Ursula K. Le Guin: “I keep Asking You Not to Buy Books from Amazon”

[SteveEisenberg]

I can't find a link on this thread to what we are discussing. Maybe I missed it, but, if not, here is the original:

http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2015/06/01/up-the-amazon/

Here is a version for eInk Kindles:

http://www.readingthenet.com/mob?ct=...-the-amazon%2F

[Demingy]

I guess I must rethink my reading tastes when an author I enjoy reading tells me that what I enjoy reading (as a whole) is drivel. Then again, I guess I'm offending the literary giants by lumping them in with the crap I read. I didn't realize that I had it wrong all this time; I thought I could read what I enjoy reading without murdering these poor defenseless works of art.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Demingy

I thought I could read what I enjoy reading without murdering these poor defenseless works of art.

Nope. Every time fluff makes the bestseller list, a piece of literature gets its wings pulled off in Amazon's basement.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Yes, any reading is good reading: when you are trying to teach a child to read...and to love reading. But an adult reading the equivalent of "The rat sat on my hat", and thinking that what they read is true literature....well, come on.... and no, she is not talking about whether someone ENJOYS what they read...she specifically made the point that people become accustomed to the low standard and think that is what it should be. I do believe people ENJOY eating junk food...kinda hard not to with all the chemicals and drugs added to it to make you THINK it tastes good...(but that's another subject).

There is definitely something to be said for the days when publishers would filter what they published...what came out of the other end of that process had a much better chance of being a higher quality of work...and worth the money spent on it. Yes, there were rejected books that later became best sellers - and any number of other examples someone could point to...but generally speaking, the process kept the standards much higher than the depths to which they've fallen recently.

Cheers,

Elitist crap. I read what I like. I don't care if you or anyone else considers it "literature" or not. If you don't like a certain type of book, don't read it. Don't tell me or anyone else that we shouldn't be reading it, or equate anything that isn't "filtered" by the publisher with junk food.

Shari

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

hmmm... without becoming offended...and actually listening (reading?) to what she said...it does make a certain sense.

I dare anyone to argue that there is NOT a lot of crap being peddled at these self published sellers - Amazon being a huge one. And, no, I'm not saying there isn't good stuff too...but one apple amidst a crate of candy bars doesn't belie the point she makes.

Yes, any reading is good reading: when you are trying to teach a child to read...and to love reading. But an adult reading the equivalent of "The rat sat on my hat", and thinking that what they read is true literature....well, come on.... and no, she is not talking about whether someone ENJOYS what they read...she specifically made the point that people become accustomed to the low standard and think that is what it should be. I do believe people ENJOY eating junk food...kinda hard not to with all the chemicals and drugs added to it to make you THINK it tastes good...(but that's another subject).

There is definitely something to be said for the days when publishers would filter what they published...what came out of the other end of that process had a much better chance of being a higher quality of work...and worth the money spent on it. Yes, there were rejected books that later became best sellers - and any number of other examples someone could point to...but generally speaking, the process kept the standards much higher than the depths to which they've fallen recently.

Cheers,

But publishers invented what she bemoans. And publishers filter? Okay, but not only about quality. There was very few children books with young wizards. Then came Harry Potter and suddenly bookshelfs were filled with me-toos. Or Vampire Romances. And on and on it goes. Literary publishers may look for pure quality. All the big ones? They hope for the next Bestseller. A point could be made for amazon to bring the midlist and backlist back into play.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Section8

I wouldn't be surprised, if in Victorian England, the literary types were worrying that all those magazine serials by popular authors like Dickens were killing literature.

I think they would have been more worried about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_dreadful

Also, high and low fiction writers (say, Trollope and Collins respectively -- Dickens was in-between) had a common adversary in all the old-fashioned ministers, and the like, who were proclaiming novel-reading to be sinful. This tended to bring them together, and maybe was one reason the three I mention were all friends.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

You cannot sell books at Store A (and accept money for selling your books at Store A) and ask readers not to buy books at Store A. Well you can, but can't do it without sounding like an ass.

She simply is not powerful enough to force this on her publishers. Maybe you'll say she could go the self-publishing route. But she may not have it in herself to be a businesswoman. And being a self-publishing Amazon boycotter would, given Amazon's dominant position, cause her to take a tremendous financial hit. I don't think people should be pressured to choose between their financial well-being and expressing their opinion.

As for her article, it is too extreme for my tastes.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I think they would have been more worried about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_dreadful

Also, high and low fiction writers (say, Trollope and Collins respectively -- Dickens was in-between) had a common adversary in all the old-fashioned ministers, and the like, who were proclaiming novel-reading to be sinful. This tended to bring them together, and maybe was one reason the three I mention were all friends.


She simply is not powerful enough to force this on her publishers. Maybe you'll say she could go the self-publishing route. But she may not have it in herself to be a businesswoman. And being a self-publishing Amazon boycotter would, given Amazon's dominant position, cause her to take a tremendous financial hit. I don't think people should be pressured to choose between their financial well-being and expressing their opinion.

As for her article, it is too extreme for my tastes.

For the most part, I really don't care what an author has to say in real life. There are plenty of authors with whom I violently disagree with their views on a number of things, including some of my favorite authors. As long as they don't try to push it too much in their books, I'm fine with them having their own opinions.

[poohbear_nc]

Many years ago I took a night course for adults in 19th American Literature at a local university. One night our professor came into the classroom and wanted to share a horrible experience he had experienced over the weekend. It seems that his entire family were avid readers, and that is one reason he became a teacher of literature. He had visited his sister just as she was opening a box of books she had ordered, and she exclaimed "My work is cut out for me this weekend! I'm going to read ALL of these books." And he confessed that he nearly died of shame/anger/outrage/embarrassment ..... You see, they were all Harlequin romances. How could the sister of a full professor of American Literature read 'trashy romances'? Unnatural!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

She simply is not powerful enough to force this on her publishers.

Then she should donate her royalties from Amazon sales to charity. Problem solved. Money where mouth is.

Look, I don't care why she has to do business with Amazon. I just wish she would return that favor and not care that I do.

She's pulling a "Do as I say, not as I do" no matter how you slice it.

[poohbear_nc]

Also, high and low fiction writers (say, Trollope and Collins respectively -- Dickens was in-between) had a common adversary in all the old-fashioned ministers, and the like, who were proclaiming novel-reading to be sinful. This tended to bring them together, and maybe was one reason the three I mention were all friends

I find it somewhat fascinating/ironic that we've come full circle -- from the huge 'triple-decker' novels penned by the above authors to fill circulating libraries (Mudie's Lending Library at one time had an "Amazon-like" influence on writers & literary output) to the current glut of "first novel of a planned trilogy" ..... What is the attraction between literature & threes?

Which is 'real literature' and which is 'popular literature' ... and are they different?

[crich70]

There was a time not so many decades back when her work would've been considered to be junk food. SF/F was kid stuff that serious readers disdained.

[Froide]

"Fortunately, I also know that many human beings have an innate resistance to baloney and a taste for quality rooted deeper than even marketing can reach."

Why the fuss, then?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Froide

Why the fuss, then?

They're resisting *her* baloney.

[Turtle91]

All the comments I've seen here are saying basically "but I LIKE my books.Why is she telling me to not read the books I LIKE? She's just an elitist snob..."....when that is not what she said in her article...AT ALL... thank you SteveEisenberg for giving us an actual link.... now hopefully people will read it instead of just assuming she is trying to dictate what people read...She is trying to lambaste the "BS (Best Selling) Machine". Her comment about literature vs junk food should be taken in context:

Why I keep Asking You Not to Buy Books from Amazon

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Amazon and I are not at war. There are vast areas in which my peaceful indifference to what Amazon is and does can only be surpassed by Amazon’s presumably equally placid indifference to what I say and do. If you like to buy household goods or whatever through Amazon, that’s totally fine with me. If you think Amazon is a great place to self-publish your book, I may have a question or two in mind, but still, it’s fine with me, and none of my business anyhow. My only quarrel with Amazon is when it comes to how they market books and how they use their success in marketing to control not only bookselling, but book publication: what we write and what we read.

Best Seller lists have been around for quite a while. Best Seller lists are generated by obscure processes, which I consider (perhaps wrongly) to consist largely of smoke, mirrors, hokum, and the profit motive. How truly the lists of Best Sellers reflect popularity is questionable. Their questionability and their manipulability was well demonstrated during the presidential campaign of 2012, when a Republican candidate bought all the available copies of his own book in order to put it onto the New York Times Top Ten Best Seller List, where, of course, it duly appeared.

If you want to sell cheap and fast, as Amazon does, you have to sell big. Books written to be best sellers can be written fast, sold cheap, dumped fast: the perfect commodity for growth capitalism.

The readability of many best sellers is much like the edibility of junk food. Agribusiness and the food packagers sell us sweetened fat to live on, so we come to think that’s what food is. Amazon uses the BS Machine to sell us sweetened fat to live on, so we begin to think that’s what literature is.

I believe that reading only packaged microwavable fiction ruins the taste, destabilizes the moral blood pressure, and makes the mind obese. Fortunately, I also know that many human beings have an innate resistance to baloney and a taste for quality rooted deeper than even marketing can reach.

If it can find its audience by luck, good reviews, or word of mouth, a very good book may become a genuine Best Seller. Witness Rebecca Skloot’s Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which for quite a while seemed to have immortal life among the Times Top Ten. And a few books work their way more slowly onto BS lists by genuine, lasting excellence — witness The Lord of the Rings, or Patrick O’Brian’s sea stories. Not products of the BS Machine, such books sell because people actually like them. Once they get into the BS Machine, they are of course treated as products of the BS Machine, that is, as commodities to exploit....

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by shalym

Elitist crap. I read what I like. I don't care if you or anyone else considers it "literature" or not. If you don't like a certain type of book, don't read it. Don't tell me or anyone else that we shouldn't be reading it, or equate anything that isn't "filtered" by the publisher with junk food.

Shari

I don't think anyone here was trying to tell you what to read, least of all Ms. LeGuin...read her article instead of just the snippet the OP cut out... to create controversy, I assume.

Cheers,