From the “Holy Shit” Department comes an article that was highlighted in today’s Publisher’s Lunch and dispatched to me by TeddyPig (Hi Teddy!): the Wall Street Journal reports that Random House is stopping publication of The Jewel of Medina and giving the rights back to the author, six days before the publication date out of fear of fallout from the Muslim community over the book’s content.
The book by Sherry Jones is a work of historical fiction based on the life of Aisha, one of the wives of the prophet Mohammed. Random House paid a $100k advance for the work but when UT Professor Denise Spellberg read an ARC, she denounced the book as a “very ugly, stupid piece of work” (note to authors: Don’t ask her for a cover quote. Ever.) and said, “I don’t have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.”
Wait, wait, before you pound your head on your desk, there’s more. Ms. Spellberg alerted Shahed Amunullah, a guest lecturer and editor of altmuslim.com, who spread the word to a listserv of Muslim graduate students. From there that email appeared the website “Hussaini Youth,” and within three hours, a person published “a seven-point strategy to ensure ‘the writer withdraws this book from the stores and apologise all the muslims across the world.’”
Now you can bang your head.
After Ms. Spellberg had a conversation with an editor at Knopf, an imprint of Random House with whom Spellberg has a book contract, alarm was raised within the company that the book, the author, and the employees of the publisher could be the victims of “widespread violence.” Spellberg followed up the conversation with a letter from her attorney stating that Spellberg would sue if her name were associated with the novel.
The story has set the internet on fire, pretty much, from Galley Cat to political bloggers weighing in. I’m trying to find an excerpt, a copy, anything about this book, because six days before publication must mean somewhere, somehow, someone has a copy and I have an eBay account. You have a copy? Let’s talk.
I must also note that according to the WSJ article, Sherry Jones has signed a termination agreement and her agent can shop the book to other publishers. I hope another publisher brings the book out, and soon, because one hissyfit and the threat of terrorist action should not block anything, let alone a historical fiction novel.
It isn’t that I don’t find it mind boggling, I just find it too ridiculous to comment on. Truly. I have to believe they didn’t really mean that because to think they were serious is too much, even for me.
I’m going to make an attempt to stop refreshing this page, because it will obviously lead me to insanity, but I’d like to say that there is a major difference between the subjects of these analogies.
I’m going to leave ‘being Scottish’ out of this because that is some next-level stuff happening right there. But as for ‘being Christian’?
Christianity in Britain, as I here it, is nowhere near as pervasive as Christianity in the US. But even here it is everywhere. Sundays are generally holidays from school and work. I had Religious education lessons that were solely bible reading in primary school. I had to attend carol/hymn singing sessions three times a week. We have Christmas/Easter celebrations every year. The legal system is based on Christian morals. Everything is built on the assumption that people are quietly Christian. I have to turn up to class as usual/ go to my office job if and when I get one as usual. I have to try and work a prayer schedule around classes and on accasion I will still be booked so solid I have take a break while lessons are ongoing to fit it all in. I’m scheduled into classes when it is time to break my fast for Ramadan. I have to ask for time off for Eid, and on occasion can’t get it because of exams. I get complaints about having to take an extra long lunch break to go to the mosque, or get a private room to pray in when I have a summer job. I get told outright that I haven’t gotten jobs because I wear a headscarf. I have had my luggage searched because people thought I looked suspicious. I have been threatened and harassed on the street for being a Muslim.
In this thread I’ve been assumed to be alternately a misogynist and a hater of free speech despite statements to the contrary.
There is no equivalence whatsoever between something being seen as a threat/insult by Christians and by Muslims.
*Face/Desk*
Read a couple of blogs to try to pick up some perspective and it looks like this is being whipped into another liberal (Spellburg received a degree from Columbia therefore must be a liberal), conservative fit instead of addressing the, I think, important issues being raised.
And I even have my concerns about the WSJ’s reporting slant since it was bought by Murdoch.
Yes, Last Temptation of Christ (Passion was the name of the incredible soundtrack Peter Gabriel did for it, sorry I conflated!) – a fabulous book and also I movie I was nearly unable to go to because of picketers shoving at me, screaming in my face, calling me names and making every attempt to stop ME from viewing a movie I have every right to see.
I’m a Christian too so I don’t really like anyone saying they’re “speaking for Christians” because well, there are millions upon millions of Christians and I personally found the Last Temptation of Christ to be a beautiful, faith affirming movie and not offensive in the least. But I believe others have a right to see it differently and to say so as long as they’re not impeding me.
I’ve done my share of picketing over lots of things. But no one tells me what I can see and read but me and your rights end where mine begin. Don’t block my way to “object” to something I know for a fact 98% of those picketers hadn’t even read or seen.
This is not about one religion or one group being worse than others. This is about intolerance in the extreme.
*points up at what Lauren said*
Yep, this.
Well obviously (obviously) you get less anti-Muslim nonsense directed at you than me, so you can be less cynical than I am.
So… you’re saying that representation of Arabs/Muslims (often used as synonyms – for the record, I’m not an arab) lead to Americans (who are non Muslim/non Arabs) holding negative views about them.
How does this jive with people not actually believing the negative stereotypes that the woman (or man) who boggled my mind mentioned?
Or do you mean only Middle Eastern Muslims are seen negatively?
My lady bits are in perfect condition actually, so I’m not sure where you are going with this.
I have committed my life to God. However, my commitment is not to the Christian God. The idea that people seek to convert others just so they don’t have to listen to ideas that run counter to their own is extremely distasteful to me.
Sorry I keep messing up the quotes. That’s not really what it’s about. Christians should listen to all sorts of ideas. Religion should not close one’s mind. . But both Christianity and Islam are proselytizing religions, and my point was, that if we think we are right, then we should put our basic message out there, rather than spending our time yelling about a movie or something, because if the Bible (or the Qu’ran) has merit, then it should be allowed to speak. Me flapping my jaws about Mel Gibson or something is just a distraction from what I should be doing—that is, serving my fellow man regardless of faith, and teaching the Gospel to those who want to listen.
Just read this thread- yes, I’m boggling. Boggling severely. What is it with Islam + Protest = Terrorism? Is this an American thing? Because I found some of the reactions much more shocking than the issue itself.
I’m not in favour of censorship, but I think that there is a difference between being controversial and being offensive. And if Random House decided that the book was offensive, then they have an absolute right to take the loss and not publish it.
And if Spellberg, as an expert in her field, was offended by a book given to her to review, she had a right to say so, and even a right to share her negative reaction with a colleague, or marshal protest against publication.
I hope that eventually a Godwin’s Law comes into effect for Islam and terrorism. I think what’s out of whack here is not the action of cancelling publication, but the whole TERRISTS CANT HAV MA FREEDOM OF TEH SPEECH reaction.
No, pretty sure she meant Passion of the Christ. Big scandalous Mel Gibson directed box office flop with James Caviezel as a vaguely homo-erotic Jesus?
Spaminator word: money23…pretty sure Mel made more that $23 on that flick, despite the flop.
FGM (female genital mutilation) is a cultural, not a religious practice. It’s a subtle but extremely important difference.
and no-one else is boggling at the statement about muslims being an indistinguishable mass of murderers and crazies. No-one?
The 2nd part of my earlier comment was meant in part to point out that I disagree my position on the issue, I was just trying to disagree in a really polite way. I tend to be rather rant-y by nature and I’m a Master’s candidate in US Foreign Policy/Security Studies so this topic has the potential to invoke a bit of a tirade, which helps no one. Apparently I over compensated & was too subtle.
For the record, anything that even approaches Muslim = Arab, Muslim = hates women or Muslim = terrorist is inaccurate and really, seriously detrimental, both in terms of how we as individuals view & treat each other and in terms of American policy.
my bad, I see she was mistaken. *bows out again*
NAZI!
Sorry, someone had to say it.
This is a very interesting social experiment in a way. If you read the article
Spellberg is the one who started this fuss. Personally, I’d like to see the
Does anyone know if this exists? In searching I found http://www.jewishblogging.com/blog.php?bid=153583 which has some interesting quotes including
Spam word? soviet96 which really is funny considering Godwin’s Law etc.
The folks at Random House should have stood by their author.
We live in an age of fear and repression. Learning that the world’s largest publishing conglomerate was scared away from publshing this book disappoints me.
Shewhohashope, I recognized your sarcasm, but it was subtle, and subtlety can be a tough thing to pick up in the message board environment, especially when people are reading quickly and responding even more quickly.
RH didn’t make the decision to pull the book based on the fact that it was potentially offensive—puh-leez, as if that would be the sole basis for pulling a book from a pub schedule. Nope, they pulled it based on the fact that they felt they had received threats to the safety of their company and employees based on what Spellberg told them and what she had told her colleague who then spread the word among the academic and student community.
I kind of find it difficult to believe that even some idle “We think this book sux and you shouldn’t publish it,” protesting from student groups would be enough, unless accompanied by some sort of substantial threat. I’m not saying violence, but certainly, it had to be something fairly big to get Random House—big, big corporation with lots of money, to pull back and cut their losses.
“I don’t have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.â€
I wonder what this crazy biatch would think about Michael Schiefelbein’s VAMPIRE series, in which a gay male vampire is in love with Jesus.
Or all the PNR and UF these days starring angels and demons.
Gawd. Two of the things I hate the most in today’s world: fundamentalism and political correctness at the same fucking time. I didn’t even think those two were possible together. I think the lady at least deserves props for combining two conflicting philosophies so effectively.
Screw the Iranian government. Let’s get married!
It scares me for the future of our society when we start pre-banning books based on what they *might* cause people to think. Once it starts, where does it stop?
I am. And…ugh…what to say. I’m up for an addendum to Godwin’s Law.
And I’ll stick with what I said (much) higher up. I don’t think this issue is to do with either ‘political correctness’ or terrorist threat. I think it’s to do with the hysteria people experience when they hear the words ‘Muslim’ and ‘protest’.
So… you’re saying that representation of Arabs/Muslims (often used as synonyms – for the record, I’m not an arab) lead to
Americans (who are non Muslim/non Arabs) holding negative views about them.
How does this jive with people not actually believing the negative stereotypes that the woman (or man) who boggled my mind mentioned?
Or do you mean only Middle Eastern Muslims are seen negatively?
I dont’ mean to offend anyone on here, Muslim, pagan, Christian, Jew, or otherwise.
I mean simply that people only can go by the information they have. It’s a human thing, not an American, or British, or Muslim or Norwegian or whatever. I remember when I was dating Nadir, he had some Arabic publications that said some truly bizarre things about Israel. At least they seemed bizarre to me. To him, not so much. Even if he didn’t believe them entirely, they did have emotional resonance for him that they did not for me. But it made me realize that people in other nations can have skewed views of the US, too, if all the information they get is inaccurate. We should all be more skeptical, and rise above whatever paranoia is out there. None of us are immune to it. And it needs to be challenged when it does appear, no matter who is involved.
I’m sorry, btw, about the prejudices you have encountered. I thought really, that the UK was far more secular than we are. But it’s not a national thing, is it? We all need to be more tolerant of each other.
I hope this makes sense. If it doesn’t blame the 3 little kids who are hanging on me screaming for supper. Who do they think I am? Their mother? lol!
It scares me for the future of our society when we start pre-banning books based on what they *might* cause people to think. Once it starts, where does it stop?
Two fun stories on this subject:
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Minority Report by Philip K. Dick
Ah, but Imogen, the key here is that that particular flavor of hysteria was not only fanned, but downright blown into a giant-ass bonfire by an expert in the religion, history, and culture. I agree with those who’ve said that Random House’s reaction was wrong, that they should have stood by their author, but it was another one of their authors feeding them the information in such a way that it incited the hysteria and gross overreaction.
You’d think Spellberg would’ve known better. Or, perhaps she did? Who knows.
I’m stupid (yeah, I know). What is Godwin’s law?
Not stupid at all. Probably just been able to avoid the many flame wars of “teh interwebz.”
I’m kind of assuming she’s the hysterical one, actually!
Oh and Godwin’s Law states that the first person to reference Hitler or Nazis in an argument automatically loses. (As in, “What, you advocate age-banding for books? That’s censorship. That’s like book-burning. That’s what Hitler did! You’re a Nazi!”) Even if the rest of their argument made sense. 🙂
I hate the slippery slope argument more than anything else except Fox News and the fact that Sean Bean will never love me.
This may have been Random House cowering in fear before the mighty wrath of radical Islam, albeit in the unlikely guise of a feminist Middle Eastern studies professor and a listserv group. Or it may have been Random House deciding that publishing a book that a large section of the population might find pointlessly offensive wasn’t where it wanted to go with its public image.
Either way, this is not a lead-in to Orwellian dystopia. Random House declined to publish the book, and returned the rights. The author is free to market it elsewhere. If RH had shown the manuscript to an expert before accepting it, and declined it for the exact same reason, this would be an non-issue.
This is not censorship. This book has not been banned, burnt, or supressed. A publishing house has decided not to publish it.
On a side note, I feel that all forms of medical surgery should be banned. If we let surgeons cut people up, where will it end? Before you know it, they’ll be waylaying us in alleys and performing unneccesary appendectomies on anyone who can’t get away. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I think I know why this is getting out of hand. I know the Muslims here feel as if general society picks on them. We develop stereotypes based on things we see, read, and hear. We read the story about the Australian Muslim leader that compared uncovered women to meat being left out. We see the video of the Muslim girl stoned to death for caring for a boy that wasn’t of her religion. We see the girls covered from head to toe in scorching heat while the boys don’t have to wear nearly as much crap. (That is in the US) We see things that we would never understand or tolerate in our households. We see the Muslims screaming that they are a religion of peace while sects bomb places. If RH has overreacted, then there are reasons for it. We hear stories about The Prophen taking a bride at 6 and taking her taking her at 9. Let’s not forget the cartoon episode. These are the versions we are inundated with. We need more positives.
I have friends that are Muslims. They are good people. I don’t associate them with the negatives but that is because they are an Americanized version. They don’t look down on me for being me and I don’t look down on them for being them. When we have a pot luck, I don’t fix pork. That’s about it.
I asked a male friend why didn’t the head of the religious communities stand up and say something about the bad. I know Muslims aren’t evil but others need to. He says it wouldn’t get as much press. I don’t know if that’s true. I know it would help. We need more Muslims to stand up and say when things aren’t right. I don’t think we would worry as much when a fury grew over cartoons or fiction. I also think as women, no matter the religion, we should defend each other. I don’t believe freaking out over a book was called for. A polite letter would’ve been more effective and less worrisome. JMHO.
Oh, okay, I’m wrong. I checked Wikipedia. Apparently what I know as Godwin’s Law is just a corollary to the original Law that TarotbyArwen references.
new82 82 new laws made from the original…
Note to self: Write Prophet Muhammad Porn for instant notoriety.
Step 2: Send Prophet Muhammad Porn to UT Professor Denise Spellberg in care of “Warn all Muslims”
The Wall Street Journal Op-ed writer said in her piece, “This saga upsets me as a Muslim—and as a writer who believes that fiction can bring Islamic history to life in a uniquely captivating and humanizing way.”
That’s what I find most sad about this episode.
Jewish and Christian figures have been explored in fiction, and especially in the past five years, heavily in women’s fiction. Having a book on an historical Muslim woman could help many of us who are not very familiar with Islam come into it in a non-threatening way. I’m not saying that we should learn our history from fiction; rather, that as a reader, I have often learned about a historical event or person through fiction and then gone on to more authoritative sources to learn the real facts and scholarly interpretations of those events and people.
Shame on Professor Spellberg for silencing a fellow author. If she truly finds this novel offensive, she could have discredited it by writing a thougtful article refuting it and allowed us (the readers) to judge for ourselves the worthiness of this particular fictional work.
So that takes care of the Muhammed porn…Schiefelbein wrote the Jesus porn…The L Word showed a Mary Magdalene porno…Meljean Brook did the angels and demons…who does that leave out? Gandhi? Buddha?
Abraham would be a good one. You could piss off the Christians, the Muslims, and the Jews all in one book.
From the WSJ article
They did not cancel the book because they found it offensive. They canceled the book because they were afraid for people’s safety due to possible “acts of violence”.
I just had the most interesting visual of Ben Kingsley……
voice41… I should be writing and working on my voice instead of leaving 41 comments? Dang psychic spaminator
Honestly, it is more worrisome to me that they canceled out of some unfounded fear. This, to me, smacks more of ethnic hatred than finding the book offensive.
Are we Americans truly that scared of the more violent sects of the Muslim faith? I have Muslim friends who tell me I should be, but should I?
Course64. Of course?
Step 2: Send Prophet Muhammad Porn to UT Professor Denise Spellberg in care of “Warn all Muslimsâ€
I’m only an hour from UT. I could deliver it for you. Maybe with a box of Lisabea’s S&M;gingerbread men.
A huge part of the problem is that we so rarely ask enough questions about why we’re being presented with a particular set of images unless those images strike us as being an inaccurate representation of ourselves or our loved ones. As Leah said, we all need to challenge those images much more often.
Abraham porn has already been written: “Sarah: A Novel (Canaan Trilogy)” by Marek Halter