Masha Gessen

Politicized Book Awards

Posted on by newpoplitnews

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.

 

n+1 Revisited

Posted on by newpoplitnews

DaynaTortorici

(Photo of rich girl Dayna Tortorici, Editor of n+1 magazine.)

We’ve already covered one of New York City’s chief literary mags, the pretentiously named n+1 magazine. See our Op-Ed.

In recent days, editor Chad Harbach has been the subject of a lawsuit which claims he plagiarized another author’s novel for material for his own. See this story.

Chad_harbach_2011

(Photo of the questionable Chad Harbach.)

ARE n+1 editors icons of truthfulness? There’s the fact that Chad Harbach is listed at wikipedia– and until recently at their site– as one of six founding editors. Neat– except that anyone who read their first few issues knows there were actually four founding editors– Gessen, Greif, Kunkel, and Roth. One can speculate that the change was made to include a woman– Alison Lorentzen– as a founder. Harbach then thrown in also. Very Orwellian. One can speculate that, with Harbach now the subject of controversy, he’s apt to become any moment in the n+1 histories a nonperson. As the old joke in the Soviet Union went, the future is certain but the past is always changing.
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What does n+1 have to do with the “wise men” we profiled here in a recent post?

At its beginning, the n+1 editors’ professed model was William Phillips’ Partisan Review. One of their early mentors was Robert B. Silvers, who worked for Paris Review and founded New York Review of Books.

These facts and others raise more questions about the magazine, about its mission and its funding– questions we won’t address now.