The Guardian lends a hand
The Guardian also has a piece on the story, a subtly, covertly snotty one – snotty about Jones, not Spellberg. ‘The Jewel of the Medina, a first book by Sherry Jones, 46, was to have been released on August 12′ – what’s with that ’46’? It doesn’t say how old Spellberg is. The point seems to be that Jones is old for a first novel – which has to be just covert sneering, sneering that’s embarrassed to be overt about it. ‘She claims to have spent two years researching the novel’ – there it is again – she claims? Couldn’t that have been she said? Yes, but apparently that wouldn’t have been snide enough. For some reason, the Guardian had to frame this story as a veiled attack on Jones. Odd. Maybe they think she’s a horrible Islamophobe but they don’t have any evidence for that so they just thought they’d sneer at her in the meantime?
Spellberg told the Guardian yesterday that she had been receiving hate mail accusing her of acting as a censor for Muslim jihadis after the piece in the WSJ, which cast her as the sole academic critic of the novel.
Gee, now why would anyone accuse Spellberg as acting as a censor? I can’t imagine, can you?
Spellberg, however, was horrified by the end product. “It is not just that there were issues with historical accuracy. This was quite deliberately provocative. She objectified the wife of the prophet as a sex object and made her violent as well,” she told the Guardian. The book’s marketing blurb and the prologue, both online, suggest Spellberg had cause for her fears. The novel is a luridly written amalgam of bodice-ripper and historical fiction centred on Aisha, the favourite wife of the prophet Muhammad.
Has Suzanne Goldenberg read the novel? That seems unlikely, since it’s been pulled, and she doesn’t say she has, and she refers to the blurb and the prologue. But then why does she say the novel is luridly written? Is she just taking Spellberg’s word for it? If so, she should have said so. If she’s read the novel, she should have made that clear. At any rate, what does she mean ‘suggest Spellberg had cause for her fears’? So it’s a luridly written historical bodice-ripper, why would that suggest that Spellberg ‘had cause for her fears’ that ‘there is a very real possibility of major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence…it is ”a declaration of war…explosive stuff…a national security issue.”…it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons’? It is not obvious why such a novel would cause ‘major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence’ or be ‘far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons’ – so why is the Guardian agreeing with Spellberg? Because she’s fighting the good fight against Islamophobia? Who knows. It’s all sickening stuff.
The Al-guardian’s editorial policy has been quite clear for the last few years and I am not surprised.
What in earth’s name makes you want to write about Muhammed’s favourite wife? & why even considering publishing such a thing?
As if 200 years of research would ever be enough to avoid speculation on what happened with a specific person during a specific time that long ago.
I guess half of the 14-year old would-be writers nowadays have the idea that they should write the ultimate book on Muhammed or Allah. If it were up for a bet I’d bet the thing was indeed ramsj but only for the above reasons and for none of the reasons identified, & well countered by Ophelia, in this post.
The Independent’s take on the affair is carefully neutral…
Might it not be a good idea to publish the book online, charging a small fee to read it, if the author wants?
Have a look at the URL of the article, as linked by Ophelia:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/aug/09/fiction.terrorism
“fiction.terrorism” ?
JoB. Why write a book about A’isha? Because she’s there to write about. Why not write about A’isha? Now there’s a much harder question to answer, and that’s the question at issue.
Eric, Not that it’s the point (because the point is that it’s no surprise the book is not published – so many books, including mine, are not published, but regardless of that the reasons for not publishing it are stupid) … but …
because she’s a boring Islamic figure, because there are a billion stories of women more interesting than a story of love by 2 people that have not exactly increased world happiness, because, as I said, there’s no direct evidence and it will inevitably become yes/no while there are 100s of contemporary Aisha’s where there is direct evidence or with
Finally – non-fictional fiction in the Umberto Eco-tradition is undoubtedly 1 of the gravest insults to litterature, ever. Increasing the interest for your novel by trying to partake in the fame of your characters is … cheating. It fills libraries I know, but it’s still cheating.
Tangent.
“She claims to have spent two years researching the novel” etc, is very typical journalistic/political spiel.
Irish journalists/politicians are also very good at employing the “s/he claims” kit.
For example, when referring to victims/survivors, who were industrial schools, they would say “s/he claims” s/he was abused whilst in Goldenbridge. They utterly remove themselves from the beliefs of their own written statements.
“S/he claims” s/he was in Goldenbridge?
It builds up a lot of mistrust.
I know. (Someone who dislikes B&W edited the B&W entry on Wikipedia [not written by me or by anyone connected to B&W] to say we ‘claim’ to want do whatever it is we say we want to do on the About page. Cute.) Sometimes that can be legitimate, such as when there really are legitimate reasons for suspecting a hidden agenda. But other times it’s not legitimate. It’s completey unobvious why the Guardian reporter was so suspicious of Jones and so trusting about Spellberg.
I would “claim” that the person who tampered negatively with B&W Wiki entry – in all likelihood, has a history of doing the same to other successful sites.
Perhaps the Guardian reporter is too afraid – and is therefore- even trying to remain on the periphery of her wishy-washy article.
No, I think the person who edited the entry has a specific (political) dislike of B&W. The edit happened the same day as a certain protracted political disagreement (on another site) in which 3 or 4 (anonymous of course) commenters kept inisting I was lying about something that I was not in fact lying about. I think that’s probably not a coincidence.
And of course Wikipedia’s editorial policy encourages that kind of milquetoast backstabbing, in the name of “neutrality”.
Not sure how to post links or I would give it a go however you should look at the Times opinion column called ‘It’s a festival of grovelling to terrorists’, it touches on this and other examples of pre release censorship due to fear, as the bold quote says, ‘who needs book burning if the books aren’t published in the first place’.
Here’s the link: A festival of grovelling to terrorists.
It’s also in news – thanks for the tip, Kit. Thanks Geoffrey for the link.
Wonderful term from Mick Hume in The Times: “pre-emtive grovelling”.