Of all the people you might expect to be caught up in the many offshoots of the war in Ukraine, Elizabeth Gilbert – author of the best-selling memoir Eat Pray Love – was probably not near the top of the list. But when a conflict comes to symbolise something beyond two warring nations – liberal values versus rapacious imperialism, western virtue versus malign Putin-ism – little can escape.
Gilbert recently announced the release date of her new novel, The Snow Forest. It is set in rural Russia, and appears to be inspired by a true story of a family that flees for wilderness to resist the industrialisation of the Soviet Union. So far, so harmless. But no less than a week later, the author took to social media to explain she was pulling the book, probably postponing its publication date for a while yet.
The reason? Gilbert said there had been “an enormous, massive outpouring of reactions and responses from my Ukrainian readers, expressing anger, sorrow, disappointment and pain.”
She said that she didn’t want to further harm “a group of people who have already experienced and who are continuing to experience grievous and extreme harm.” It was time to “course correct”.
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All of this, because the book is set in 20th-century Siberia. It hardly needs pointing out that a novel set in a place far from Moscow many generations ago – written by an American woman, no less – is unlikely to be a paean to 21st-century Russian expansionism. Nor does it seem particularly probable that any part of The Snow Forest will contain a contemporary reference to the invasion, running commentary on the principles of president Zelenskiy, or ruminations on the benefits and perils of Nato membership.
But the setting is an act of moral transgression enough, it seems. The original offence cannot be overcome, the market has spoken, and the book must be pulled.
The very setting of a book does not need to be approached with a magnifying glass and a fine tooth comb in order to exhume its moral failings
It strikes me – how to put this charitably – as a wild over-reaction. Of course, the market is mercurial and oftentimes cruel. Perhaps Gilbert is just protecting her commercial interests by pulling the book until a date when it will be received more warmly. It isn’t her fault, after all, that reader over-reach and hypersensitivity has homed in on her, turning a blameless writer into the latest sacrificial lamb.
Groups of people on the internet do this all the time. Remember attempts to posthumously cancel Philip Roth? Or when the internet – writ large – decided in 2016 that Taylor Swift was public enemy number one, pushing her into hiding for years? Social media can be a toxic combination of frenzied mobs and moralising diktats. The victim might change, but the process rarely wavers.
But to blame this all on the readers and fans would be to strip Gilbert of her considerable agency. Those stuck in spirals of groupthink and social media mobbishness should extract themselves and give writers a fair hearing. But Gilbert is at fault too: she capitulated, quickly and supinely. And what a shame. She had the chance, as Franklin Foer said in The Atlantic, “to reshape the cultural front lines of this war, to impose a bit of sanity.”
Instead, she opted for an easy route, safely insulating herself from a commercial hit and the condemnation of her readers. It is disappointing but not unexpected. She is not the first and certainly won’t be the last to succumb to this kind of social pressure.
But it is particularly sad given the past two weeks. Cormac McCarthy – author of The Road, All The Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian – died on Tuesday, just weeks after Martin Amis. It feels as though the great stylists are leaving us. But more than that, it feels as though the influence of the old guard is waning. Amis, when asked why he was writing about race in the United States as an old white Brit, said: “I won’t tailor what I’ve made to appease objections that I don’t consider valid. It’s not just cancel culture, it’s actually the urge to censor or censure people trying to think outside their own experience, which is what fiction is, in my view.”
It is hardly a new observation that novels – like paintings and poems – shouldn’t be treated as ethical instruction manuals. The setting of a book does not need to be approached with a magnifying glass and a fine tooth comb to exhume its moral failings. But it is maddening how often we need to remind ourselves of this simple and obvious fact.
Western governments levelling sanctions at Putin for his invasion of a sovereign nation, his prior aggression in Georgia, his proclivity to punish and censure dissidents is not controversial. But, when political resistance takes the form of private citizens hounding artists out of the market, it seems we have taken a step too far. An about-turn might be embarrassing for Gilbert. But publishing the book now – in face of all the controversy – is overwhelmingly the right thing to do.