What are you currently reading?

[Henk]

[DavidW]

Good to see you posting again, Henk!

[Papy Oli]

Now starting Peter Pan.

Finished J.M. Barrie's book last night. Are we sure it's a children's book? 

Now, for a first foray in P.G. Wodehouse's oeuvre: "Carry on, Jeeves".

Spiffing, one hopes 

[Madiel]

Well, precisely. The censorship in the Socialist Republic of Romania did exactly that: they suggested the author or publisher to change this or that word, phrase or paragraph. If the changes were agreed upon, the book was printed. If the changes were rejected, more often than not the book was not printed.

You missed the point, it matters who "they" are. Who is making the suggestions. It's censorship when the government makes suggestions to the author or publisher.

The publisher making suggestions to the author is the standard editorial process.

Sensitivity reading is the publisher waiting until the author isn't around. It's a dumb idea in my opinion. But it isn't censorship in the proper sense of the word.

[Florestan]

The publisher making suggestions to the author is the standard editorial process.

Absolutely, but even in this case, it matters "what" suggestions are made. If they concern *how* the author's ideas are expressed, ie questions of grammar, style or other such things, then it's legitimate; if they concern *what* ideas are expressed, ie questions of "you can't/may not/are not allowed to say this in print because it might offend some people/the society rejects it/it's not politically correct/etc", then it's censorship.

Censorship is the action of preventing someone to publicly express their ideas. It's immaterial whether the one who does the action is a government official or an independent publisher.

Sensitivity reading is the publisher waiting until the author isn't around.

Which is the worst form of censorship as defined above.

[Madiel]

Censorship is the action of preventing someone to publicly express their ideas. It's immaterial whether the one who does the action is a government official or an independent publisher.

No, it's very material. Because the consequences are completely different. Nobody has a right to have a publisher agree to print their book. They just don't. Free speech does not mean, and has never meant, that you can go around demanding that the owners of megaphones hand them over, and to be honest I'm getting quite tired of all the times that I've seen people claim Very Loudly and Publicly that their freedom of speech is being impaired by a company, oblivious to the irony involved in being able to tell the whole world about this through other, different companies.

I realise people have been widening the meaning of the word for the last couple of decades, but there are major conceptual problems when people act as if there's no difference between a private corporation not agreeing to help you get your ideas out, and the threat of legal consequences from the state for putting your ideas out.

EDIT: And of course, these days self-publication is a more realistic possibility, which really brings home how misleading it is to claim that a publisher is "preventing" you from airing your ideas or "censoring" you when they don't agree to help you air them. Just go air the ideas somewhere else.

[Florestan]

No, it's very material. Because the consequences are completely different. Nobody has a right to have a publisher agree to print their book. They just don't. Free speech does not mean, and has never meant, that you can go around demanding that the owners of megaphones hand them over, and to be honest I'm getting quite tired of all the times that I've seen people claim Very Loudly and Publicly that their freedom of speech is being impaired by a company, oblivious to the irony involved in being able to tell the whole world about this through other, different companies.

I realise people have been widening the meaning of the word for the last couple of decades, but there are major conceptual problems when people act as if there's no difference between a private corporation not agreeing to help you get your ideas out, and the threat of legal consequences from the state for putting your ideas out.

EDIT: And of course, these days self-publication is a more realistic possibility, which really brings home how misleading it is to claim that a publisher is "preventing" you from airing your ideas or "censoring" you when they don't agree to help you air them. Just go air the ideas somewhere else.

Fair enough.

However, if we restricted the definition of censorship exclusively to "legal consequences from the state for putting your ideas out" then we'd get into a conundrum.

I am not aware of any case in which Romanian Socialist censorship took legal measures against an author or a publisher: if the suggested changes were not accepted, the book was simply not printed, or in the rare cases it was already printed, it was simply not put on sale or all the copies already on sale were confiscated --- and that was all. The author or publisher faced no fine or imprisonment. According to the "state legal consequences" theory, this was actually no censorship at all.

OTOH, self-publishing was another matter altogether. People have been sent to jail (and killed therein) for keeping private diaries, let alone self-publishing them. According to the same theory, this is the only valid form of censorship.

I'm not sure I can agree.

[Madiel]

Oh fine, delete the word "legal", I was merely trying to highlight the distinction as to how the state might punish you. Nothing you are saying is altering the fact that when a publisher says no to publishing your book, they aren't typically threatening you with punishment if you publish it somewhere else without them.

[ShineyMcShineShine]

Nobody has a right to have a publisher agree to print their book. They just don't. Free speech does not mean, and has never meant, that you can go around demanding that the owners of megaphones hand them over

The basic question is, does a private business have the right to deny service and if so on what grounds? In a healthy free market if one merchant refuses to sell me a candy bar because he hates me, I can buy that candy bar from another merchant. But if the power company refuses to sell me electricity because it hates me, what alternatives do I have? Burning trash in a barrel in my apartment to stay warm? Likewise, if the owners of megaphones refuse to help me get my ideas out because they hate me, free speech suffers--probably not because I have anything particularly important to say, but because the social discourse is controlled by a small number of megaphone owners. Those megaphones have an obligation--like the power company--to provide a certain level of unprejudiced service to everyone.

[Madiel]

The basic question is, does a private business have the right to deny service and if so on what grounds? In a healthy free market if one merchant refuses to sell me a candy bar because he hates me, I can buy that candy bar from another merchant. But if the power company refuses to sell me electricity because it hates me, what alternatives do I have? Burning trash in a barrel in my apartment to stay warm? Likewise, if the owners of megaphones refuse to help me get my ideas out because they hate me, free speech suffers--probably not because I have anything particularly important to say, but because the social discourse is controlled by a small number of megaphone owners. Those megaphones have an obligation--like the power company--to provide a certain level of unprejudiced service to everyone.

And yet the law disagrees with you. Getting published is not considered a "service"... and in America, if you tried creating a right to get published, the cries of socialism or Communism would be swift indeed.

How many megaphone owners there are... well I don't know that the number is that small. And the number of ways of getting your ideas out has only increased. But I cannot think of any example from the past of somebody successfully arguing they have a right to get a book printed, or to be in the newspaper, or to get on television. What's REALLY increased is the number of people who think they're entitled to have the world listen to them... and primarily that's because getting your ideas out has never been easier. Right this second I'm typing words that millions of people could read if they chose to. So long as those darn moderators don't "censor" me, seeing how I couldn't possibly go and write the exact same thing anywhere else.

[Madiel]

Addendum: I'd forgotten about those curious, now repealed rules the USA had about "balance". Though as I understand it that was never a right of an individual to be heard. It was an obligation on broadcast licence holders to include a range of views, with only certain kinds of people typically having the ability to use that obligation for their advantage. It was free speech advocates who got worried about the free speech of the broadcast companies.

...I note that this whole discussion about alleged censorship started with somebody being able to read their preferred version of an Agatha Christie novel.

[ShineyMcShineShine]

And yet the law disagrees with you. Getting published is not considered a "service"... and in America, if you tried creating a right to get published, the cries of socialism or Communism would be swift indeed.

How many megaphone owners there are... well I don't know that the number is that small. And the number of ways of getting your ideas out has only increased. But I cannot think of any example from the past of somebody successfully arguing they have a right to get a book printed, or to be in the newspaper, or to get on television. What's REALLY increased is the number of people who think they're entitled to have the world listen to them... and primarily that's because getting your ideas out has never been easier. Right this second I'm typing words that millions of people could read if they chose to. So long as those darn moderators don't "censor" me, seeing how I couldn't possibly go and write the exact same thing anywhere else.

Whether or not a right to be published exists is being increasingly debated now that the publishing has moved online and become more accessible: Facebook, reddit, X, Youtube, etc. The number of people who think they're entitled to have the world listen to them has increased because these platforms welcome them to contribute, but censor their speech. It's only natural they become irate when denied a voice in the big forum but told "of course you're free to go and say the same thing on Good Music Guide Classical Music Forum where up to two dozen cranky old men will see whatever you have  to say."

...I note that this whole discussion about alleged censorship started with somebody being able to read their preferred version of an Agatha Christie novel.

Yes, I always end up forgetting what I was arguing about and usually end up arguing against my initial position.

[Madiel]

It's funny, I'm currently watching a TV show about the author Karen Blixen, which covers the period where she struggled to find a publisher. And she really, really fought hard, using connections that most people wouldn't even have to finally get her foot in the door in the USA (she was Danish, and in that period failed to get a publisher in Denmark or the UK).

The proposition that these days she could claim a right to get published by the publisher of her choice, to get the desired audience size, seems completely bizarre to me.

And of course, if a great author had that right, so would every lousy one. Publishing companies would rapidly go bust...

[Iota]

A story set against the final days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the ability of the book to not only describe the period in question with political and historical acuity, but to make you feel you know what it was like actually being there is very striking. And the penetrating psychological and emotional portraits of the three separate generations of a family, markedly repressed by military tradition and mores of the time, make them appear so vivid, I felt I almost knew them personally, walking alongside them in technicolor.
He seems such a natural and empathetic writer, the language is consistently beautiful, breathtakingly so at times, and always with purpose, enriching visual and narrative depth. Mention should also be made of the translation by Michael Hofmann, which is a work of art on its own.
Altogether a deeply rewarding, enlightening and moving experience.

[ritter]

A story set against the final days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the ability of the book to not only describe the period in question with political and historical acuity, but to make you feel you know what it was like actually being there is very striking. And the penetrating psychological and emotional portraits of the three separate generations of a family, markedly repressed by military tradition and mores of the time, make them appear so vivid, I felt I almost knew them personally, walking alongside them in technicolor.
He seems such a natural and empathetic writer, the language is consistently beautiful, breathtakingly so at times, and always with purpose, enriching visual and narrative depth. Mention should also be made of the translation by Michael Hofmann, which is a work of art on its own.
Altogether a deeply rewarding, enlightening and moving experience.

I very much enjoyed The Radetzky March when I read it several years ago. I should tackle the sequel, Kapuzinergruft (The Emperor's Tomb), sometime soon.

[Iota]

I very much enjoyed The Radetzky March when I read it several years ago. I should tackle the sequel, Kapuzinergruft (The Emperor's Tomb), sometime soon.

If you do ever head that way, I'd be most interested to hear your thoughts.

[Florestan]

I very much enjoyed The Radetzky March when I read it several years ago. I should tackle the sequel, Kapuzinergruft (The Emperor's Tomb), sometime soon.

Read them both and was mightily impressed.  @Iota 's comments are spot on. An excellent writer, Joseph Roth.

[Henk]

Marquez - Leaf Storm

[ritter]

Just started John Steinbeck's Cannery Row...

Well, Cannery Row is one beautiful little book. Superb, and an absolute pleasure to read!

In parallel, I read some pages of Le Bel aujourd'hui, Julien Green's diary covering the years 1956-58.



I found this irritating, to put it mildly, and devoid of any interest. This is the "official" version of the diaries, published by the author in his lifetime. The unexpurgated versions (of which I read a good part of the volume covering the years 1919 to 1940 when it was published a couple of years ago) are full of explicit descriptions of the author's numerous sex encounters and of literary gossip, but that doesn't make them any more interesting.

This section of the "official" diaries is filled with tiresome religious references and clichéd devotional musings, and the author appears as what in Spanish we'd call a meapilas (someone so —hypocritically— sanctimonious that they're expected to urinate holy water). The contradictions between Green's discreet (but very active) homosexuality and his devotional aspirations could make for interesting material, but it seems to me that the literary quality is lacking. It's as if the author's sole aim was to establish himself as a "Great Man of Letters", being published in La Pléiade during his lifetime and being elected to the French Academy. As Adorno said of Wagner —I paraphrase—, Green "was, since his teens, the author of his collected works".

All this cheap piousness has prompted me to head in the completely opposite direction, and I'm starting Georges Bataille's  Le Bleu du ciel now (a book that, in any case, is supposed to be less shocking and more contained than the infamous Madame Edwarda or Histoire de l'oiel).

[Iota]

It's as if the author's sole aim was to establish himself as a "Great Man of Letters", being published in La Pléiade during his lifetime and being elected to the French Academy. As Adorno said of Wagner —I paraphrase—, Green "was, since his teens, the author of his collected works".