Helen DeWitt's Scathing Critique of the Publishing Business

In the preface to Dan Visel's interview with Helen DeWitt, DeWitt offers a raw and heartfelt lamentation about the cruel, inefficient structure of the book publishing business:

"So we really have no chance of being contemporaries of our own contemporaries, even if we want to--if we stick with the conventional publishing model. Books I wrote or started last year, five years ago, 10 years ago, might get into the public domain in 2012, 2022, or never. The determining factor is not the quality of the books; it's the extent to which Helen DeWitt can marshal the social skills, the obstinacy, the willingness to suspend writing indefinitely to wheel and deal, to get the f------ into print."

I've only had one brief foray in the book publishing business so far--I wrote a chapter for the anthology Basketball in America and then had to fight tooth and nail for years so that I and the other chapter contributors could receive the (small) royalties that the book's editor had promised to share with us; the issue was not the money (regardless of whether it had been a small amount or a small fortune) but the principle: not everyone can be smart or talented but everyone has the ability to be loyal and to keep one's word--and there is nothing worse than a betrayer, someone whose deeds do not match his words or who is, as I like to put it, with you win or tie. The anthology editor promised that the other contributors would receive an equal share of the royalties and I would have pursued him to the ends of the Earth (and the end of time) whether the amount in question was two cents or $2 million.

Though DeWitt has had much more interaction with book publishers than I have, her frustrating experiences with editors--and with the general nonsense pervading the writing business--mirror many of the experiences I have had with magazine editors and website editors. One of my ideas was stolen without attribution or compensation, I have had a strange, nonsensical and offensive title attached to one of my articles, I have had a strong lead sentence butchered beyond recognition for no conceivable reason and I have submitted accurate copy only to have inaccurate information included in the text (I have also been berated, in vulgar and threatening tones, for simply telling the truth about such matters--not that empty words from cowards could for one second stop me from telling the truth).

Like DeWitt, I have had editors enthusiastically praise my work and make promises of future assignments only to inexplicably fail to follow through on those commitments. Those situations are even more baffling when one considers the commercial success enjoyed by people who simply do not possess the most basic writing skills and people whose work is the very definition of "hack job." This is not a new problem--more than 150 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe declared, "The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery--in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks."--but it is frustrating as both a writer and a reader to have one's senses assaulted by garbage and to know that a lot of people are being well compensated to produce that garbage.

In the Visel interview, DeWitt explains why the current publishing model makes it difficult for quality writers to be fairly compensated for their work:

"A painter is not expected to hand in a painting and then set aside a year or so to a) changing it in light of comments from the gallerist and b) waiting for the gallerist's staff to touch it up before deciding whether all the alterations can be allowed to stand. (The painting is not thought deficient in value if untouched-up by the gallerist, the receptionist, the gallerist's girlfriend.) A painter can paint. Do we think that any painter, regardless of ability, is automatically superior to any writer? I don't think so, but we have a system of production that presupposes that position, and the result is one with crippling financial consequences for writers."

Painters and other visual artists often face daunting obstacles, too; as I noted nearly two years ago, pottery maker extraordinaire George Ohr had boundless confidence--he declared "When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come."--but when he died he was considered an eccentric and his contributions to the art world were not recognized for quite some time. The 37 year old Vincent Van Gogh sold just one canvas prior to committing suicide. Suicidal thoughts are a frequent companion for writers and artists during their lonely journeys through this deeply flawed world (at the height of her despair, DeWitt sent an email dispassionately describing how her body should be disposed of after her suicide but her Jerzy Kosinski-style attempt to end her life with a sedative-aided asphyxiation failed).

What does all of this mean? An old episode of the "Simpsons" springs to mind: I don't remember the dialogue verbatim but, after a typical half hour of mayhem, Homer Simpson tried in vain to articulate some explanation or meaning for what had just happened but his precocious daughter Lisa mused that perhaps everything just happened randomly with no underlying cause and no deeper meaning. Lisa's answer seems to describe not just the bizarre business model of the publishing world but also the bizarre and tragic state of the world in general, a place where one billion people are starving at the same time that a small group of people enjoy unimaginable material wealth.

Thoughts on Poshlost and the Defining Arrogance of Genius

In Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40, interviewer Herbert Gold of the Paris Review asked Nabokov, "What is most characteristic of poshlust in contemporary writing? Are there temptations for you in the sin of poshlust? Have you ever fallen?"

Nabokov replied (emphasis added):

“Poshlust,” or in a better transliteration poshlost, has many nuances, and evidently I have not described them clearly enough in my little book on Gogol, if you think one can ask anybody if he is tempted by poshlost. Corny trash, vulgar clichés, Philistinism in all its phases, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities, crude, moronic, and dishonest pseudo-literature—these are obvious examples. Now, if we want to pin down poshlost in contemporary writing, we must look for it in Freudian symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic messages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know. Poshlost speaks in such concepts as “America is no better than Russia” or “We all share in Germany's guilt.” The flowers of poshlost bloom in such phrases and terms as “the moment of truth,” “charisma,” “existential” (used seriously), “dialogue” (as applied to political talks between nations), and “vocabulary” (as applied to a dauber). Listing in one breath Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam is seditious poshlost. Belonging to a very select club (which sports one Jewish name—that of the treasurer) is genteel poshlost. Hack reviews are frequently poshlost, but it also lurks in certain highbrow essays. Poshlost calls Mr. Blank a great poet and Mr. Bluff a great novelist. One of poshlost's favorite breeding places has always been the Art Exhibition; there it is produced by so-called sculptors working with the tools of wreckers, building crankshaft cretins of stainless steel, Zen stereos, polystyrene stinkbirds, objects trouvés in latrines, cannonballs, canned balls. There we admire the gabinetti wall patterns of so-called abstract artists, Freudian surrealism, roric smudges, and Rorschach blots—all of it as corny in its own right as the academic “September Morns” and “Florentine Flowergirls” of half a century ago. The list is long, and, of course, everybody has his bête noire, his black pet, in the series. Mine is that airline ad: the snack served by an obsequious wench to a young couple—she eyeing ecstatically the cucumber canapé, he admiring wistfully the hostess. And, of course, Death in Venice. You see the range.

Nabokov's statement foreshadowed/predicted much of what is wrong not only with contemporary journalism but also with the ideological perspectives that have become very fashionable in certain circles (i.e., equating the actions of President George Herbert Walker Bush with the crimes against humanity committed by Saddam Hussein is not merely inaccurate--it is perverse, or, as Nabokov would say, an example of "poshlost").

Here are some other Nabokov gems from that interview:

The purpose of a critique is to say something about a book the critic has or has not read. Criticism can be instructive in the sense that it gives readers, including the author of the book, some information about the critic's intelligence, or honesty, or both.

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There is only one school: that of talent.

(Nabokov dismissed the idea that certain Russian poets belonged to different "schools").

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Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many others, past and present. Artistic originality has only its own self to copy.

*****

Nabokov clearly not only possessed talent and originality but he had a quite keen awareness of the extent of his talent and originality; this is a characteristic feature of genius: while people of lesser talent are often clueless about how their skills compare to those of other people and people of average/slightly above average talent have understandable doubts about their capacity to compete with the truly gifted, geniuses generally possess extreme self assurance--to the point of sounding megalomaniacal or even delusional if their public accomplishments do not measure up to their seemingly grossly inflated opinions about themselves. The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright once declared, "Early in life I had to choose between an honest arrogance and a hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change."

Wright's statement is similar to World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer's reply after being asked who is the greatest chess player: "It's nice to be modest, but it would be stupid if I did not tell the truth. It is Fischer."

Albert Einstein's self confidence went even further than Wright's or Fischer's. Einstein's Theory of Relativity was not confirmed until Sir Arthur Eddington made his famous eclipse observations proving that gravity bends light in the manner that Einstein predicted but Einstein never doubted that his conception of how the universe works is not only correct but also the most elegant way for nature to function. Asked what he would have thought if Eddington's experiment had not confirmed the Theory of Relativity, Einstein replied, "Then I would have felt sorry for the Dear Lord. The theory is correct." Einstein thought that he knew better than God--or at least as much as God--about how the laws of nature should work in terms of mathematical elegance, beauty and simplicity!

There can be a thin line between confidence and self-delusion. The tremendous self confidence possessed by Wright, Fischer and Einstein does not seem delusional to us now because each of those men proved himself to be arguably the greatest practitioner of his craft--but what about George Ohr? Was he a confident genius, a delusional eccentric or some combination of both? Should he be defined by his own descriptions of his abilities, by what his contemporaries thought of him or by the high esteem with which his art is now viewed? Which perspective is true, which perspective is most accurate? If Einstein had lived in an era during which it was not possible to experimentally confirm the Theory of Relativity but he insisted that despite his status as a lowly patent clerk he had glimpsed into the mind of God would it have been correct to view Einstein as a genius or a madman?

I suspect that anyone who ranks well above the 99th percentile in a given endeavor--whether that field is architecture, chess, physics, basketball, writing or anything else--truly believes that he is the best in the world, if not the greatest of all-time. Of course, there can really only be one person who is truly the greatest. Disregarding the difficulty--if not impossibility--of proving who is in fact the greatest, if only one person actually is the greatest are the other nine people who rank in the top 10 delusional for thinking that they are the greatest? Or is that kind of thinking, that perspective about oneself, an essential personality trait for anyone who is trying to scale the very highest of heights?

George Ohr: "The Mad Potter of Biloxi"

"Mozart died a pauper/Heine lived in dread/Foster died in Bellevue/Homer begged for bread/Genius pays off handsomely--/After you are dead"--Yip Harburg

"When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come."--George Ohr

Imagine being the very best at what you do, an innovative trendsetter with boundless energy and creativity. That may sound wonderful but often the Faustian "bargain" that comes with such a tremendous gift is that the rest of the world does not recognize your greatness until long after you have died--Vincent Van Gogh sold just one canvas before he killed himself at the age of 37, yet more than a century after his death one biographer rightly declared that Van Gogh "produced an incredible number of masterpieces that will continue 'living' for the rest of human history."

You have most likely never heard of George Ohr. When he died of throat cancer at the age of 60 in 1918 he was considered--by the few people who even knew who he was--to be a flamboyant eccentric. More than 7000 pieces of pottery that Ohr lovingly created languished in crates stored in the garage of an auto repair shop run by his sons in his native Biloxi, Mississippi. If not for a chance encounter between a New Jersey antiques dealer named James Carpenter and Ohr's son Ojo it is likely that the world would never have known about Ohr's distinctive works.

Although Ohr was mocked during his lifetime and had trouble selling his pottery even to his few admirers, Ohr had boundless confidence. When he set up his wares, Ohr proudly posted a sign that read, "'Greatest' art potter on Earth. 'You' prove it contrary." In a 1901 interview, Ohr acknowledged his lack of commercial success by lamenting "I have a notion...that I am a mistake" but his prescient prediction from that same interview indicates that he knew that the "mistake" was really the lack of insight shown by his contemporaries: "When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come." In his shop, Ohr hung a hand-lettered sign with the Latin phrase Magnus opus, nulli secundus/optimus cognito, ergo sum! (A masterpiece, second to none/The best, therefore, I am!).

How thin is the line between being a genius who is celebrated during his lifetime and a genius who is not recognized as such until long after his death? Consider that Albert Einstein--whose name has become synonymous with the word genius--worked six days a week for seven years as a patent clerk because he could not obtain a full time academic position. During his spare time, Einstein wrote five papers that completely revolutionized the way that we perceive the universe--and yet even after the "annus mirabilis" (miracle year) of 1905 in which Einstein composed and published those papers it took until 1908 before Einstein became a full professor. Wouldn't you love to eavesdrop on some of those job interviews? "We're sorry, Herr Einstein, but you just are not quite qualified to teach at our institution." What must Einstein have thought after being rejected numerous times by people who had just a fraction of his intelligence? A quote from a letter that Einstein wrote during this frustrating period provides a glimpse of how he perceived the academics who refused to hire him: "From now on I’ll no longer turn to such people, and will instead attack them mercilessly in the journals, as they deserve. No wonder little by little one becomes a misanthrope."

Although Einstein had to suffer slings and arrows from many fools, he eventually achieved the fame and respect that he deserved, which provided him what he most wanted--the opportunity to work on his theories in solitude, undisturbed by the rest of the world. The huge advantage that Einstein enjoyed over Van Gogh and Ohr is that it became possible to experimentally verify some of the fantastic theoretical predictions that Einstein made in his 1905 papers; when Arthur Eddington's 1919 eclipse observations confirmed Einstein's assertion that gravity bends light Einstein instantly became a figure of worldwide renown not only in the scientific community but among the general public. Sadly, such instant verification of genius does not exist in the literary or artistic fields.