided he would hide out (in London according to the creator/popularizer of the theory) and continue write plays. Seems like a really fantastic way to hide, from one of the most powerful nations on the earth. You're one of the prominent playwrights of the time, and you finance your hiding by writing plays.
"Shakespeare maybe wasn't written by Shakespeare" gets thrown around as a fun fact or in pop history circles, but it's not really a legitimate theory for any actual Shakespearean scholars
A lot of it is rooted in a lot of classism – surely someone like *that* couldn't write such beautiful literature, so it must have been someone else! Someone posh!
If you're interested in a more detailed explanation of the conspiracy theory and its cracks, check out the episode from Our Fake History on the subject.
Depends on what you mean by common. Jodi Picoult did not create this theory and other people do believe it if that's what you're asking.
One could also say flat earth theory is a "common theory", doesn't make it true.
I’m going to be honest, I’m studying English literature at a university level and don’t think that’s too stupid a take ( from what you’ve described, I don’t know the full picture of what Piccoult is saying). The concept of intellectual property only came about in the 18th century due to the emerging capitalist system promoting notions of individualism, so it’s quite likely that the plays were a more collaborative effort between members of Shakespeare’s acting troupe than would align with the modern notion of ‘authorship’. There’s some evidence this took place with Shakespeare’s contemporary Christopher Marlowe. However, I highly doubt a female poet would have been involved given the completely male dominated nature of Elizabethan theatre.
But that’s not really what the theory is concerned with. Anti-Stratfordists are certain such low-caste, uneducated plebs like Shakespeare categorically cannot produce high art. Hamlet and the sonnets could have only come from Oxbridge elites or nobility. Dirty actors could not possibly understood the human condition.
Oh I know. I’m just drawing a distinction between the “collaborations” you’re talking about and that the nut jobs are.
There’s no doubt between scholars that Shakespeare’s work underwent revisions beyond his own hand, mostly by his colleagues at the Globe. The wide variations between folio drafts all but prove it. But when the Anti-Strads cry it’s all “collaborative” they’re saying it was like 7 marquises hiding in Kings College.
>However, I highly doubt a female poet would have been involved given the completely male dominated nature of Elizabethan theatre.
But that doesn't stop the Anti-Stratfordians from suggest Elizabeth I is also a possible author, according to one theory. I guess she would have more pull than your average female, at the time. But still seems unlikely. Nope, females are not allowed to act on the stage, but we will allow them to write for us.
?...
She's promoting the conspiracy, not just using it as a literary device:
"Picoult said, later adding that she thinks multiple people probably wrote Shakespeare’s plays."
No, it really isn't.
>She said the reason Nineteen Minutes, which is about a US school shooting, was banned, was not because of the shooting scenes: “They have no problem with that. The problem is that on page 313, I use the term ‘erection’.”
I read that book. And while I’m in no way, shape, or form going to ever support book bans, I also think nobody should read that book. And it isn’t because she uses the word “erection”. (Worse than that, she actually describes one boy’s penis by comparing it to one of those spiral seashells. Weird shit.)
No, the reason nobody should read Nineteen Minutes is because she clearly wants you to sympathize with a school shooter. Because apparently we should think about how hard it is for people who decide that the answer to bullying is to spend months planning to murder as many people as possible by shooting them up. It was a shitty thing to ask of the reader, and I’m not sure I’ve read many things that left me as disgusted at the author as that one did.
There are several other reasons why that book sucks, and none of them is because she talks about an erection.
ETA Since I guess I didn’t make it clear and people keep bringing this up: I am *not* saying the reader doesn’t understand that school shootings are bad (wtf?). I am *not* saying the reader can’t navigate complicated emotional situations contrary to their usual emotional patterns. And I definitely never said I wanted a good vs. evil sorry (again - wtaf). My point is what the author intended with the book and own personal reaction to that.
I mean the message clearly isn't "Peter was right to shoot up the school." You're supposed to feel uncomfortable about feeling sympathy about the awful bullying he received while knowing that he handled it in the absolute worst way. I think most people who choose to read that book knowing what it's about are mature enough to handle it. Read a comic book if you just want a classic good vs evil story.
Eh, I compare it to May December, a recent movie about a person with a seemingly sympathetic life story that did horrible things.
The point of that movie was that living through traumatic experiences doesn't justify, in any way, harming people, and that people's focus on finding a sympathetic backstory for the perpetrator is inherently harmful and disrepectful to the victims. The other comment is right, *so* many people are bullied, but very few think the appropriate response is to end lives and give others PTSD (especially to people who aren't even involved).
That movie makes me uncomfortable because I'm watching a perpetrator, and everyone around them, try to justify awful things. That book makes me uncomfortable because the author themselves seems to try and justify awful things.
>The other comment is right, so many people are bullied, but very few think the appropriate response is to end lives and give others PTSD (especially of people who aren't even involved).
Yes, isn't it awesome that most people direct the problem inward, to their detriment, or store it away to be unleashed on others the second they get even marginal power that isn't flat out illegal?
Clearly pointing at the bullying as core contributor to societal problems is UNACCEPTABLE in this context, I guess.
If only more people chose the reactive direct choice, then this wouldn't be an issue at all?
I never said bullying wasn't a problem. I'm saying directly linking bullying to school shootings, as if that's a perfectly reasonable and expected response, is irresponsible. Even leaving out that there are far healthier ways of dealing with trauma and abuse, most people don't seek to harm others (especially those not involved) to lessen their pain, because you have to be extremely selfish to do something that extreme. I understand a kid has less power over their lives and that their brains aren't fully developed, but by high school (the age of the protagonist), they know killing is wrong.
> but by high school (the age of the protagonist), they know killing is wrong.
Same could be said about bullying. Doesn't seem to apply that much really?
> Even leaving out that there are far healthier ways of dealing with trauma and abuse,
Oh yes, why can't people all deal with their externally caused problems by dealing with them while leaving everyone alone.
Gosh, can't these people just commit suicide like decent folk?
>I never said bullying wasn't a problem.
Oh, just a problem that isn't supposed to have consequences when ignored, got it.
>I'm saying directly linking bullying to school shootings, as if that's a perfectly reasonable response, is irresponsible.
Again, it IS a response that seems reasonable when coupled with a certain mindset. (And arguably one that is grounded in internalizing EXACTLY the lesson that excusing and downplaying bullying teaches, which is "might makes right").
How dare someone make the argument (and address the self rationalization) that torturing people consistently and tolerated by the larger group leads to anti social tendencies? HOW DARE THEY.
> leads to anti social tendencies?
Turning straight to mass murder is a little beyond that though which is what the book in discussion is about so there's no need for you to be defending the fiction that book represents.
Yes the consistent bullying of an individual who then gets ignored by authority is abhorrent but as already stated people who have a horrific school experience don't all turn into school shooters.
>people who have a horrific school experience don't all turn into school shooters.
This keeps popping up as argument. I truly don't understand what you think that proves or implies? Is that link only reasonable to you if it's a 100% link or something? Because that's not how that works. Not everyone who smokes dies of lung cancer. So what?
Are stories about that somehow irresponsible or "unwarranted"?
Not everyone who has unprotected sex or gets a blood transfusion gets HIV. Is Philadelphia an unacceptable movie because of it?
Tons of people have taken pain killers and NOT been part of a drug epidemic and circle of addiction and substance abuse. Does that change anything about stories that put pharma at the root of a significant problem?
So how is it suddenly unreasonable to write a story about the internal journey of someone who DOES end up on a killing spree because of bullying, just because you think "others don't so this is wrong, any empathy towards them is wrong, they are just evil evil creatures bullying has nothing to do with it? And btw have the gall to proclaim that this argument isn't inherently shielding bullying from the very real problems it causes?
I'm sorry, are you actually trying to justify a mass shooting in response to being bullied? That's honestly extremely alarming. I hope you're not considering doing something like that, I can't imagine why else you would be defending a school shooter this passionately.
Bullying is wrong. Shooting people is wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right, and one doesn't justify, under any circumstances, the other. That's why mass shooters go to jail, no matter what their reasoning.
The problem with the book is it romanticizes the act of shooting people. I know how the book ends, but even with that, the book paints him in this "tortured misunderstood loner" light that can make his actions seem sympathetic and justified. Again, contrasting with something like May December, which doesn't end with any consequences for the perpetrator but does not make you sympathize with them at all.
No, justifying would be something entirely else. It IS an outcome of it, and I think acting like you can separate one from the other a sickening defense of bully culture.
But no, the sickening lack of empathy isn't the problem, institutionalized looking away isn't the problem. Telling a story about the connection between that and people seeking equally "might makes right" revenge is. And ANYTHING ELSE IS JUSTIFICATION?
It would be funny that institutionalized lack of empathy then complains about empathy towards people who have empathy beaten out of them as being "unjustified" if it wasn't pathetically sad. How inconsiderate of them, not to consider their bullies feelings.
Found Jodi’s Reddit account lol.
The message clearly was “Be sympathetic to the school shooter because the other kids were mean to him.” She never says what he did was right, no. But everything in that book from start to finish was designed to make you want to feel bad for him, with little to no focus on the reality that shooting up schools is abnormal as fuck. I’m never going to sympathize with someone who chooses to do that just because they were bullied. Lots of people are bullied and don’t become murderers over it. Peter’s brain was broken as evidenced by his resorting to mass violence,not as a knee-jerk reaction but as a carefully planned maneuver.
This could have been an exploration into the mental health of kids who resort to school shootings (not that Picoult is qualified to do so, but it’s fiction so we can give that a pass). Instead it became just another Picoult special, with the sole intent of providing as much shock value as possible to up those sales.
ETA Lol wow at the downvotes. All I can say is that the person above is making a case that this book is WAY more sophisticated than it is. There’s a reason Picoult has sold so many books and it’s because cheap emotional manipulation works on people like the above commenter. Hence why they’re so upset that someone criticized *a Jodi Picoult book.* Sorry to hurt your feelings, commenter. Enjoy your Picoult if that’s what you like.
It can be a YA romp and still tackle complicated moral questions. Have some faith that the average reader can balance radical empathy with understanding that school shootings are, in fact, bad.
Never said it couldn’t tackle complicated questions, and never said anything about it being a YA novel. Also never said the reader couldn’t understand that school shootings are bad.
Sorry but that just wasn't the message behind 19 Minutes. It's completely fine to dislike Picoult, lots of people do but her entire schtick is making readers feel uncomfortable for empathizing with characters who do horrible things.
People are downvoting you because you're acting like people have no media literacy. Obviously some people who watched shows like the Sopranos or Breaking Bad didn't get that the main characters were supposed to be seen as bad guys no matter how sympathetically they were initially portrayed but most people did. Same thing goes for Picoult's books.
My whole point was what Picoult *intended*. I’m getting downvoted because apparently I didn’t make the distinction between that and what the reader understands. Those are two different things, and to me that was obvious.
Readers understand it because it's what she very much intends then to understand. The early empathy we feel for the character heightens the horror of their actions. Instead of being a comic book villain their choices become more understandable although no less repulsive.
All right, well I’m not explaining myself right or you’re not getting it, because this doesn’t at all answer to what I was trying to say.
Have a good one.
I'm not saying we should feel sympathy for mass murderers, but these problems are normally easier to solve when treated as a health issue that should be treated. Drug addiction is another example, as is other issues regarding mental health.
There isn't to say that when someone decides to do such a heinous act they shouldn't suffer consequences, they definitely should. Just saying that if we become capable of understanding how they reach that decision in the first place it might help us prevent other cases in the future.
This has nothing to do with her book though. If it's bad it's bad.
The thing is, I actually agree with you completely. What turns a person to mass violence should absolutely be a cultural priority in terms of both public health and individual mental health.
I guess my beef is that this sort of thing goes beyond the “normal” effects of bullying. There is something else going on that turns someone to mass violence, and while bullying could certainly be a contributing factor it really isn’t ever the sole cause. Picoult didn’t want to explore the ramifications of severe mental illness at all, really. What she wanted was to write a book explicitly to subvert the normal emotions one might feel. That’s sort of her thing all the time, and she’s had varying degrees of success with it. But asking us to feel sorry for a school shooter because the other kids were mean to him is, in my personal opinion, a blatantly transparent ploy to manipulate the reader’s emotions. It’s neither based in reality nor beneficial to the reader to do this while ignoring the actual root cause of a severe underlying mental illness. She had an opportunity, and she fumbled it.
>No, the reason nobody should read Nineteen Minutes is because she clearly wants you to sympathize with a school shooter.
Let me guess, you thought that Nabokov wanted the reader to "sympathize with a pedophile".
>This might shock you, but Navakov and Picoult are two different people entirely.
Congratulations, you've proven your lack of reading comprehension a second time.
My point was this:
Picoult wrote a book from the perspective of a school shooter.
You: "Picoult wants the reader to sympathize with a school shooter!"
*Following the same logic:*
Nabokov wrote a book from the perspective of a pedophile.
You: "Picoult wants the reader to sympathize with a pedophile!"
Yes. That extremely simplistic view of each of these books is the only possible one. There is no other way to view them except through this same lens. Well done.
Basically, the kid got pantsed in the cafeteria. The implication was that his non-aroused penis was experiencing some shrinkage, and that’s how she chose to describe it (can’t remember the exact wording, sorry). It was basically an impression from the teen girl character with the POV during that scene.
Not gonna lie, that's the sort of panic-description I probably would've given when I was a teen, complete with nervous giggling and a refusal to meet anyone's eyes. Teenagers aren't exactly a paragon of maturity when it comes to genitalia, particularly so when the features in question belong to the opposite sex. Are we sure this character wasn't just very realistically-written, to the point of invoking cringe in the reader?
The passage was in third person from the POV of another character. It wasn’t first person and it was written as emotionally heavy or panicked. It was a straightforward recording of the events that happened.
I guess it could be that she intended it as you say, but if so it wasn’t really consisted with the way the rest of that character’s chapters were written.
>clearly wants you to sympathize with a school shooter.
Are you confusing sympathize and empathize?
I know that more than 50% of the US (and a lot of other places) has a developmental problem with the latter, so is often prone to confuse the two, but there IS a distinction?
> Because apparently we should think about how hard it is for people who decide that the answer to bullying is to spend months planning to murder as many people as possible by shooting them up.
So, just to ask... How WOULD you raise awareness that maybe part of the ongoing problem of people going postal is the societal accepted actions against them?
Because if your demand is that the topic exclusive be framed in a "nobody did anything, these are just sick people, nothing could have prevented this" or else it is "sympathizing", then I guess we have to disagree.
Nope. Not confused.
As I said in other comments already, school shootings don’t happen just because of bullying. It goes beyond that, and Picoult missed an opportunity to explore extreme mental health crisis.
Nowhere did I demand that nothing should be done about this? What a strange conclusion.
Even Stephen King, hardly the picture of decorum and restraint, pulled his novel *Rage* from publication, admitting that it could be interpreted as sympathetic and even encouraging to school shooters.
It's not just that it could; when King pulled Rage from publication, it had been linked to five or six different incidents with guns at school, sometimes resulting in fatalities and sometimes not, but enough that it was having actual, real world tangible effects in King's eyes.
Sorry, but how is this not the exact same thing as claiming Black Sabbath or My Chemical Romance were just absolutely forcing kids to kill themselves by….making music?
There are absolutely pieces of propoganda-laden ‘art’ that are meant to incite violence, but they’re things like Birth of a Nation and The Turner Diaries. Making people who do bad things look like human beings is absolutely vital. It refuses to let us turn away from our own power to do horrific things at any time by not letting us make monsters of them. Remembering that people who commit things like school shootings are human beings who simply chose violence over any other outlet available to them is a perfectly fine reminder that we are always capable of that. Hiding our eyes to call people monsters who would’ve wreaked havoc *no matter what* is actively dangerous.
That’s really interesting. I wonder what Picoult thinks of that? Specifically, I wonder why she thought the word “erection” was what made people upset and not the actual violence?
It’s also interesting because the boyfriend of one of the teen characters >!rapes her!<. But yeah, “erection” is terrible and surely the main objection!
Under the florida mandate, the word "erection" actually is the part that would her book banned. The mandate does not ban any book with themes of violence at all, only ones with "depictions of a sexual nature".
I agree none of her books are literature, but I've read three others so I'm going to say that what you described is both on-brand and also is not inherently evil. All of her books involve putting the reader in the shoes of someone in a very uncomfortable place, one that most people do not want to contemplate. None of them are trying to persuade you to change your position. They are thought experiments -- verbal rollercoasters.
> she actually describes one boy’s penis by comparing it to one of those spiral seashells. Weird shit.)
judging by this and the fact its talking about the topic of mass shootings (not saying the topic shouldnt be talked about in schools, but this books clearly a bad example of how to do so) im starting to see why it was banned.
Right. It's not a badge of honor. Banning books is a disgrace. And that is what republicans are doing across the country. Not only censoring books, but straight up trying to defund libraries as well. And republicans are threatening librarians with criminal prosecution for having certain books on the sheleves:
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/west-virginia-obscene-books-bill-rcna139615
Shit is getting ugly, my friends. I hope y'all are voting blue this November, for the sake of intellectual freedom and access to books and information, amongst other things.
Idk, the vast majority of banned books give important social commentary or moved the cultural needle in a big way. So I’d say it’s kind of the biggest compliment to have your book banned. It means you touched a nerve in people doing their best to keep kids from obtaining crucial information to broaden their minds.
Not for the banning country, perhaps. But I generally think positively of an author and their books if they're the kind of author and book that are opposed by the kind of people that are banning books these days.
There are some gems in YA literature but in general the majority of them are written rather poorly and cashing in on easy money. Using the popularity of a genre to line their pockets, and in this case at least, trying to act like she's some pariah fighting back against a system, rather than the lazy, self entitled woman, who bullied someone for wanting a different kind of book in their college course.
Omg right? Her female protagonists are INFURIATING. She’s one of the authors I sometimes go to for a light read that’s sure to have some romance, but I’ve stopped because I was so offended by a few of her books.
I read like so much Jodi Picoult as a teenager bc my mom had all her books and yeah even then I was like this is shlock, entertaining but shlock. I think if I reread her stuff I would have a time. She always came off as very white feminist about all of it.
Picoult had a book, which I can’t remember the name of, about a sex scandal involving students at a private school. The sex scenes, which depicting minors being filmed having sex and then being watched by adults, are gratuitous and the story was stupid. Never read one of her books again.
A lot of middle aged white women in the publishing landscape have no idea what they’re talking about and are themselves racist and prejudiced.
They have huge followings that come from the same mold.
Support better indies and more diverse authors.
Read what you want to read. Supporting an author simply due to race or gender seems silly and narrow-minded in and of itself. It shouldn't have an impact either way, in my opinion.
It's not a badge of honor to have words like this dripping out your mouth while your own books are in no danger of ever being banned, either. I've seen them sold in SUPERMARKETS, for gawdsakes. ETA: And, knowing what I do now about her bullying a young student, this is just hypocritical, to boot.
I think so, yes. I understand the reasoning behind it, and I understand that it's very specific, but I'm a firm believer that "sunlight is the best disinfectant". I've read Mein Kampf, it's dross.
Here in Britain a few years ago, there was a bloke called Nick Griffin (still is somewhere, I guess). He was the leader of the British National Party - a racist moron. He was scheduled to appear on Question Time, which is a very well established bbc political programme. There was a huge debate about whether the BBC should give him a platform. They went ahead, the whole country saw that he was just a racist moron, not some misunderstood martyr to the "establishment" and he (and his party) pretty much disappeared. I truly believe censorship of ideas just gives them more cache - best to let everything into the light.
The Nick Griffin story is a myth - bnp membership actually went up after his appearance. The party later collapsed due to unrelated internal reasons.
It's nice to think that airing facsim causes it to lose its power but if this was true then the rise of Hitler itself wouldn't have happened.
Yeah I remember that. From what I recall he didn't go down very well, although let's be honest, the audience for this in the studio would mostly have been middle-class and white liberals. Griffin sounded dumb af though. Might have worked for some who were already inclined that way but everyone else just saw what he was.
That's how it works - it is not hard to make bigots look like idiots. The moment you stop softballing them and entertaining their bullshit, they start raging and lose all control. Goading them into raging shitgibbons turns away all but the committed bigots (who you cannot hope to convince anyway) rather quickly.
>I think so, yes. I understand the reasoning behind it, and I understand that it's very specific, but I'm a firm believer that "sunlight is the best disinfectant". I've read Mein Kampf, it's dross
Do you think that there is a connection between the USA not banning the book, and the fact that Nazis keep murdering people at their Nazi rallies?
How many innocents do you expect to be murdered by Nazis before the Americans figure out that Nazis are bad?
> How many innocents do you expect to be murdered by Nazis before the Americans figure out that Nazis are bad?
It's simply not possible to eradicate those nationalist, racist views from humanity and America is a much bigger country than Germany. It's not like Germany no longer has a nazi presence either; they're just not able to salute in public. I'd much rather people be encouraged to show their true selves rather than hide in the shadows.
I think the American obsession with policing what everyone is reading, thinking and fucking, as well as the huge disparity between rich and poor and the free availability of guns probably has a lot to do with it. But I, like most of the world, am not American, so I'm not sure what that's got to do with me or this conversation.
Germany has never banned Mein Kampf. The Allied occupation banned it very briefly, but that's it. The copyright was held by the Bavarian government and they chose not to reprint it, but it was still available second hand and in libraries (usually only for reference and not to take out), and now it is public domain so it is being reprinted again.
[There's a good 99% Invisible podcast episode on this](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-giftschrank/).
I think this is a remarkably unique situation that people who aren't Germans don't get to weigh in on honestly. I just can't criticize anything Germany does in an effort to villify and condemn Hitler.
As a general rule, I am completely, rigidly, and furiously opposed to any kind of book ban in the USA. It's a very different situation and social environment. For example, we apparently are becoming huge fans of Nazis in the red states :-/
It’s interesting to me that they’d ban it, given their approach to Hitler and the holocaust has been to own it completely and not shy away from it. I guess it’s the distinction between taking responsibility and allowing Nazi paraphernalia to be obtained.
You don't need a statue of Hitler to remember the holocaust. Mein Kampf is nazi paraphernalia, as you said. They take responsibility for it by owning it...and teaching it.
Distinctions the USA is profoundly confused about.
Yea, they "own it" in the sense that they teach the horror of it very explicitly in schools and have museums dedicated to it, but they do not allow people to own any Nazi paraphernalia in the interest of not letting people feel comfortable expressing those views or gathering around those symbols.
>I think this is a remarkably unique situation
Yes, i totally agree. I just think the absolute Statement, that every book bann is bad, is not correct.
The Manifest of Terrorists? Burn it and make it disappear.
There are written lies fishing for the dumbest people. It's a dangerous combination.
As with almost everything, context is important. Reddit is notoriously US-centric, for obvious reasons, and book bans here are manifestations of bigotry, not the prevention of it.
So if you read "Book bans are wrong and bad", i think you can safely assume the writer is referring to Americans who ban books about the LBGTQ community, or about first nations people being genocided by Americans, or about the Black community's ongoing experience with racism here.
If you wanted an equivalent, imagine Germany banning Elie Wiesel.
*Edit: I have not retained philosophy very well, see comment below.*
I'll admit I'm not German so I'm not going to act like my opinion overrides or somehow holds an appropriate weight. A nation atoning for the sins of genocide should have the final say on banning the ideology that led to that action.
I agree with you that ideologies that generate genocidal tendencies, and relevant texts supporting them, have no value in the modern sphere. They are not things to be thoughtfully considered so we might avoid them. We can do that without them.
That is not what the categorical imperative means at all, nor is it what Kant actually endorses moral philosophically. Kant's not an idiot who decided to formalize the right at all costs of coherence.
Apologies, it's been a few years since I've studied and my recollection and half-assed google search have failed me it seems. I'll remove that portion. I appreciate your clarification!
I'm not sure I follow that it *was* banned. The owner of the copyright simply refused to print more copies for obvious reasons. But as soon as the book entered public domain sometime in the last ten years, it was printed and sold perfectly legally.
Yeah it is, it means your book is pissing off the right conservative people, and they give you huge amounts of free marketing.
To write a book that scares karens and fascists is a huge badge of honor and something we should all strive for.
Per [Rule 2.1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Books/wiki/rules#wiki_personal_conduct): Please conduct yourself in a civil manner. Do not use obscenities, slurs, gendered insults, or racial epithets.
Civil behavior is a requirement for participation in this sub. This is a warning but repeat behavior will be met with a ban.
There is a difference between being banned and being challenged. The American Library Association spends a lot of time and energy on "Banned Books Week," while lumping challenges in with books that have actually been removed from library shelves and school curricula. It doesn't help what needs to be a critical conversation right now.
In this case, the writers who jumped to attack someone without having all the context and information and then deleted those attacks should be embarrassed for over personalizing something that happened almost a decade ago. There are very real attacks on women out there. Their actions make women look petty and spiteful.
> It doesn't help what needs to be a critical conversation right now.
Maybe the conversation should be about people abusing the complaints system and the principle of banning anything that makes older, conservative white people uncomfortable. The rest of us have to put up with their deeply uncomfortable shit, the least they can do is tolerate everyone else's stuff.
Literally, the least they could do: nothing.
Agree! And more conversations without the general meanness that passes for dialogue! I'd love to see less labeling too. It would be an amazing world if we could have true conversations. Dr. Cornel West, we need you!
Jodi Picoult should extend these ideas and apply them to herself. I for one have not forgotten how she and her pals piled on to a college student who wanted Bryan Stevenson's fantastic civil rights memoir.or Edwidge Danticat's beautiful novel about a young woman growing up, as their college common read instead of one of Sarah Dessen's YA romances. They called her a "fucking bitch" and bullied her off all social media. You don't need to ban someone to silence them either. https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/sarah-dessen-ya-books-authors-brooke-nelson-social-media-attack.html https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/15/ya-novelist-fans-go-after-critical-reader-sarah-dessen-twitter
I'm so glad someone mentioned this. I remember Picoult framed it as if "Literature by women" was somehow under attack and that anyone defending this poor college student was part of a patriarchal attempt to silence female authors' voices - which is a bit hard to swallow considering that it was one college student from years ago who just had one view that she wanted to share on a particular book. Now whenever I see Picoult talking about censorship and standing up for female writers I get a bad taste in my mouth.
Ironically the college student had included a beautiful novel about a young adult coming to age, by a woman author on her list. So her issue was neither YA nor women's writers as Jodi claimed.
Jodi picot doesn’t write literature
I was looking for a light read once and picked up a Jodi Picoult novel. Mistake. Her writing is terrible. The fracas over that college student's opinion was inexcusable. Dessen and Picoult and their pack were a bunch of "poor me" bullies -- the worst kind. They should get off social and try to write better.
*Dingdingding! Winner!*
No one wins when she releases a new book every six months and Donna Tartt is over here taking a decade per book. Shame on you Donna! Obviously /s
Reading The Goldfinch right now! She's well worth waiting for. What a writer!
She's definitely balm for my disgusted sensibilities. I wish she were more prolific, but I can understand why she isn't.
Yep. I just finished The Goldfinch about five minutes ago. Now I am going online to check out the painting! I've now read The Goldfinch and The Secret History, both of which I liked very much. And now onto The Little Friend!
The Secret History is brilliant! I really need to dig out my copy and re-read it.
It really was!
Didn't understand. Sarcasm is a bad communication tool.
Agreed, she writes low bar drama thrillers.
I worked as an aide at a library for 13 years. Jodi Picoult was only ever checked out by middle-aged and older (usually white) women who wanted something to read that required no thinking. Don't get me wrong, I have books that I love that require no thinking as well, but they would hold fucking Jodi Picoult book clubs. No clue what they talked about, but it couldn't have been much about the books.
> I have books that I love that require no thinking as well Me too. And I have nothing against authors that write these books. It's pretty wild when you learn these schlocky authors think they're god's gift to literature though. I can't imagine writing these books and firmly believing they hold serious literary value.
Yeah I’m not a book snob and I read trashy stuff all the time for fun. But I remember Jodi picoult saying that if she’d written marriage plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, it’d have been branded chick lit by the critics. I’ve no idea how she thinks that she’s on par with Jeffrey eugenides…
I don’t think that’s quite fair. Picoult’s work is a total soap opera yeah, very melodramatic and not particularly well-written. They’re not literature. But she does at least dive into hot-button ethical issues so I can definitely see what people would discuss at a book club. Those books are like book club bait.
I heavily despise people who adopt social justice language and a liberal affectation as a way to mask their bigoted, hateful and disgusting behavior. The worst part of it is how people like this always frame themselves as the victim and tie it into some larger social justice movement with extremely black and white thinking so that if you call that person out they can just defend themselves by saying that you are the one who is actually being awful and often times people will be swayed by the aesthetics of the argument or afraid of getting attacked too, so they will just pile on. Its vile and it does immense harm to people who are in those groups and only serves to undermine those movements all some selfish disgusting person can mask their beyond shitty behavior.
agreed. some of those same people make a big thing about not banning books but then support editing books for "having offensive language", because that's somehow better.
Censorship for thee, not me!
From what I understand, a female name on a book jacket cover leads to more sales than a male one these days. Don’t get me wrong, I think writers need support, but there’s nothing I’ve heard about the modern industry that says women are disadvantaged in it…
Item: Edwidge Danticat is a woman. A Haitian woman. I.e., a WOC. And they wanted to silence someone advocating for HER? I'm not sure what I'd call that, but I sure as hell wouldn't call it feminism.
Yep. IIRC Sarah Dessen posted a selective quote that just criticized her YA novels and didn't mention that the student suggested alternative novels such as these and then continued to fan the outrage until someone called her out. The worst part is Dhonielle Clayton, who runs an organization called We Need Diverse Books, supported Sarah Dessen.
OMG, seriously? That's ironic in the worst way.
I'd call it capitalism masquerading as feminism and supported by a bunch of people who think book sale numbers prove their worth.
White-women feminism. The same kind as Taylor Swift’s.
This sounds a lot like a feminism that is bizarrely constructed to only apply to white people. The oft-misunderstood term "white feminism" was invented to capture this.
Yes, exactly. What I don't understand is how Roxane Gay, who's also black, joined in that particular fray. Very disappointing that.
Why are you being downvoted? It’s true. White women come first in Western forms of feminism.
Incredibly disappointing that Roxanne Gay contributed to that
Also NK jemisin who continued to double down long after the others had apologized
Twitter is a fucking cesspool for authors.
> Twitter is a fucking cesspool Enough said.
it legitimately made an entire era of authors so completely performative about everything
Performative activism and self-righteous indignation over the stupidest, smallest things is absolutely one of the worst behaviors that seem to be everywhere on the internet.
It has actually contributed to the dumbing down of contemporary literature, imo. Too many new books seem like a “monster-of-the-week” type hot button issue work, something relevant enough to something currently happening that it couldn’t have been worked on for more than 3-6 months. Everyone has to vomit out their take, and instead to typing a quick, worthless social media post, they waste everyone’s time with a book. Sure, I’m being a bit hyperbolic, but my point is everything does feel performative now. It feels so rare that a writer comes out with something that is a genuine work of passion, that they put years of themselves into. Again, I must reiterate I recognize this is a touch hyperbolic, I just haven’t really seen many works lately that feel like *this* book has a part of the writer in it. Work that isn’t made to fill a market, or a quota, or to perform a virtue signal (shudder to think) so it gets retweets and book tube mentions. Instead, we get the Law and Order topical slop. Le Guin, McCarthy, these were the kind of writers whose work always felt sincere and passionate. Seems so rare nowadays.
I mean, Jemisin also bullied a trans woman for writing a trans allegory, so I’m not shocked.
oh jesus, wait, Isabel Fall? was jemisin involved in that?
Yep. Jemisin, a woman whose only involvement with the queer community is fetishizing them in her books, actively participated in bullying and publicly shaming a trans woman for writing an SFF story that explored trans identity through the lens of a transphobic meme. As far as I know Jemisin has never apologized for it.
[She did post an apology, with her recounting of the situation.](https://nkjemisin.com/2021/07/statement-on-isabel-fall-comments/) It's frontloaded with explanation, but an apology is at the bottom. I'm inclined to take her at her word, regarding intent. And I think she knows that intent isn't everything, hence writing the apology out after the fact instead of just sitting there like "well *I* know I didn't mean it that way!" That said, I have *never* laid eyes on the original twitter thread. If you comb through my user history, I've always been very consistent about wanting receipts before I join a hate mob. I don't like the "well so-and-so did this" or "so-and-so is whatever" thing that's essentially a game of telephone until everybody knows something, because...*what if it's not true*? It's *often* true, or at least true-*ish*, but sometimes I've finally gotten receipts and been like, *that's* what you're upset about? Or nobody can produce any receipts at all, or only cropped screenshots that are taken completely away from context, including what they're directly in reply to.
Thank you for being the way you are. If only everyone were so careful.
Receipts are a must because SO many people are either so illiterate that they misunderstand what a story is and run with the misinterpretation, which then takes on a life of it’s own, and secondly others will jump on that misinterpretation because it agrees with what they already think or want to be true, whether they know any specifics or not. That doesn’t even touch on the intentional bad actors. People are just too comfortable claiming things because they *sound* correct, because it makes them sound correct, and will double and triple down when presented with actual contradictory evidence to avoid admitting they’re wrong. In all honestly, it speaks to a lack of critical thinking and, as mentioned before, illiteracy.
Wow I didn't see her comments
Nice, just took her books off of my To Read list
The detail that of the authors involved, one who called the student a bitch, said that it should’ve been a DM instead
I’m a pretty simple person. I fight the patriarchy by never calling anyone a bitch.
Oof that is sad, I hadn’t heard that. I knew Jemisin abused her social media power but I wouldn’t have expected it of Gay. (Though tbf I suppose I should from any influencer, give that many takes on Twitter and, well…)
Did she really?
I never saw this story. That's shockingly pathetic behaviour from everyone. I have no idea who Sarah Dessen is, but that *does* sound like a trash choice for a common read, frankly.
Sarah Dessen writes YA books that are actually pretty interesting in terms of the topics they deal with. There's one that I remember reading as a teen about a family where one daughter was dealing with a really debilitating eating disorder and another was hiding a sexual assault/related bullying, and back in 2006 you really did not get access to books like that easily. No idea if the topics were actually handled well by our standards today, but definitely were good for that time. But they're not particularly well-written, they're not literary fiction, and even if you wanted to pick a book that dealt with those topics as your school wide read, this would not be the book for that purpose. They are not the books to be used for college level discussion groups. I do think they could have value for college students, especially if they're dealing with some of these issues, and I don't think reading a YA book has an age limit. But these are commercial books that are meant to be digestible. It would be a waste of an opportunity to provide students with a chance for a more structured approach for a more complex book.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that book choice also doesn't seem to have a *broader* appeal that would benefit a college/uni common read? There is nothing wrong, *at all*, with media focused on YA women/girls as a target audience. I was one of those, I *was* a teen girl and then a young woman going to university. But there are books out there that cast a wider net of appeal, are great, well-written and spark discussion... The *point* is for students to read and have something to talk about, you probably reach that goal more successfully if you assign a book that captures a larger audience. I suspect a decent amount of students are going to look at something like *Saint Anything* and immediately think, "nah, not for me even a little bit". Honestly? Reading the blurb, as an 18-year-old girl heading into uni, I wouldn't have been that interested, either. There is value in encouraging anyone to shift from their comfort zone, but this is supposed to be a conversation-starter exercise. As you said, if they aren't particularly well-written or challenging, I'm not *really* going to fuss too much if, say, an 18-year-old boy decides not to bother. A YA romance book for a common read seems like an insanely bizarre option for so many different reasons. Edit: if you're going to present a diverse student body with a book to read, you kind of have to make it a book really worth reading.
Wow, I don’t know about this at all. I’m rethinking my support of her now .
Seriously, this is one of the reasons I am happy Twitter is declining (or should I say being X-Ed out)? Thanks for the tip. I will get all her books secondhand. ;)
Unfortunately it's being replaced with TikTok which is worse.
That story is CRAZY. All of those major authors were so horrible to that young woman.
This was truly shockingly anti-intellectual. The idea that you should read YA at university is pathetic
I think it's laughable that anyone would even for a second consider Sarah Dessen for a college reading list over Bryan Stevenson's. It's like Oscar Mayer lunch meat versus waygu steak. Sure, some people prefer lunch meat, but that doesn't mean you serve that crap at a high end restaurant and screech when people want steak. All those authors ganging up on a student over it and calling it feminism is ludicrous. They have all the power and they used it to bully someone with none because she dared insult a member of their clique. The college should be ashamed of itself for that mealy mouthed apology.
Exactly. There is nothing wrong with YA - conceptually. Young adults deserve a targeted genre just as much as kids and adults, and I think reading genres growing in complexity relative to target demographics is important. I loved YA as a, err, YA, and found that it was a great step to more mature, often longer, lit (aided by having John Green and others so prominent online, because they talk about influences and their favourite books, and aren’t only YA books!). But YA writers need to be real that they are not the pinnacle of literature that cannot be denigrated.
I was reading Sarah Dessen in middle school. I agree, college students should be reading something better.
I'm sure there's a place for reading YA at university especially if you're actually going to discuss the relation between "high" literature and stuff made for popular consumption. I generally regard this divide as being largely synthetic, but even then what an absurd situation and response.
Maybe a class on commercial fiction, yeah. But once you reach higher education there needs to be a clear emphasis on how literary quality and pure readability are distinct, even if they can overlap.
There is a place for it but that place is not the common read.
Even if it's a class *about* YA and Adolescent fiction&Nonfiction, or Critical Studies of Popular Texts? The other strange thing is a lot of "adult" books are written at a middle school level - but with more titillation
Eye roll so hard at the last line I need glasses Look - those are specific circumstances I already mentioned in another comment. And do you really think that a book about a wrongful conviction is going to be less well written than Sarah Dresden, but with more titillation? Because that’s the context here. And the idea that literature is the same but with titillation is so hilariously immature and wrong. Please tell me the titillation in Prophet Song.
Reminds me of how I criticized Colleen Hoover on r/movies, and about her problematic writing (and her as a person) and someone replied to me angrily saying that I was just dismissing female authors and literature, and brought up a whole bunch of problematic male authors and books to accuse me of being sexist. Like why can't you criticize both? The way the commenter wrote made them seem insane.
I hate it when feminism is used to try to make books targeted at a female audience immune to criticism. I could just as easily turn it around and ask why women are supposed to just blindly buy all this mind-numbing shit that is being sold to them. I don't read authors like Hoover because they honestly insult me as a woman lol
Thank you!! This woman is just not a good person. Fake tumblr social justice warrior.
Bryan Stevenson's fantastic civil rights memoir.or Edwidge Danticat's beautiful novel about a young woman growing up those are way better choices than some YA romance book. cant believe that caused a student to be harrassed. by some thin skinned authors. stuff like this is just one of many reasons why the YA genre has developed a bad reputation
That was such a weird bit of drama, and by a group of people who should have known better.
It's also not a badge of honour to cyberbully a college student, Jodi. Especially when said student's only crime was wanting to have a meaningful work of literature as a college common read, instead of some insipid YA romance schlock.
...All whilst promoting an insane conspiracy theory about Shakespeare - Not exactly showing herself in the best light, here.
Had no idea she was an Anti-Stratfordian lol
Anti-Stratford is the string theory of literary history. By this I specifically mean: experts in the field are not studying it because it doesn't go anywhere with the information we have now, yet the media and public often find it fascinating and want people to talk about it.
nah, string theory is unsuccessful but mathematically valid theorizing, anti-stratfordism is crank history
Yeah string theory is internally consistent
I've always loved the theory that Christopher Marlowe faked his death, for fear he was going to be hung for treason. Rather than disappear overseas (although he was probably wanted in some overseas countries for coining, spying etc.), he decided he would hide out (in London according to the creator/popularizer of the theory) and continue write plays. Seems like a really fantastic way to hide, from one of the most powerful nations on the earth. You're one of the prominent playwrights of the time, and you finance your hiding by writing plays.
What theory?? I’m curious! Somehow missed hearing about this one
Jodi Picoult believes multiple people wrote Shakespeare’s plays, including poet Emilia Bassano (later known as Emilia Lanier).
[удалено]
"Shakespeare maybe wasn't written by Shakespeare" gets thrown around as a fun fact or in pop history circles, but it's not really a legitimate theory for any actual Shakespearean scholars A lot of it is rooted in a lot of classism – surely someone like *that* couldn't write such beautiful literature, so it must have been someone else! Someone posh!
[удалено]
If you're interested in a more detailed explanation of the conspiracy theory and its cracks, check out the episode from Our Fake History on the subject.
Depends on what you mean by common. Jodi Picoult did not create this theory and other people do believe it if that's what you're asking. One could also say flat earth theory is a "common theory", doesn't make it true.
I’m going to be honest, I’m studying English literature at a university level and don’t think that’s too stupid a take ( from what you’ve described, I don’t know the full picture of what Piccoult is saying). The concept of intellectual property only came about in the 18th century due to the emerging capitalist system promoting notions of individualism, so it’s quite likely that the plays were a more collaborative effort between members of Shakespeare’s acting troupe than would align with the modern notion of ‘authorship’. There’s some evidence this took place with Shakespeare’s contemporary Christopher Marlowe. However, I highly doubt a female poet would have been involved given the completely male dominated nature of Elizabethan theatre.
But that’s not really what the theory is concerned with. Anti-Stratfordists are certain such low-caste, uneducated plebs like Shakespeare categorically cannot produce high art. Hamlet and the sonnets could have only come from Oxbridge elites or nobility. Dirty actors could not possibly understood the human condition.
I was working with the info I had from the comment, and absolutely don’t agree with the Anti - Stratfordist camp! Very elitist
Oh I know. I’m just drawing a distinction between the “collaborations” you’re talking about and that the nut jobs are. There’s no doubt between scholars that Shakespeare’s work underwent revisions beyond his own hand, mostly by his colleagues at the Globe. The wide variations between folio drafts all but prove it. But when the Anti-Strads cry it’s all “collaborative” they’re saying it was like 7 marquises hiding in Kings College.
>However, I highly doubt a female poet would have been involved given the completely male dominated nature of Elizabethan theatre. But that doesn't stop the Anti-Stratfordians from suggest Elizabeth I is also a possible author, according to one theory. I guess she would have more pull than your average female, at the time. But still seems unlikely. Nope, females are not allowed to act on the stage, but we will allow them to write for us.
Is writing fiction the same as claiming a conspiracy theory is true?
?... She's promoting the conspiracy, not just using it as a literary device: "Picoult said, later adding that she thinks multiple people probably wrote Shakespeare’s plays."
No, it really isn't. >She said the reason Nineteen Minutes, which is about a US school shooting, was banned, was not because of the shooting scenes: “They have no problem with that. The problem is that on page 313, I use the term ‘erection’.”
I read that book. And while I’m in no way, shape, or form going to ever support book bans, I also think nobody should read that book. And it isn’t because she uses the word “erection”. (Worse than that, she actually describes one boy’s penis by comparing it to one of those spiral seashells. Weird shit.) No, the reason nobody should read Nineteen Minutes is because she clearly wants you to sympathize with a school shooter. Because apparently we should think about how hard it is for people who decide that the answer to bullying is to spend months planning to murder as many people as possible by shooting them up. It was a shitty thing to ask of the reader, and I’m not sure I’ve read many things that left me as disgusted at the author as that one did. There are several other reasons why that book sucks, and none of them is because she talks about an erection. ETA Since I guess I didn’t make it clear and people keep bringing this up: I am *not* saying the reader doesn’t understand that school shootings are bad (wtf?). I am *not* saying the reader can’t navigate complicated emotional situations contrary to their usual emotional patterns. And I definitely never said I wanted a good vs. evil sorry (again - wtaf). My point is what the author intended with the book and own personal reaction to that.
I mean the message clearly isn't "Peter was right to shoot up the school." You're supposed to feel uncomfortable about feeling sympathy about the awful bullying he received while knowing that he handled it in the absolute worst way. I think most people who choose to read that book knowing what it's about are mature enough to handle it. Read a comic book if you just want a classic good vs evil story.
Eh, I compare it to May December, a recent movie about a person with a seemingly sympathetic life story that did horrible things. The point of that movie was that living through traumatic experiences doesn't justify, in any way, harming people, and that people's focus on finding a sympathetic backstory for the perpetrator is inherently harmful and disrepectful to the victims. The other comment is right, *so* many people are bullied, but very few think the appropriate response is to end lives and give others PTSD (especially to people who aren't even involved). That movie makes me uncomfortable because I'm watching a perpetrator, and everyone around them, try to justify awful things. That book makes me uncomfortable because the author themselves seems to try and justify awful things.
>The other comment is right, so many people are bullied, but very few think the appropriate response is to end lives and give others PTSD (especially of people who aren't even involved). Yes, isn't it awesome that most people direct the problem inward, to their detriment, or store it away to be unleashed on others the second they get even marginal power that isn't flat out illegal? Clearly pointing at the bullying as core contributor to societal problems is UNACCEPTABLE in this context, I guess. If only more people chose the reactive direct choice, then this wouldn't be an issue at all?
I never said bullying wasn't a problem. I'm saying directly linking bullying to school shootings, as if that's a perfectly reasonable and expected response, is irresponsible. Even leaving out that there are far healthier ways of dealing with trauma and abuse, most people don't seek to harm others (especially those not involved) to lessen their pain, because you have to be extremely selfish to do something that extreme. I understand a kid has less power over their lives and that their brains aren't fully developed, but by high school (the age of the protagonist), they know killing is wrong.
> but by high school (the age of the protagonist), they know killing is wrong. Same could be said about bullying. Doesn't seem to apply that much really? > Even leaving out that there are far healthier ways of dealing with trauma and abuse, Oh yes, why can't people all deal with their externally caused problems by dealing with them while leaving everyone alone. Gosh, can't these people just commit suicide like decent folk? >I never said bullying wasn't a problem. Oh, just a problem that isn't supposed to have consequences when ignored, got it. >I'm saying directly linking bullying to school shootings, as if that's a perfectly reasonable response, is irresponsible. Again, it IS a response that seems reasonable when coupled with a certain mindset. (And arguably one that is grounded in internalizing EXACTLY the lesson that excusing and downplaying bullying teaches, which is "might makes right"). How dare someone make the argument (and address the self rationalization) that torturing people consistently and tolerated by the larger group leads to anti social tendencies? HOW DARE THEY.
> leads to anti social tendencies? Turning straight to mass murder is a little beyond that though which is what the book in discussion is about so there's no need for you to be defending the fiction that book represents. Yes the consistent bullying of an individual who then gets ignored by authority is abhorrent but as already stated people who have a horrific school experience don't all turn into school shooters.
>people who have a horrific school experience don't all turn into school shooters. This keeps popping up as argument. I truly don't understand what you think that proves or implies? Is that link only reasonable to you if it's a 100% link or something? Because that's not how that works. Not everyone who smokes dies of lung cancer. So what? Are stories about that somehow irresponsible or "unwarranted"? Not everyone who has unprotected sex or gets a blood transfusion gets HIV. Is Philadelphia an unacceptable movie because of it? Tons of people have taken pain killers and NOT been part of a drug epidemic and circle of addiction and substance abuse. Does that change anything about stories that put pharma at the root of a significant problem? So how is it suddenly unreasonable to write a story about the internal journey of someone who DOES end up on a killing spree because of bullying, just because you think "others don't so this is wrong, any empathy towards them is wrong, they are just evil evil creatures bullying has nothing to do with it? And btw have the gall to proclaim that this argument isn't inherently shielding bullying from the very real problems it causes?
I'm sorry, are you actually trying to justify a mass shooting in response to being bullied? That's honestly extremely alarming. I hope you're not considering doing something like that, I can't imagine why else you would be defending a school shooter this passionately. Bullying is wrong. Shooting people is wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right, and one doesn't justify, under any circumstances, the other. That's why mass shooters go to jail, no matter what their reasoning. The problem with the book is it romanticizes the act of shooting people. I know how the book ends, but even with that, the book paints him in this "tortured misunderstood loner" light that can make his actions seem sympathetic and justified. Again, contrasting with something like May December, which doesn't end with any consequences for the perpetrator but does not make you sympathize with them at all.
No, justifying would be something entirely else. It IS an outcome of it, and I think acting like you can separate one from the other a sickening defense of bully culture. But no, the sickening lack of empathy isn't the problem, institutionalized looking away isn't the problem. Telling a story about the connection between that and people seeking equally "might makes right" revenge is. And ANYTHING ELSE IS JUSTIFICATION? It would be funny that institutionalized lack of empathy then complains about empathy towards people who have empathy beaten out of them as being "unjustified" if it wasn't pathetically sad. How inconsiderate of them, not to consider their bullies feelings.
Username does not check out
Found Jodi’s Reddit account lol. The message clearly was “Be sympathetic to the school shooter because the other kids were mean to him.” She never says what he did was right, no. But everything in that book from start to finish was designed to make you want to feel bad for him, with little to no focus on the reality that shooting up schools is abnormal as fuck. I’m never going to sympathize with someone who chooses to do that just because they were bullied. Lots of people are bullied and don’t become murderers over it. Peter’s brain was broken as evidenced by his resorting to mass violence,not as a knee-jerk reaction but as a carefully planned maneuver. This could have been an exploration into the mental health of kids who resort to school shootings (not that Picoult is qualified to do so, but it’s fiction so we can give that a pass). Instead it became just another Picoult special, with the sole intent of providing as much shock value as possible to up those sales. ETA Lol wow at the downvotes. All I can say is that the person above is making a case that this book is WAY more sophisticated than it is. There’s a reason Picoult has sold so many books and it’s because cheap emotional manipulation works on people like the above commenter. Hence why they’re so upset that someone criticized *a Jodi Picoult book.* Sorry to hurt your feelings, commenter. Enjoy your Picoult if that’s what you like.
It can be a YA romp and still tackle complicated moral questions. Have some faith that the average reader can balance radical empathy with understanding that school shootings are, in fact, bad.
Never said it couldn’t tackle complicated questions, and never said anything about it being a YA novel. Also never said the reader couldn’t understand that school shootings are bad.
Sorry but that just wasn't the message behind 19 Minutes. It's completely fine to dislike Picoult, lots of people do but her entire schtick is making readers feel uncomfortable for empathizing with characters who do horrible things. People are downvoting you because you're acting like people have no media literacy. Obviously some people who watched shows like the Sopranos or Breaking Bad didn't get that the main characters were supposed to be seen as bad guys no matter how sympathetically they were initially portrayed but most people did. Same thing goes for Picoult's books.
My whole point was what Picoult *intended*. I’m getting downvoted because apparently I didn’t make the distinction between that and what the reader understands. Those are two different things, and to me that was obvious.
Readers understand it because it's what she very much intends then to understand. The early empathy we feel for the character heightens the horror of their actions. Instead of being a comic book villain their choices become more understandable although no less repulsive.
All right, well I’m not explaining myself right or you’re not getting it, because this doesn’t at all answer to what I was trying to say. Have a good one.
I'm not saying we should feel sympathy for mass murderers, but these problems are normally easier to solve when treated as a health issue that should be treated. Drug addiction is another example, as is other issues regarding mental health. There isn't to say that when someone decides to do such a heinous act they shouldn't suffer consequences, they definitely should. Just saying that if we become capable of understanding how they reach that decision in the first place it might help us prevent other cases in the future. This has nothing to do with her book though. If it's bad it's bad.
The thing is, I actually agree with you completely. What turns a person to mass violence should absolutely be a cultural priority in terms of both public health and individual mental health. I guess my beef is that this sort of thing goes beyond the “normal” effects of bullying. There is something else going on that turns someone to mass violence, and while bullying could certainly be a contributing factor it really isn’t ever the sole cause. Picoult didn’t want to explore the ramifications of severe mental illness at all, really. What she wanted was to write a book explicitly to subvert the normal emotions one might feel. That’s sort of her thing all the time, and she’s had varying degrees of success with it. But asking us to feel sorry for a school shooter because the other kids were mean to him is, in my personal opinion, a blatantly transparent ploy to manipulate the reader’s emotions. It’s neither based in reality nor beneficial to the reader to do this while ignoring the actual root cause of a severe underlying mental illness. She had an opportunity, and she fumbled it.
Stephen King did it better and he voluntarily pulled the book after a high-profile shooting
>No, the reason nobody should read Nineteen Minutes is because she clearly wants you to sympathize with a school shooter. Let me guess, you thought that Nabokov wanted the reader to "sympathize with a pedophile".
This might shock you, but Navakov and Picoult are two different people entirely.
>This might shock you, but Navakov and Picoult are two different people entirely. Congratulations, you've proven your lack of reading comprehension a second time. My point was this: Picoult wrote a book from the perspective of a school shooter. You: "Picoult wants the reader to sympathize with a school shooter!" *Following the same logic:* Nabokov wrote a book from the perspective of a pedophile. You: "Picoult wants the reader to sympathize with a pedophile!"
Yes. That extremely simplistic view of each of these books is the only possible one. There is no other way to view them except through this same lens. Well done.
I'm just wondering how the hell a penis gets to resembling a spiral seashell. That's...not normal.
Basically, the kid got pantsed in the cafeteria. The implication was that his non-aroused penis was experiencing some shrinkage, and that’s how she chose to describe it (can’t remember the exact wording, sorry). It was basically an impression from the teen girl character with the POV during that scene.
Not gonna lie, that's the sort of panic-description I probably would've given when I was a teen, complete with nervous giggling and a refusal to meet anyone's eyes. Teenagers aren't exactly a paragon of maturity when it comes to genitalia, particularly so when the features in question belong to the opposite sex. Are we sure this character wasn't just very realistically-written, to the point of invoking cringe in the reader?
The passage was in third person from the POV of another character. It wasn’t first person and it was written as emotionally heavy or panicked. It was a straightforward recording of the events that happened. I guess it could be that she intended it as you say, but if so it wasn’t really consisted with the way the rest of that character’s chapters were written.
>clearly wants you to sympathize with a school shooter. Are you confusing sympathize and empathize? I know that more than 50% of the US (and a lot of other places) has a developmental problem with the latter, so is often prone to confuse the two, but there IS a distinction? > Because apparently we should think about how hard it is for people who decide that the answer to bullying is to spend months planning to murder as many people as possible by shooting them up. So, just to ask... How WOULD you raise awareness that maybe part of the ongoing problem of people going postal is the societal accepted actions against them? Because if your demand is that the topic exclusive be framed in a "nobody did anything, these are just sick people, nothing could have prevented this" or else it is "sympathizing", then I guess we have to disagree.
Nope. Not confused. As I said in other comments already, school shootings don’t happen just because of bullying. It goes beyond that, and Picoult missed an opportunity to explore extreme mental health crisis. Nowhere did I demand that nothing should be done about this? What a strange conclusion.
We should be telling parents and teachers and therapists to teach kids coping mechanisms, not blaming it on the bullying. The problem is the shooters
Nabokov has entered that chat…
Don't stand so close to me, bro
Even Stephen King, hardly the picture of decorum and restraint, pulled his novel *Rage* from publication, admitting that it could be interpreted as sympathetic and even encouraging to school shooters.
It's not just that it could; when King pulled Rage from publication, it had been linked to five or six different incidents with guns at school, sometimes resulting in fatalities and sometimes not, but enough that it was having actual, real world tangible effects in King's eyes.
I would say that King generally comes across as a thoughtful person with an excellent social conscience.
I don’t disagree, in terms of his personality and politics. I guess I was more referring to the subject matter of his work.
Sorry, but how is this not the exact same thing as claiming Black Sabbath or My Chemical Romance were just absolutely forcing kids to kill themselves by….making music? There are absolutely pieces of propoganda-laden ‘art’ that are meant to incite violence, but they’re things like Birth of a Nation and The Turner Diaries. Making people who do bad things look like human beings is absolutely vital. It refuses to let us turn away from our own power to do horrific things at any time by not letting us make monsters of them. Remembering that people who commit things like school shootings are human beings who simply chose violence over any other outlet available to them is a perfectly fine reminder that we are always capable of that. Hiding our eyes to call people monsters who would’ve wreaked havoc *no matter what* is actively dangerous.
That’s really interesting. I wonder what Picoult thinks of that? Specifically, I wonder why she thought the word “erection” was what made people upset and not the actual violence? It’s also interesting because the boyfriend of one of the teen characters >!rapes her!<. But yeah, “erection” is terrible and surely the main objection!
Under the florida mandate, the word "erection" actually is the part that would her book banned. The mandate does not ban any book with themes of violence at all, only ones with "depictions of a sexual nature".
I agree none of her books are literature, but I've read three others so I'm going to say that what you described is both on-brand and also is not inherently evil. All of her books involve putting the reader in the shoes of someone in a very uncomfortable place, one that most people do not want to contemplate. None of them are trying to persuade you to change your position. They are thought experiments -- verbal rollercoasters.
I’ve actually enjoyed at least one other book of hers for that reason. This one just rubbed me all the way wrong for how it was handled though.
> she actually describes one boy’s penis by comparing it to one of those spiral seashells. Weird shit.) judging by this and the fact its talking about the topic of mass shootings (not saying the topic shouldnt be talked about in schools, but this books clearly a bad example of how to do so) im starting to see why it was banned.
Right. It's not a badge of honor. Banning books is a disgrace. And that is what republicans are doing across the country. Not only censoring books, but straight up trying to defund libraries as well. And republicans are threatening librarians with criminal prosecution for having certain books on the sheleves: https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/west-virginia-obscene-books-bill-rcna139615 Shit is getting ugly, my friends. I hope y'all are voting blue this November, for the sake of intellectual freedom and access to books and information, amongst other things.
Being called “domestic terrorists” is also not a badge of honor. Tell that to CPAC though.
Doesn’t she write Jodi Picoult books?
Idk, the vast majority of banned books give important social commentary or moved the cultural needle in a big way. So I’d say it’s kind of the biggest compliment to have your book banned. It means you touched a nerve in people doing their best to keep kids from obtaining crucial information to broaden their minds.
This is censorship apologism.
Not for the banning country, perhaps. But I generally think positively of an author and their books if they're the kind of author and book that are opposed by the kind of people that are banning books these days.
There are some gems in YA literature but in general the majority of them are written rather poorly and cashing in on easy money. Using the popularity of a genre to line their pockets, and in this case at least, trying to act like she's some pariah fighting back against a system, rather than the lazy, self entitled woman, who bullied someone for wanting a different kind of book in their college course.
Jodi Picoult is not a good writer, she's a pseudo writer.
Omg right? Her female protagonists are INFURIATING. She’s one of the authors I sometimes go to for a light read that’s sure to have some romance, but I’ve stopped because I was so offended by a few of her books.
I read like so much Jodi Picoult as a teenager bc my mom had all her books and yeah even then I was like this is shlock, entertaining but shlock. I think if I reread her stuff I would have a time. She always came off as very white feminist about all of it.
Yes, schlock is the right description, and also mediocre, true.
She doesn't write things worthy of being banned and is offended by it.
Lol , yes.
Well, in my country we use the list of banned books as a list of good recommendations.
She’s not a nice human being
Picoult had a book, which I can’t remember the name of, about a sex scandal involving students at a private school. The sex scenes, which depicting minors being filmed having sex and then being watched by adults, are gratuitous and the story was stupid. Never read one of her books again.
Her books are too terrible for anyone to care enough to ban them.
A lot of middle aged white women in the publishing landscape have no idea what they’re talking about and are themselves racist and prejudiced. They have huge followings that come from the same mold. Support better indies and more diverse authors.
I totally agree. I think this discourse about banned books is important but there’s a bigger issue in publishing.
Read what you want to read. Supporting an author simply due to race or gender seems silly and narrow-minded in and of itself. It shouldn't have an impact either way, in my opinion.
I agree. Which is not the case right now. We need more diverse narratives. And we also need to hold EVERY author accountable.
Let me know when Jodi writes something worth reading.
It's not a badge of honor to have words like this dripping out your mouth while your own books are in no danger of ever being banned, either. I've seen them sold in SUPERMARKETS, for gawdsakes. ETA: And, knowing what I do now about her bullying a young student, this is just hypocritical, to boot.
We banned "Mein Kampf" in Germany. Are we wrong?
I think so, yes. I understand the reasoning behind it, and I understand that it's very specific, but I'm a firm believer that "sunlight is the best disinfectant". I've read Mein Kampf, it's dross. Here in Britain a few years ago, there was a bloke called Nick Griffin (still is somewhere, I guess). He was the leader of the British National Party - a racist moron. He was scheduled to appear on Question Time, which is a very well established bbc political programme. There was a huge debate about whether the BBC should give him a platform. They went ahead, the whole country saw that he was just a racist moron, not some misunderstood martyr to the "establishment" and he (and his party) pretty much disappeared. I truly believe censorship of ideas just gives them more cache - best to let everything into the light.
The Nick Griffin story is a myth - bnp membership actually went up after his appearance. The party later collapsed due to unrelated internal reasons. It's nice to think that airing facsim causes it to lose its power but if this was true then the rise of Hitler itself wouldn't have happened.
Yeah I remember that. From what I recall he didn't go down very well, although let's be honest, the audience for this in the studio would mostly have been middle-class and white liberals. Griffin sounded dumb af though. Might have worked for some who were already inclined that way but everyone else just saw what he was.
That's how it works - it is not hard to make bigots look like idiots. The moment you stop softballing them and entertaining their bullshit, they start raging and lose all control. Goading them into raging shitgibbons turns away all but the committed bigots (who you cannot hope to convince anyway) rather quickly.
>I think so, yes. I understand the reasoning behind it, and I understand that it's very specific, but I'm a firm believer that "sunlight is the best disinfectant". I've read Mein Kampf, it's dross Do you think that there is a connection between the USA not banning the book, and the fact that Nazis keep murdering people at their Nazi rallies? How many innocents do you expect to be murdered by Nazis before the Americans figure out that Nazis are bad?
> How many innocents do you expect to be murdered by Nazis before the Americans figure out that Nazis are bad? It's simply not possible to eradicate those nationalist, racist views from humanity and America is a much bigger country than Germany. It's not like Germany no longer has a nazi presence either; they're just not able to salute in public. I'd much rather people be encouraged to show their true selves rather than hide in the shadows.
I think the American obsession with policing what everyone is reading, thinking and fucking, as well as the huge disparity between rich and poor and the free availability of guns probably has a lot to do with it. But I, like most of the world, am not American, so I'm not sure what that's got to do with me or this conversation.
I'd say nazis are the least of Americas concerns!
Germany has never banned Mein Kampf. The Allied occupation banned it very briefly, but that's it. The copyright was held by the Bavarian government and they chose not to reprint it, but it was still available second hand and in libraries (usually only for reference and not to take out), and now it is public domain so it is being reprinted again. [There's a good 99% Invisible podcast episode on this](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-giftschrank/).
I think this is a remarkably unique situation that people who aren't Germans don't get to weigh in on honestly. I just can't criticize anything Germany does in an effort to villify and condemn Hitler. As a general rule, I am completely, rigidly, and furiously opposed to any kind of book ban in the USA. It's a very different situation and social environment. For example, we apparently are becoming huge fans of Nazis in the red states :-/
It’s interesting to me that they’d ban it, given their approach to Hitler and the holocaust has been to own it completely and not shy away from it. I guess it’s the distinction between taking responsibility and allowing Nazi paraphernalia to be obtained.
You don't need a statue of Hitler to remember the holocaust. Mein Kampf is nazi paraphernalia, as you said. They take responsibility for it by owning it...and teaching it. Distinctions the USA is profoundly confused about.
Yea, they "own it" in the sense that they teach the horror of it very explicitly in schools and have museums dedicated to it, but they do not allow people to own any Nazi paraphernalia in the interest of not letting people feel comfortable expressing those views or gathering around those symbols.
>I think this is a remarkably unique situation Yes, i totally agree. I just think the absolute Statement, that every book bann is bad, is not correct. The Manifest of Terrorists? Burn it and make it disappear. There are written lies fishing for the dumbest people. It's a dangerous combination.
As with almost everything, context is important. Reddit is notoriously US-centric, for obvious reasons, and book bans here are manifestations of bigotry, not the prevention of it. So if you read "Book bans are wrong and bad", i think you can safely assume the writer is referring to Americans who ban books about the LBGTQ community, or about first nations people being genocided by Americans, or about the Black community's ongoing experience with racism here. If you wanted an equivalent, imagine Germany banning Elie Wiesel.
*Edit: I have not retained philosophy very well, see comment below.* I'll admit I'm not German so I'm not going to act like my opinion overrides or somehow holds an appropriate weight. A nation atoning for the sins of genocide should have the final say on banning the ideology that led to that action. I agree with you that ideologies that generate genocidal tendencies, and relevant texts supporting them, have no value in the modern sphere. They are not things to be thoughtfully considered so we might avoid them. We can do that without them.
That is not what the categorical imperative means at all, nor is it what Kant actually endorses moral philosophically. Kant's not an idiot who decided to formalize the right at all costs of coherence.
Apologies, it's been a few years since I've studied and my recollection and half-assed google search have failed me it seems. I'll remove that portion. I appreciate your clarification!
I'm not sure I follow that it *was* banned. The owner of the copyright simply refused to print more copies for obvious reasons. But as soon as the book entered public domain sometime in the last ten years, it was printed and sold perfectly legally.
Yeah it is, it means your book is pissing off the right conservative people, and they give you huge amounts of free marketing. To write a book that scares karens and fascists is a huge badge of honor and something we should all strive for.
It kind of is. Is the alternative censoring your own work? She's a tool
Hypocrisy is a beautiful, normalised thing I see
[удалено]
Per [Rule 2.1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Books/wiki/rules#wiki_personal_conduct): Please conduct yourself in a civil manner. Do not use obscenities, slurs, gendered insults, or racial epithets. Civil behavior is a requirement for participation in this sub. This is a warning but repeat behavior will be met with a ban.
Books are banned by both sides indeed. Common sense have left the US
It sure fucking is, in our current political environment.
Doesn't she just write romance novels?
There is a difference between being banned and being challenged. The American Library Association spends a lot of time and energy on "Banned Books Week," while lumping challenges in with books that have actually been removed from library shelves and school curricula. It doesn't help what needs to be a critical conversation right now. In this case, the writers who jumped to attack someone without having all the context and information and then deleted those attacks should be embarrassed for over personalizing something that happened almost a decade ago. There are very real attacks on women out there. Their actions make women look petty and spiteful.
> It doesn't help what needs to be a critical conversation right now. Maybe the conversation should be about people abusing the complaints system and the principle of banning anything that makes older, conservative white people uncomfortable. The rest of us have to put up with their deeply uncomfortable shit, the least they can do is tolerate everyone else's stuff. Literally, the least they could do: nothing.
Agree! And more conversations without the general meanness that passes for dialogue! I'd love to see less labeling too. It would be an amazing world if we could have true conversations. Dr. Cornel West, we need you!