Homophobes and Book Burners Weigh In

Orlando Figes made the news a couple of months ago when the Times revealed that he'd posted a slew of savage pseudonymous reviews of rivals' works on Amazon. "This is the sort of book that makes you wonder why it was ever published", he wrote of Molotov's Magic Lantern by Rachel Polonsky, going on to pronounce books by Sovietologist Robert Service variously as "disappointing" and "a dull read". Then Professor Figes' focussed a critical eye on his own book, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, writing that it "leaves the reader awed, humbled, yet uplifted." Once caught, he sullied himself further by lashing out, threatening lawsuits and allowing his wife to take the fall. At the end of it all, Stalin was to blame; it seems the stunning lapses in judgement can be traced back to Figes' study of the General Secretary's reign, which had led to a "very deep depression". You see, The Whisperers isn't really so uplifting after all.

Sordid, unseemly, this would all be old news were it not for the fact that it had no effect on an Amazon policy that allows would-be reviewers to hide behind cloaks of anonymity and paperless masks composed of silly pseudonyms.

Looking into the newish Penguin edition of The Wars, I notice that Amazon.ca provides 35 customer reviews of the novel, nearly all of which are anonymous or have been posted under noms de plume. Most are complimentary, but a fair percentage are not.

Who, one wonders, are these people?

Well, let's see. Someone going by the name Rudy Patudy claims to be a high school teacher. Here, in just two sentences, the educator not only displays creative use of punctuation and the lower case, but comes up with a whole new definition for the word "trollop":

Then there's Furyman from Coboconk, Ontario, a reader of books on the First and Eleventh World Wars:

That's right, don't you mistake Furyman for a book burner – though his motto, Gott Mit Uns, was used by the Wehrmacht right up to the fall of the Third Reich. No, the true practitioner of libricide is the brave anonymous soul who posted this:

Into the ground? What do I know – I've never been to a book burning.

Now, I don't mean to suggest that these negative reviews were written by rivals – I very much doubt that Rudy Patudy is Jane Urquhart – but has Amazon learned nothing from Professor Figes' lesson? Why allow anonymous reviews? Why encourage reviewers to use pseudonyms? Why not request that people put their names behind their misspelled words? Sure, the deceitful will continue to hide, but it's at least a start.

As it stands, Amazon has no one but itself to blame for such absolute trollop.

Donald Jack Tackles Timothy Findley

The Wars shines brightly, even as Timothy Findley's star falls. A Penguin Modern Classic, it's assigned to reluctant high school and college students across the land. I'm betting a fair percentage actually read the thing. I know I did. Liked it, too. Would I today? Don't know. That said, The Wars has been on my mind since I came across Donald Jack's review in the 15 October 1977 edition of the Globe and Mail.

It's always interesting to read contemporary criticism of works that have entered the canon. Did the reviewer sense that there was something special? Would the piece feature some grand pronouncement? Some recognition of achievement? There's nothing of the sort in Jack's review, though it does make for interesting reading.

Jack wasn't known for his criticism, but he must have been a tempting choice. His bestselling Bandy Papers, described by the Globe as "a series of novels about the misadventures of Bartholomew Bandy during The First World War", was twice awarded the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. What would he have to say about a less ribald work, one lacking slapstick, set during the very same conflict?

The answer follows.

Witness Jack's clumsy dance around the real reason he dislikes the novel, marvel at his gloriously hypocritical summation:

In his new novel, The Wars, Timothy Findley tells the story of a young Canadian's experiences in the first World War. Robert Ross comes from a rich Toronto family whose eldest daughter, Rowena, is hydrocephalic and Robert is her self-appointed guardian. When Rowena dies while playing with her rabbits, he blames himself. His alcoholic mother insists that Robert must kill the rabbits. "All these actors were obeying some kind of fate we call 'revenge.' Because a girl had died – and her rabbits had survived her."

Robert joins up. "The days were made of maps and horses: of stable drill and artillery range." He fails in an Alberta bordello. Though he sees a war hero locked in homosexual combat, it does not affect his subsequent attitude to that warrior. Though he is an officer, "Telling other people what to do made him laugh. Just as being told what to do made him angry."

He experiences the trenches, gas, and shell fire. He loves animals but there is little evidence of warmth, affection or concern for others, even in a war noted for the comradeship it inspired. He has an affair with Lady Barbara d'Orsay in England. It is described by others from a distant perspective.

He returns to France, and is raped by his fellow soldiers in the dark. So he doesn't know who they are. At the climax of the book his concern for the well-being of a trainload of horses and his state of mind causes him to attempt a rescue. When they try to stop him he kills several of his comrades. The rescue of the horses results in many of them being burned to death. Robert survives for a few years, mad and disfigured.

I know how much work goes into a novel, so I regret that I find Findley's picture of the war to be an unacceptable distortion.

No further comment is necessary.

Oh, okay. Two words: "homosexual combat".

Allen Emergency Eye Wash

Beginning with the above, London publisher Grant Richards' 1897 first edition of An African Millionaire, six handsome Grant Allen books to flush away the harmful grit left by BiblioBazaar, Tutis and General.

Flowers and Their Pedigrees

New York: Appleton, 1884

Miss Cayley's Adventures

London: Richards, 1899

Flashlights on Nature

London: Newnes, 1899

Florence

Boston: Page, 1901

Belgium: Its Cities

Boston: Page, 1903

Related posts:

Awful Allens

What? No Tutis?

What? No Tutis?

A correspondent wonders why I gave Tutis Classics a pass in the last post. The reason is simple: the greatest offence done to Grant Allen comes not from the perplexing POD publisher, but from rival BiblioBazaar. Need another example? Here, BiblioBazaar takes the author's most enduring work, botches the title, then repeats the error with an alternate cover featuring an image that it tries to pass off as Paris.

Those familiar with The Woman Who Did will remember Alan and Herminia's time in the City of Light.

No?

Here it is in full:

They took the club train that afternoon to Paris. There they slept the night in a fusty hotel near the Gare du Nord, and went on in the morning by the daylight express to Switzerland.

Fans of Tutis will be disappointed to learn that it offers only two Allen titles. These are not, as one might expect, The Woman Who Did and An African Millionaire, but The Great Taboo and The Science of Arcady. Lesser works to be sure – the latter is a collection of essays wrapped in a cover that resembles an old textbook – though the former might be of interest. The Great Taboo was the second of four novels Allen published in 1890; Peter Morton's The Busiest Man in England: Grant Allen and the Writing Trade provides a very good summary:

Washed overboard from a liner in the South Seas, Felix Thurstan and Muriel Ellis swim to a Polynesian island, where they are promoted to the status of gods of Rain and Clouds respectively. Their reign will be short, however; they can expect to be killed, eaten and replaced after some months. Fortunately they learn, from the babbling of an ancient parrot once owned by a sailor castaway, the exact process by which the reigning supreme god, Tu-Kila-Kila, is himself replaced; armed with this knowledge, Felix steals the golden bough from the sacred grove and kills the incumbent in single combat. Felix and Muriel then introduce a humane and rationalistic regime before escaping on a passing ship.

As I say, a lesser effort, though Tutis does offer two different covers. The first appears to depict Felix and Muriel windsurfing their way to freedom. Bit of a mistake there – they actually leave by lifeboat, courtesy of a gun-toting sea captain – but I wonder whether the second, placing Felix in Conan the Barbarian gear before the frigid, snow-covered mountains of Polynesia, is any better.

By Crom!

Related post: Awful Allens