War and Peace. Crime and Punishment. We the Living. Are all of these classic novels now unacceptable? Based on reactions to Elizabeth Gilbert’s no longer forthcoming The Snow Forest, it appears so. They’re set in Russia, and to a certain online mob such novels can’t be endured.
Elizabeth Gilbert was set to release her next novel, The Snow Forest. It has become, according to Time, “the target of review bombing, a practice where online users post multiple negative reviews on social media and review sites.” Faced with that reaction, she has pulled it from the publication schedule.
What was the problem? “The historical novel, which centers around a family in the 1930s that finds refuge from the Soviet government in the woods of Siberia, received backlash online from Ukrainian readers who criticized her for publishing a book set in Russia amid the Russian war in Ukraine.”
That’s it, as far as I can tell. The novel is set in Russia. The Russian government, as far as I can tell, is portrayed in a bad light. It’s not even present-day Russia. It looks like the same kind of bigotry that has led to the removal of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov from concert programs.
Time quotes a random, unidentified Instagram commenter as saying, “ANY mention of anything Russian right now is a huge trigger for any Ukrainian.” That’s utter nonsense and an insult to the brave people who have fought the Russian invaders. If Ukrainians collapse into whimpering puddles at the mere mention of Russia, Putin’s forces would have strolled into Kyiv a year ago.
Gilbert has reacted like a coward. She said in a video, “I want to say that I have heard these messages and read these messages, and I respect them. As a result, I’m making a course correction, and I’m removing the book from its publication schedule. It is not the time for this book to be published. And I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced and who are all continuing to experience grievous and extreme harm.” It’s hard to deal with a wave of irrational hatred, but the one thing you can’t do is concede its claims. If she thinks her novel would harm Ukrainians, why did she write it in the first place?
Review-bombing is a dishonest tactic where people claim something is terrible without having read, watched, or used it. Most often it uses fake accounts created just to submit negative reviews. The reverse, where fake reviews extravagantly praise a product or business, is also common. Apologizing to the people who use such techniques is pathetic.
Update, June 17: It’s worse. A BBC article I found today says: “Comments posted in her feed noted the February 2024 release date would coincide with the anniversary of the war. Others compared publishing a book ‘glorifying’ Russians to ‘writing a book about brave Germans in the 1940s’.” It’s the courage of the characters under Stalinist oppression which the review-bombers hate. I recently got a book, Das kurze Leben der Sophie Scholl, about a very brave German under the Nazi government; Sophie Scholl was a leading member of the resistance group called the White Rose. We can’t have that! I can’t seriously believe these review-bombers are more than a very small gang using ghost accounts to magnify their image.