Forum: Author Hangout

Yet another example of is fiction dying? "Correctness" has gone much too far.

In that vein, I recently read that Penguin Random House are no longer publishing works purely on merit: they're insisting that their output matches UK demographics, so if eg they've used up their white quota, they'll publish a lower quality work by a BME author rather than another work by a white author. According to the article, PRH include disabilities and sexual orientation in their demographic considerations, which strikes me as extremely intrusive.

AJ

I recently read that Penguin Random House are no longer publishing works purely on merit: they're insisting that their output matches UK demographics,

Here's the article:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44424803

Thank you.

The article I read led me to believe the policy was already firmly in place, although this more comprehensive version shows that it won't be fully implemented for a while yet.

AJ

In that vein, I recently read that Penguin Random House are no longer publishing works purely on merit: they're insisting that their output matches UK demographics, so if eg they've used up their white quota, they'll publish a lower quality work by a BME author rather than another work by a white author. According to the article, PRH include disabilities and sexual orientation in their demographic considerations, which strikes me as extremely intrusive.

I'd hope that such an effort were short-lived (i.e. with a definitive start and end-date test period). It's a sensible way to increase a library filled with nothing but the works of 'dead white men'. If limited such works helps bring more voices to the table, then it helps everyone. But it's not an end in itself, it's only a faltering first step. If it doesn't bring more qualified authors to the table, but merely promotes authors who lack the ability to qualify of their own accord, then it needs to be a heavily reviewed process, rather than a 'one and done' decision.

On a related note, rather than yet-another 'short story contest' here on SOL, I'd much rather have SOL send out invites to other story communities asking for 'alternative POV', which SOL would promote to increase our range of stories. As I've protested several times in the past, SOL is heavily weighted by the 'old white man' contingent, to such a point that few others frequent the site.

While I'd prefer seeing a site where everyone can contribute, sometimes we need to encourage their previously terrified by their past treatments to give us a second (third, ninety-seventh) try.

"Correctness" has gone much too far.

I guess it's no surprise a BBC manager has admitted that 'Monty Python' could never be made today, because it was by a bunch of white males, mostly Oxbridge-educated.

The correctness-obsessed BBC regards diversity as more important than merit :(

AJ

I guess it's no surprise a BBC manager has admitted that 'Monty Python' could never be made today, because it was by a bunch of white males, mostly Oxbridge-educated.

The correctness-obsessed BBC regards diversity as more important than merit :(

At the time it was made, "Monty Python" almost never got made. It only got off the ground, because the normally staid BBC was desperate to change it's stogy image by releasing something 'young and vibrant'. If it was proposed a couple years earlier, or later, it would likely never have aired at all.

Of course, I'm sure that most of the team would have done fine elsewhere, since they're certifiable geniuses who fit the times perfectly, but their getting their start at the BBC was a complete fluke of nature. (So exclaims a lifelong Yankee.)

The BBC were good on diversity back then, they ran Alf Garnett and Marty Feldman.

I don't understand that comment. Wouldn't Alf Garnett and Marty Feldman nowadays be perceived as offensive to minorities? That doesn't strike me as being good on diversity.

'Till Death Us Do Part' is another series that couldn't be made today. That's ironic because its message is clearly anti-racism.

AJ

I don't remember much of the books I read in the first six years of schooling, although vague memories of Jack and Jill are floating around there.

Case in point, if in your day, Jack and Jill were floating face down in a lake. Sounds like a great preschool mystery, though. 'D

Thinking a bit more on this: Ever heard of Harry Potter? The Hobbit? I seem to remember HP was banned from several school districts in the US, is that what this is about?

Rather than the typical "PC" complaints, most of these are triggered by Evangelical Christians, who consider HP to encourage Satan worship. On the other end of the spectrum, the 'no religion' is likely based on individual parents suing to prevent Evangelical teachers from indoctrinating their kids about a religion they don't buy into.

The religious right has been banning books since the days of Mark Twain. In fact, the Catholic church invented the idea of burning books. Before that, the Greeks and Romans might banish or even put an author to death, but wouldn't dream of desecrating a book, even one they hated!

I think Lionel Shriver has a point about books for teens, though. The 'young adult' market has moved towards gritty realism and nowadays there's little difference, content-wise, between the 'young adult' and 'adult' markets.

I've encountered a lot of observations about how gloomy today's 'young adult' stories have to be :(

AJ

Unrelated, sort of, to this is the whole Harry Potter thing. When those books came out, I heard all the furor about them. Talked it over with the wife and basically I read them first, before we'd allow the kids to read them. Nothing bad in them that I found.

Sadly, most of those 'reactionary reviews' were from those who wanted to ban the book, based on what they might say, but who had no interest in all in actually reading the books.

I think that's been going on for a long time. In one of those odd things, I read "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" when I was around 5 or 6. Yeah, I was a bit of a precocious kid as far as reading was concerned, I read a lot of stuff that was 'too advanced' for someone my age.

I fit into that category too, having read the complete works of Dr. Zhivago and the "Gulog Archipeligo while in high school. On the other hand, I distinctly remember being read "Little Black Sambo" books by my parents (my father was a Protestant minister in the south during the 50s and 60s), and too this day cannot keep Disney's "Sounds of the South" tunes from playing repeatedly in my head.

But even then, the stead stream of outright 'propaganda' style stories I was repeatedly told in school prompted me to research the truth behind the fiction I was fed. Thus I sought out the real story of our treatment of blacks, native Americans, Japanese-Americans, as well as our duplicitous reasons for each of our wars.

You really can't 'hide' the truth from children and still expect them to be equipped to think for themselves. Either you let children decide for themselves (after all, how many parents ever agree with their parents when reaching their teens or twenties?), or you brainwash them and then watch as your country collapses beneath the weight of it's buried past.

1) I read once that they had a system of figuring out what grade level books were appropriate for -- reading ease rather than content, IIRC. Then they made a study and found that more than half the kids who had read "Treasure Island" had read it at a younger age than the book was appropriate for.

I still think that most books remain appropriate for most ages, just that it's best for parents to discuss the book, rather than simply dumping it on a child's lap and forgetting it, like they do with the TV, computers and tablets.

Children are ready to read books when they're ready, not when the reach the 'appropriate' age.

2) I literally read "Le Morte dArthur" and some "encyclopedia Brown" books at nearly the same time. I took a break from Mallory to read the "age appropriate" stuff.

Yeah, you're not the only one.

You know what really corrupted me, though? Reading all the 'Encyclopedia Brown', 'Hardy Boys', and 'Tom Swift' ended up leading me to the Robert Heinlein juveniles ... which led me to the Robert Heinlein not-so juveniles. Which led me to 'Bill the Galactic Hero', the Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle books, and since westerns were also okay, somehow I ended up with the Mack Bolan 'Executioner' books, too, and the John Norman 'Gor' novels.

I'm sort of confused, now, too. Doing some quick research, the internet says that the 'Longarm' series didn't start until 1978. What would I have been reading in 1974 that wasn't a Louis L'Amour or Zane Grey that would have been about as trashy as the Longarm books? I distinctly remember riding my junior high bus reading a western series with rather explicit sex scenes in it (which, of course, my parents didn't know).

I'm sort of confused, now, too. Doing some quick research, the internet says that the 'Longarm' series didn't start until 1978. What would I have been reading in 1974 that wasn't a Louis L'Amour or Zane Grey that would have been about as trashy as the Longarm books? I distinctly remember riding my junior high bus reading a western series with rather explicit sex scenes in it (which, of course, my parents didn't know).

Don't forget, several second-rate publishers from that period have since folded, taking many of their works with them. If you ever recalled the title, you could probably track them down via a library exchange program, but otherwise, you're likely to have trouble finding the stories officially listed anywhere (other than an ISBN category search like the types that libraries and bookstores use).

What makes a publisher second-rate?

They didn't have the wherewithal to last long? But specifically, I was recalling the many 'cheap novels' which after a few years would fall apart in your hands, the pages yellowed and curling, that you often found with sexy crime stories and such. They tended to publish the more salacious material, but were more into publishing on the cheap, rather than pushing quality. Or at least that's what I remember of them.

Mack Bolan?!? Those things were all the rage when I was in the army back in the mid-70's. I'd forgotten and was probably better for it. I was always amused by the writer's generation of names for his mafioso villains. It was like reading the menu at an Italian restaurant.

I used to, and still do, read anything I could get my hands on, but in junior high and high school I was NOT reading 'juvenile' stories.

somehow I ended up with the Mack Bolan 'Executioner' books, too,

Isn't that the series where the first book opens with a Pakistan-India nuclear conflict (which somehow doesn't destroy the world) and young Mack lands the airliner after the pilots are blinded by the nuclear blasts?

I think I quit after reading in a subsequent book that he wiped out a whole bunch of bad guys by circling them on his motorcyle with an automatic weapon (clearly and authoritatively identified by make and model) *in each hand*, or perhaps I'm remembering wong.

bb

No... the details have receded into the mists of time, but Mr. Bolan had a vendetta against the Mafia that went one and on and on...

Mr. Bolan had a vendetta against the Mafia that went one and on and on...

that's because they caused the death of his parents and his sister, only his younger brother survived. Mack went on to take on the terrorists after crippling the mafia.

This is some revisionist history right there. Song of the south was banned by DISNEY right after release because it was so racist. It never saw a home video release in the US.

Well, not quite right after. It was VERY popular in the deep south. It was, I believe, after Disney died and his kids took it over that they officially 'retired' the movie.