books

Styles of Failed Literature

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MOVING BEYOND THE PRESENT: A DISTEMPERED ANALYSIS

fahren 451

FEW individuals involved in the creation and packaging of literature would argue there are any failed styles. After all, the Big Five book conglomerates remain in place, authors still receive six-or-seven-figure advances, and several of their books sell millions of copies. The industry chugs along.

HOWEVER, if the goal is to push the art and industry to new levels– to no longer consider “literature” as a separate phenomenon, but to compare it with other cultural happenings such as sports, movies, music– then as a whole literature is failing, because it’s no longer at the center of culture (as it once was), and is not connecting to large segments of the public in any fashion.

CURRENT OPTIONS

What are several of the current alternatives for writers and readers?

MEDICINE LITERATURE

harper lee

This comprises novels and books you’re supposed to read because they’re good for you. They address a cause or societal ill. At times they’re “of the moment” and sell well. Usually though they’re hitting you over the head with a problem you already know about, are poorly written, and deadly dull. They win plaudits and awards, but 999 out 1,000 aren’t going to generate excitement within the culture-at-large, sorry. Life isn’t fair.

“LITERATURE” LITERATURE

oates 2

This category includes standard big novels written by the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, as well as short stories by Oates, John Updike, Jonathan Franzen, Alice Munro, ad infinitum. The works are distinguished by Detail Disease, aka word clot. Meaning, they’re a slog to get through. Only the most intrepid young person (or adult) will make the effort. For those who do, it’s all the same tepid insights and weak-tea conclusions. Going to save literature, when it’s been the cause of literature’s downfall? Nope.

ADOLESCENT FANTASY LITERATURE

martin 2

An enormous category with a host of big-selling authors cranking out massive volumes of unending sagas. Behind them await tens of thousands of other wannabe-novelists creating their own interminable tomes. Why are these novels not the answer? After all, they do sell.

They’re not the answer because they’re crap. It’s impossible for any serious person beyond the age of seventeen– or twelve– to take any of it seriously. Yes, many do. You see them dressed in bizarre costumes at fantasy or sci-fi conventions. The books are popular. That’s good. There are lessons to be taken from it. It remains silliness, not great art.

On top of that, none of the famed authors has the requisite charismatic persona to upend the culture. George R.R. Martin is not going to.

DYSTOPIAN AND POST-APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE

atwood

Margaret Atwood is the best-known contemporary practitioner of this kind of work. In the Age of Hysteria we’re living through, they add more hysteria. Truth is, there have been two or three, tops, of these kind of authors who’ve been any good, George Orwell among them. Even Brave New World is a terrible novel.

DEPRAVITY LITERATURE

martin-bukowski

Maybe horror novels can be grouped in this category (though many belong in fantasy with the vampires and werewolves). This category includes sub-Bukowski Lit, where the author becomes as gross and psychotic as possible in constructing the narrative– and likely, in real life, is. (Incel Lit is a new variation.)

NEOCON LITERATURE

brad thor

This category was popularized by Tom Clancy of Hunt for Red October fame, but might be more typified by spy novelists Robert Ludlum, Vince Flynn, and Brad Thor, who each presumably have teams of agents in Langley, Virginia writing their books for them. (They’d have to, because Ludlum and Flynn have moved on from this world.)

My attitude toward these novels might be typified by a review I wrote about one of their number back in 2012 at a now-defunct blog.

CONCLUSION

My informed conclusion is that nothing coming from one of these categories will rescue the literary game. They’re accepted and known.

What will take the literary art to another level?

THAT is what we’re working on. Stay tuned.

<<<<>>>>

-Karl Wenclas for New Pop Lit NEWS

 

 

Why Reading Is Important–

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–TO ME AND TO SOCIETY

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My father could scarcely read.

At the time I was born already well into middle age, my father was from a different era and a very tough background. Had dropped out of school in his teens. After he married, my mother forced him to attend night school while he worked days in Detroit shops and factories. By the time I came around he was semi-proficient. What he most enjoyed were the comic sections in newspapers, and boxing magazines.

My gateway to reading– like many young guys– was comic books. Spiderman and company. After awhile I became hungry for more challenging reading. Mysteries were stimulating. I devoured everything by Raymond Chandler, whose paperback books carried enticing titles on dangerous-looking covers.

the high window

Eventually, while working nights as a clerk in a railroad yard– with time to kill between trains– I moved up to the heavyweights of reading: Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. War and Peace and The Idiot. Life-changing novels. The kind of artistic experience which expands the mind and the imagination, opening up new vistas, entire worlds.
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HOW important is reading to the development of the mind?

Many educational experts have believed it’s critically important. Here’s one named Samuel L. Blumenfeld on the topic, from an old book called How to Tutor:

Reading is the most important single skill a child will learn during his entire school career, for on the ability to read depends the development of everything else. In fact, reading is the beginning of real intellectual development, and if the child is not taught to read properly, his entire intellectual development will be handicapped. The reason for this is quite simple. Language is the vehicle of thought. We formulate all our concepts in terms of words. If we restricted our thinking and learning only to the words we heard and spoke, our intellectual development would not be very great. The written word, however, is the depository of all humanity’s complex thinking, and an individual must have easy access to the world of written language to be able to increase his own intellectual development. Thus, the facility with which a person reads can influence the degree of his intellectual growth. If a child is taught to read via methods which make reading disagreeable to him, he will turn away from the written word entirely and deprive himself of man’s principle means of intellectual development.

TODAY among the new generation, within schools and outside of them, are millions of functional illiterates. Wasted potential. I know. I’ve worked as a substitute teacher in inner city schools and I’ve seen how schools are failing kids.

NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT for the future of this society, this civilization, than finding ways to connect with these young people– to get them reading. Reading is the gateway to survival in this ultra-competitive world. Reading opens neuropathways in the brain, increasing real intelligence. Contrary to what genetics apologists at publications like Quillette believe, no one is assigned their fate at birth. The best way to adjust that fate is by reading. 

It’s no accident that billionaire industrialist Elon Musk– he of the gigantic imagination conceiving exciting electric cars and spaceships to Mars, then building them– as a child was an avid reader. According to his biographer, Ashlee Vance, “The most striking part of Elon’s character as a young boy was his compulsion to read.” Musk’s self-imposed reading regimen included two sets of encyclopedias.

IS literature today reaching the mass of people? No way! To compete in this fast-paced hyper-busy age, writing will need to grab new readers from the first sentence and not let go of them.

This is the objective we’re striving for with our development of the “3–D” multidimensional short story. Narratives of speed and immediacy which demand to be read.

333DDD 2-page-001 - Edited

To achieve our ends we’ll need writers willing to discard past ways of thinking. At the moment even most “alternative” literary sites and presses are run by intellectuals or pseudo-intellectuals more interested in impressing the reader than connecting with the person.

Yet to expand the market for books, zeens, reading, connection is everything.

Our mission is to create the new literary product– which we call Pop Lit–– exciting reading packaged in a striking format. Then begin spreading those new creations into schools and neighborhoods. An ambitious task– but worth pursuing.
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-Karl Wenclas, New Pop Lit NEWS

What’s the Future of Bookselling?

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A TRIP TO A BOOKSTORE

Barnes_&amp;_Noble_Interior

WE HAPPENED to step into a Barnes and Noble bookstore the other day. The experience set the wheels in my head turning– reawakening ideas I’ve had for a while.

On one level the experience was disheartening. An enormous store filled with tens of thousands of titles of well-packaged books on every possible subject– with about seven customers in the entire gigantic place, counting the two of us. As it was, there were two clerks for the store– several registers sitting closed, as well as an information counter. We eventually found a stray clerk to help us– the other was at a front register which seemed a mile away.

I’ve often thought that while big box stores may work in some instances, they aren’t ideal for books. You need large turnover– one would think– simply to pay for leasing, lighting, and heating the monster places. High-ceilings yet. Tremendous overhead– not to mention the amount of stock.

Titles, yes, and authors. Too many for any of them to stand out.

book stacks

What am I saying? Less is more. Smaller is better. Avoiding Too Much Information is the first rule of sales.

OR– a new style of bookstore could be developed– it’s on our drawing board. It would work only in conjunction with the right kind of promotion, driving demand, and with an entirely new style of literary writing designed to stand out. Which hits the reader hard from the start.

The novel itself needs to be overhauled.

No easy trick– but possible.
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-Karl Wenclas, New Pop Lit NEWS

How Does a News Story Go Viral?

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PUBLICITY IN THE JUNOT DIAZ CONTROVERSY

epstein in cavern

I ADMIT IT. I’m amazed at how fast the publicity game has changed, thanks to social media. Compared to ten years ago, the creation of buzz moves now at lightning speed.

It’s the difference between military techniques in World Wars One and Two. The speed of blitzkrieg in the latter contest revolutionized the game.

As I’ve said a couple times in this series: Who wins the debate over the sexual harassment allegations about prize-winning author Junot Diaz will be decided by who’s better at PR. Institutions (MIT; Boston Review) cleared Diaz, but it’s out of their hands. In the new media age, static bureaucracies have been left behind.

A key post of ours in this regard is “System versus Zeitgeist.”

The Junot Diaz camp is now fully in the game with their army of twitter fans and trolls. They’ve moved quickly up to speed. Will it be enough?

We have two opinion armies maneuvering against one another online– across twitter, blogs, and media sites.

The accusers’ side has made significant mistakes– but their opening moves in the chess game which began May 4th were breathtaking.

CREATING HYSTERIA

epstein again

THE GREATEST publicity feat of all time was the creation of Beatlemania. Most people believe it was spontaneous. Yeah, yeah, the band was talented and young people liked them. As simple as that? Not really.

In November, 1961, Liverpool record store manager Brian Epstein saw an unkempt band playing in an underground club in that beaten-down UK working class city and thought, “I can make these guys bigger than Elvis Presley.” A hidden genius behind the scenes, Brian Epstein was in back of every step of the band’s rise. Some of the facts of how he accomplished this are known. For instance, mass hysteria in New York City in February 1964 when the little-known (in America) band landed for the first time. Reluctant Capitol Records was forced by Epstein to spend $70,000 ($570,000 in today’s dollars) to promote their arrival and the concurrent release of their single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

The-Beatles-At-JFK-tarmac-530x353

WE ALSO know the mob of kids holding signs at the airport wasn’t a spontaneous happening. Their presence was arranged. The kick-off of Beatlemania was staged.

MAY 4 ANTI-JUNOT DIAZ HYSTERIA

I’m still amazed at how quickly fervor against Junot Diaz took place. Three threads of tweets from Zinzi Clemmons, Monica Byrne, and Carmen Maria Machado taking place in the middle of night, one right after another. By morning they’d gone viral. To such extent that The Cut’s Anna Silman was already contacting Monica Byrne for a statement.

Spontaneous? Byrne said to Silman, “The network was activated”– which might be clue enough for an explanation.

Monica Byrne’s unsupported rumors about Melania Trump in June 2017, which went viral, albeit on a smaller scale, served as trial run for this situation. This time out Byrne had at least a smattering of substance to the story, and other women on her side. Enough substance that even the mighty and respectable New York Times joined the generated hysteria.

QUESTION: Was the hysteria against Junot Diaz generated or spontaneous?

Another tweet from Monica:

AIDING buzz creation was dramatic language used by the accusers in the tweeted narratives.

BYRNE: “I’ve never faced such virulent misogyny in my adult life.”

MACHADO: “–a blast of misogynist rage.”

Promotional blitzkrieg on May 4th worked masterfully– on that very same day the accusations were news across the globe. The feat deserves a chapter of its own in the history of publicity. The planning and coordination worked– but not well enough to claim quick victory. No knockout. Junot Diaz apologized, but he and his institutional backers held firm. By now, today, the controversy has settled into trench warfare– both sides sniping at each other from steady lines, World War One-style.

For the time being, the controversy is at a stalemate.

wwI
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WILL the stalemate continue? More to come from:

-New Pop Lit News-
https://newpoplitnews.wordpress.com/

-Karl Wenclas on the literary news beat.

 

Alpha Male Wannabes

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baboon

THE LATEST NEWS among the established intellectual community is they’re all in a frenzy over renegade professor Jordan Peterson, who’s begun to follow his own thoughts and ideas– independently!– and has left the politically-correct intellectual reservation.

AND SO, every intellectual pretender has penned his-or-her own takedown of the guy, the latest coming from Current Affairs head editor Nathan J. Robinson, whose own project we profiled recently. As in, last week. (See my last two posts.)

LIKE his colleague Briahna Joy Gray’s essay on rock n roll history and cultural appropriation, Robinson’s is skewed and from a narrow viewpoint. Also like her essay (see this) it misses the real story.

It’s by his essay’s one-sidedness that Robinson gives his own game away.

Noteworthy about Nathan J. Robinson is his lack of self-knowledge. He seems to live in a bubble-world constructed of his own role-playing. In his complaints about white males and the patriarchy, he doesn’t notice that he’s a white male, and Current Affairs is a patriarchy.

What bothers Robinson most about fellow academic, fellow Anglo-Saxon Jordan Peterson? That Peterson has the #1 book on virtually all best-seller lists! Robinson mentions this pointedly. Jordan B. Peterson (not he, Nathan J. Robinson) is at the top of the intellectual hierarchy. The alpha male of that scene. And so, Robinson attacks him vociferously.

Jordan Peterson, a Jungian psychologist, must be amused by the attack– as well as what wannabe Robinson misses in Peterson’s ideas. Jordan Peterson is essentially right– that behind our masks we’re brutal animals. Much of our communication and most of our behavior can be explained by subconscious forces which, often against our will, drive us. Nathan Robinson acts this out in his posturing with his magazine.

And yes, Jordan Peterson is right that without the strictures and controls of civilization, relations would return to a more primal reality. Notice what occurs at stray times when civilization leaves. One recent example is the end of World War II in Europe, when Patton’s army moved east and a horde of German women moved west, giving themselves to American G.I.’s to avoid the more brutal celebrations of the New Soviet Man coming from the east. Little acknowledged but able to be found in dusty military histories, or in anecdotes from American vets, is that the end of the war was a rape fest. A reversion to type?

A Jungian would notice monsters of the Id. Those we try to wipe away, like Dr. Morbius confronting his Id near the end of the 50’s sci-fi classic “Forbidden Planet.”

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The Jungian would notice hidden forces in Brooklyn hipsters, wearing long beards and lumberjack shirts, markers of masculinization, as their subconscious minds rebel against their own socially-compelled feminization.

hipster

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What then of Nathan J. Robinson, who usually appears clean-shaven? Deliberately nerdy and harmless. How does he fit this analysis?

One could surmise the harmlessness is merely a mask, obscuring the ruthless being– the alpha male wannabe– lurking beneath.

-K.W.

Barnes and Noble: More Layoffs

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b&amp;n

NEWS ITEM: “Barnes & Noble Is Laying Off Workers Amid Declining Sales”– headlines at news outlets like Forbes proclaim. What’s really happening?

The big box model for books was always flawed, in our estimation. Gigantic structures. Enormous space with attendant high rent and heating costs. Too many titles (yes: oversupply reducing the value of writers). Plus, half the customers read books or magazines at the cafe without buying them. I always suspected the cafe was the most (only?) profitable part of the enterprise.

Can we do better? We do happen to have on our drawing board our own model for a profitable-and-fun bookstore. One piece in our foundation for a new literature which we’re putting in place.

Just saying.

-K.W.

The Circle: Time’s Up?

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OR, IS THIS SOMETHING HOLLYWOOD SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT?

The_Circle_(2017_film)

DID successful male author Dave Eggers crib the work of female writer Kate Losse for his novel The Circle, which became this past year a mainstream Hollywood movie? It’s a question that was asked by Jezebel writer Katie J.M. Baker in 2013, in this article.

Eggers reacted by stating that he’d done no research for his book, period. The entire thing, details and plot included, popped full-blown into his head one afternoon. Similarities to Kate Losse’s book pure coincidence.

While Losse’s case might’ve been a bit of a stretch– at least, there wasn’t enough for a lawsuit– the case is indicative of the power mentality of well-placed men which is now under widespread assault. Eggers stone-walled, denying everything. He in effect said, “Go ahead. Make my day.” Daring the relatively powerless Losse to take him on.

In full disclosure, I clashed with Mr. Eggers myself in the early part of last decade, on a number of points. I know his ability to shut down, to put out of business, any journalist or writer who opposes him. A couple individuals who butt heads with him soon became virtual nonpersons, never to be heard from again.

Image is important to Dave Eggers. Given his carefully-manufactured good-guy persona, it’s everything. Yet he’s never hesitated in the past to appropriate from any and every available avenue in the pursuit of that image. One example was his accepting a “Firecracker” Alternative Book Award in 2001 for Best Zine, for the well-staffed-and-funded slick publication McSweeney’s. (One of the matters I and DIY friends disagreed with him on. There was nothing alternative about McSweeney’s or Eggers, and never has been.) I could mention other instances.

What’s the bottom line? Is it the corruption of power? Is it that the ruthless kind of personality which enables men or women to achieve great things also makes them unable to pull back from that steamroller mindset? Is it a question of entitlement– which many writers admittedly have? That the entire world and all its peoples exist as material for them?

-K.W.

Fantasyland: Or, Rich Guy Slams America

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THIS WEEK we highlight a new book trashing America by establishment trashmeister Kurt Andersen, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.

fantasyland

One doesn’t have to read the book– the text is in the title. The title is all you need to know about what’s contained in the pages.

Mr. Andersen is getting a splash of publicity c/o his publisher, with laudatory reviews.

“A frighteningly convincing and sometimes uproarious picture of a country in steep, perhaps terminal decline–”  -The Guardian

Kurt Andersen’s publisher is Penguin Random House, a multinational company, part of one of the “Big Five” publishing conglomerates which dominate the trade. Their headquarters is in New York City. They’d better hope the nation isn’t in terminal decline!

“Reading a great revisionist history of America is the bookish way to feel what it’s like to be born again.”  -Hanna Rosin, New York Times

Andersen himself, curiously, is an Insider’s Insider; a Capitalist’s Capitalist. One of the Elect: Harvard grad married to a Harvard grad. From his bio:

“He was named by New York magazine as one of the “100 People Who Changed New York,” and by Forbes as one of the “25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media.” And he was named the 2014 arts Medalist by Harvard College’s Signet Society.”

In his career Andersen has founded start-ups and sold them for huge sums of money. See the negotiations for one of his companies as related by Ken Auletta:

“”I don’t believe that anyone is going to give the company more money,’ Cramer remembers telling Andersen.”

He took the best deal. Cashed in. Sitting pretty. Yet Kurt Andersen isn’t happy. You would think he’d be kicking back smoking a big cigar saying, “Isn’t America great?” There’s no disdain for Harvard or venture capitalists (those he knows) in his book, one can wager. Instead, he takes aim at the American people themselves– for their populist ethos and political choices, all of which makes Kurt Andersen’s life, if not unprofitable, at least discomfiting. (2016 was the first time since 1984 that a Harvard-or-Yale grad was NOT elected to the Presidency, and in Andersen’s lofty milieu, that is simply outrageous.)

Yes, trash America’s 500-year history– and make yet more money in the process. Open the door for Dostoevsky’s Demons. Who cares? The French aristocrats who sparked revolution in 1789 were consumed by what they sparked. What does that have to do with aristocrats today?

Meanwhile, we have a question for our readers. How would you describe Kurt Andersen’s expression in the photograph below? Smug? Pompous? Arrogant? Or does the facial smirk represent something else? Indigestion? Complacency? Constipation?

Hatred of his own country?

Let us know. Thanks!

KurtAndersenconstipated

Handicapping the Fiction Award

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toteboard

ONE big question remains: Who will win the Fiction Prize at this year’s (2017) National Book Awards?

Don’t think for a moment that such choices aren’t made with political and image considerations. This year several competing dynamics are at play.

A.)  The omnipresence in the news media of the ongoing sex abuse scandals favors giving the award to a woman. This year, four-out-of-five finalists are women. Could the judges not award the prize to one of them?

B.)  On the other hand, there’s the (surmised) campaign to make Elliot Ackerman the next John F. Kennedy. See our previous post, and the one before that.

C.)  Jacqueline Woodson, chair of this year’s judging panel, was the target of Daniel Handler’s watermelon jokes at the 2014 event when she won the award for Young People’s Literature. Will this impact her decision this year? Would she be willing to go along with a push to hand Ackerman the prize?

D.)  The X factor is judge Dave Eggers, one of the more powerful figures in the literary business. Several factors are at play with “The Dave.”

One is his psychological need to appear as Munificent Good Guy. This includes a Great White Savior complex. (See his book, What Is the What.) Eggers grew up in one of the richest, most segregated cities in America, and sees People-Of-Color as “Victim.” A variation of Liberal Morality Play, except Dave Eggers lives it. This theory argues he’ll push to give the award to one of the women– Jesmyn Ward most likely, whose life story in spots is truly “heartbreaking.”

On the other hand, Eggers has a personality akin to Peter Ackerman’s (again, see our previous two posts)– a Jekyll-Hyde balance between benevolence and aggressiveness. Dave Eggers respects power and knows Elliot’s father has it. Nothing need be said– these things are sensed. The son, Elliot, is a child of privilege, as is Eggers, and takes a similar global view of the world– and of America’s central place in it. There’d be natural sympathy between the two men.

Of the five judges, Dave Eggers has the standing, reputation, personality, and will to dominate the group. In addition, one of the other judges, Karolina Waclawiak, was until recently an employee of his, as Assistant Editor at The Believer, an Eggers publication. The deck isn’t stacked– but Eggers holds a strong hand.

Jacqueline Woodson is panel Chair. As a black woman (a black woman, moreover, who was disrespected by Handler, a friend of the Dave’s) Woodson carries implicit moral authority, particularly in the world of the established intelligentsia, which by definition is an ultra-liberal world. See the ideological slant of this year’s nominations. If Woodson has determined on a winner, not even Dave Eggers, hyper-sensitive as he is to issues and images of race, would be willing to stand against her choice. But if she hasn’t decided– then the decision is his.

They might agree on the choice anyway.

Here then are the odds for this year’s contest:

Elliot Ackerman:  While he has less than a 50% chance of winning, the offstage presence of all-powerful Dad still makes Elliot the co-favorite to win.

Odds:  3 to 1.
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Lisa Ko:  Ko’s novel The Leavers, about undocumented immigrants, is the most topical and best-positioned politically to win the award. If the panel wishes to send a “So there!” message to President Trump, this book will be the choice. The other “Ko” favorite.

Odds:  3 to 1.
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Jesmyn Ward:  The biggest argument against Jesmyn Ward is that she won the award in 2011. Would she be given another one?

Odds:  5 to 1.
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Min Jin Lee:  Ms. Lee has terrific Insider credentials, as a graduate of Georgetown and Yale and a former corporate lawyer in New York. She also has a big-time publisher in Hachette. However, the plot of Pachinko involves discrimination against Koreans by Japan. Not a trendy cause.

Odds:  15 to 1.
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Carmen Maria Machado:  There are two strikes against Ms. Machado: A.) Has a small publisher, Graywolf Press.  B.) A book of stories by a little-known author is unlikely to win.

Odds:  15 to 1.
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ALTERNATE VERSION
A different “Alt Right” view says that, based on the Radhika Jones hiring at Vanity Fair and other happenings, white males are being purged throughout New York literary culture– they present the wrong image, and so Elliot Ackerman’s real odds of winning the prize are one in 500,000. Under this version, white male publishers Morgan Entrekin, David Steinberger, and the owners of the Big Five publishing companies will commit ritual suicide at the end of the event, a la Cho Cho San at the end of the opera “Madame Butterfly.”

The entire scripted 2017 National Book Awards ceremony is in fact a ritual suicide, only, like “Madame Butterly,” it’s all theater.

(See the other posts in the series, here.)

-K.W.

Politicized Book Awards

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elephant

The elephant in the room that NO ONE will talk about is the thorough politicization of the National Book Awards. Here are the Finalists and other nominees:

http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2017.html#.WgOxN4FSzrc

The choices might be most slanted in the NonFiction category– as if the judges looked for every book which would conform to a narrative of America as an evil place which should never have been founded. Exaggeration?

Erica Armstrong Dunbar‘s target is George and Martha Washington– engaged in the “relentless pursuit” of a runaway slave.

Frances Fitzgerald‘s target is evangelicals, “right-wing zealots” in the words of an approving review of the book in New York Review of Books.

David Grann‘s target is white oil barons in Oklahoma in the 1920’s out to wipe out an Indian tribe.

Nancy MacLean targets the “History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.” (Subtitle saying all you need to know about that one.)

Then there’s Masha Gessen, the most anti-Putin, pro-Cold War-with-Russia proponent around, which says a lot. Gessen has the energy of an evangelist, and as fervent a cause. While the other writers give, more or less, honest reportage, albeit from a slanted premise or viewpoint, Ms. Gessen is a professional attack dog. A propagandist. Doubt it– or her political slant? Gessen’s recent articles on the U.S. President include “The Real Madman,” and “Diagnosing Donald Trump, and His Voters”– both of which posit the man as insane. Playing to her audience, sure, and inflaming them– which is what a propagandist does.

Every year hundreds of non-fiction books are published– many thousands if the DIY variety are included. The slant, the bias, the distortion in the National Book Awards comes via which books are selected. Which images chosen to create the desired portrait– which for this nation is not an edifying one. (We are still a nation, though some would think not.)

Could more balance have been provided by the other five nominees? No. If anything, they’re more slanted, more a one-way view of culture and politics– the capper being Naomi Klein’s book on “Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics.” Ms. Klein is an even more hysterical propagandist than Ms. Gessen. (I base that on having read a few of her books.)

Objective commentators? Or advocates with a cause?
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The bias exists throughout the other categories, though in not as blatant a fashion. Again, it’s as if the books were selected to fill in a predetermined picture of America, past and now. Need a novel on the struggle of undocumented aliens in this country? We have one– Lisa Ko’s The Leavings. And so on.

If the impression is given that the selections were made for political reasons, for advocacy, and not for quality, this hurts most the writers themselves.