Apparently Yann Martel’s latest book hasn’t been well received. A lot of the criticism, it seems, is centered not just upon the quality of the work itself, but rather on the fact that he is a non-Jew who had the audacity to write about the Holocaust. The Guardian has an interesting interview with him about the book, with a sidetrack about lit and Stephen Harper.
Of the criticism, Martel says,
In any case, we’re in dialogue with history, and you no more own a historical event than people own their language. The English don’t own the English language; the Jews don’t own the Holocaust; the French don’t own Verdun. It’s good to have other perspectives. If you claim to own an event, you may suffer from group think.
Especially delightful is the fact that the book includes a scene at which one of the main characters, Henry,
“is slated for having written a book about the Holocaust deemed unpublishable by a posse of editors from the UK and north America who have assembled to tell him to do it differently, if he does it at all.”
I have to say that I’m with Martel on this one. And not just because a whole slew of non-Jews were also victims of the Holocaust. The sideline discussion about the importance of leaders being readers is more than just a diversion too. As Martel says, literature performs an essential service for our humanity. It teaches empathy, by putting us inside the lives of people we’ve never met. Who’s to say writers can’t be doing that on the other end of a novel?
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I haven`t read it, but everyone I know who didn`t receive the book well did so because it was kind of awful.
Oh, silly season is upon us again. *face-palm*
Remember the great feminist debates about whether a man could write believably as a woman and vice versa? This makes about as much sense as that did.
Would it be better or worse if Martel was a German who wrote a novel about a homosexual, Jewish gypsy’s wartime experiences? Would that make the ridiculousness more or less obvious?
I agree – nobody owns anything in respect to these kinds of things. I assume the book must be excellent if that’s the only criticism they could think to bring to the table.
I guess, as an Irish-Canadian atheist, I really shouldn’t be commenting though, should I?
Just to clarify, I’m not saying that the only criticism was of the author’s authority. I’m just pointing to hostility resulting from the fact that “many critics recoil from the very idea of a Holocaust novel written by an author who is neither Jewish nor basing his work…on some sanctified piece of history.” I’ve had far too many wasted conversations about who should be allowed to write what. Either it’s well written, or it’s not, regardless of who’s doing the writing.