[HN Gopher] Ted Chiang has won the PEN/Faulkner Foundation's sho...
___________________________________________________________________
Ted Chiang has won the PEN/Faulkner Foundation's short story prize
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 181 points
Date : 2024-06-13 17:14 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lithub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lithub.com)
| jebarker wrote:
| Well deserved. "Hell is the absence of God" is my favorite of his
| stories. It's one of the few short stories I find myself
| repeatedly re-reading.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Mine too. Beautiful work. The characters. The imagery. The
| language. Magical. It's published in an anthology that has many
| other good stories too.
| nlawalker wrote:
| One of my favorite sentences in any book.
|
| "And God sent him to Hell anyway."
| fleshdaddy wrote:
| God I love that line. I almost wish the story ended right
| there.
| sunshowers wrote:
| My favorite as well.
| eh_why_not wrote:
| Interesting that he's never written a full novel, only short
| stories.
|
| I wonder if that in itself made his works higher quality: no
| pressure for high word count, and thus economy with words and no
| filler content.
| soneca wrote:
| What differs a short story from a novel is definitely not
| "economy words and filler content". The two are very different
| narratives, structure and concepts. You don't usually start
| writing a novel and realize it's a short story or vice versa.
| Even if you do, then you rethink your whole structure.
|
| Economy with words and filler content might differentiate a
| good from a bad novel, but not a novel and short story.
| eh_why_not wrote:
| Good point.
|
| Which novels would you recommend that had no filler content?
| bookofjoe wrote:
| "A Canticle For Leibowitz"; "The Stranger"; "The Fall";
| "Childhood's End"; "Riddley Walker"; "The Martian
| Chronicles"; "The Sea of Tranquillity"; "Animal Farm";
| "Catch 22"; "The Catcher in the Rye"; "A Clockwork Orange";
| "Dr. Strangelove"; "To Kill A Mockingbird"; "The Little
| Prince"; "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"; "Lord of the
| Flies"; "Charlotte's Web"; "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"; "All
| Quiet on the Western Front"; "The World According to Garp";
| "Invisible Man"; "Flowers for Algernon"; "Sophie's Choice";
| "The Road"; "All the Light We Cannot See"; "The Goldfinch";
| "Atonement"; "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-
| Time"
| marshray wrote:
| To the other great nominations, I would add:
|
| "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
| Tavore wrote:
| What is "filler content"?
|
| Because from how I understand it I'd argue there is no such
| thing as "filler content" in novels.
| soneca wrote:
| "Filler" is very subjective. A very long chapter going on a
| tangential introspective mourning thoughts may be viewed by
| some, as it "doesn't move the plot forward", but it can be
| the most pungent point of emotional connection in the
| entire novel for others.
|
| Sometimes going on talking about minor characters routine
| is kind of the main point of an author's intention, but it
| may read as "filler" by some.
|
| Or something like Brandon Sanderson books, where his fans
| enjoy spending more time in that universe, but make their
| novels very long.
| m_fayer wrote:
| I think of movies as the equivalent of short stories and
| serialized series as novels. That distinction also seems to
| hold when it comes to adaptations.
| imwm wrote:
| evidenced by the huge variation in word count among his short
| stories. some are a couple pages, while others are essentially
| novellas.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Given how long he's been writing (he sold his first story in
| 1989), the fact that he's only published 18 short stories and
| no novels in his entire career probably says a lot about his
| approach.
| jonas21 wrote:
| For most of that time, he was working as a technical writer
| (at Microsoft, I believe).
| lurker919 wrote:
| I would love to read his documentation! Even if I don't
| know anything about the topic.
| paxys wrote:
| He has also written ~15 short stories over 35 years. Quality
| over quantity.
| constantinum wrote:
| Division by Zero (short story) Is my favourite of his.
| fsloth wrote:
| Ted Chiang is extremely recommended to anyone who enjoys
| inventive fiction. His work borders fantasy and science fiction,
| switching effortlessly from one topic to the next, with absolute
| mastery, being thought provoking, sophisticated, yet never stuffy
| or boring, with his only aim to tell a good story.
|
| If you like Borges, Clarke, Stephenson and others you will love
| Mr. Chiang. Some of his writing is the best I've read in creative
| fiction in any genre.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| His stuff is amazing. The only one I've read so far that I
| haven't liked was the one on the virtual pets. That one seemed
| to go on forever.
| justinpombrio wrote:
| Well the virtual pet story had two problems! The first is
| that it seemed to go on forever, and the second was that it
| ended before the story was complete.
| wyager wrote:
| Also strongly recommend Greg Egan, who I place in a similar
| bucket to Chiang.
|
| Egan has some books that fall into an (afaik) completely unique
| sub-genre that I have heard described as "math-fi".
|
| Some of his books are (credibly) described as a textbook
| wrapped in a narrative veneer. E.g. he has 3 books set in a
| universe with a ++++ metric tensor, and another book set in a
| ++-- universe. He painstakingly rederives many details of
| physics, chemistry, etc. to a level of detail that I've never
| seen even in physics textbooks, and then creates a story where
| characters in that universe discover its properties. The books
| are good even without paying too much attention to the math,
| but if you find that part interesting, he has detailed
| supplemental materials on his website.
| justinpombrio wrote:
| Eactly, Eagan is "math-fi", and Borges is "philosophy-fi".
| And yeah, what Eagan does is absolutely mind blowing. He
| mathematically derives entire universes entirely unlike our
| own, determines what it would be like to live in them, and
| then writes about characters that do.
|
| (And this isn't boring shit like "this world is four-
| dimensional, so its inhabitants need more legs, woah!", this
| is bizarre shit like "better clear the road so that we can
| rotate the museum down it, before the sun moves on".)
| mos_basik wrote:
| I've read something like 7 egan books now but my math isn't
| good enough to know if they're any of the four you described
| via metric tensor (cause the wiki page on it went over my
| head). Surely not Incandescence? Maybe Schild's Ladder?
| Curious which ones you mean, a list of names is fine if you
| don't want to spoil anyone.
| wyager wrote:
| The Clockwork Rocket trilogy is ++++, and Dichronauts is
| ++--.
|
| Reading these really helped my intuitive grasp of
| relativistic mechanics.
|
| Incandescence is also cool but (minimal spoilers) is more
| or less the normal +--- metric. Not nearly as mind-bending
| as ++++ or ++--.
| _xander wrote:
| Absolutely love 'Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom' by him
| RandomCitizen12 wrote:
| +1. Possibly my favorite story ever.
| superposeur wrote:
| Reading this story inspired me to work through Joe Polchinski's
| classic paper on the "Everett phone" [1]. The paper partially
| answers a question I've long had about Quantum Mechanics, what
| is so special about linearity? In a nutshell, the paper
| demonstrates that even the tiniest bit of nonlinearity (at
| least of a certain sort) would allow for communication between
| branches of the wavefunction, like in the Chiang story. Super
| deep stuff that, in my opinion, physics hasn't even fully come
| to terms with.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Everett-Wheeler_telephone
| bangonkeyboard wrote:
| I was hoping this had meant he'd written a new story.
| hrdwdmrbl wrote:
| I would really like to know why he continues to work a day-job.
| Does he enjoy writing technical documentation that much?
| vessenes wrote:
| I feel like the only person in scifi who doesn't LOVE Ted Chiang.
| Don't get me wrong -- I _like_ his writing a lot. But, I often
| feel like it 's a little 'light' -- not sure how to describe this
| exactly.
|
| I guess I'm saying he's not Philip K Dick or Stanislaw Lem, or
| even William Gibson, but he's awarded/discussed as much.
|
| I will, of course, buy his next book, short or long-form. But I'd
| love it if he went a little higher/deeper conceptually. I think
| he has it in him.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Oh wow! I'm late to the Ted Chiang game, having only read his
| books last year, but I've read a lot of PDK, a fair amount of
| Gibson, and a little bit of Lem. I think Chiang's less eager to
| end on a grim note than they are. And maybe that's what you're
| feeling. But I think the topics he deals with can be incredibly
| big, and incredibly dark. For instance, _The Lifecycle of
| Software Objects_ was so realistic, and so dismally cynical
| about the software industry in particular, that it made me feel
| palpable fear and pre-emptive shame for the future.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| I get you. A lot of short stories feel a bit... empty? to me.
| Like there's an effort to be profound but they don't get there.
| poszlem wrote:
| To me reading his work feels often more like going through a
| news report than enjoying a short story.
| phillryu wrote:
| For me Ted Chiang short stories are like a little trip in a
| story form. He's not the most rounded storyteller in atmosphere
| or dialogue and rich characters, but the central idea he's
| interested in exploring in each story often blows my mind, and
| that seems like his end goal, like breaking open the boxes
| we're stuck inside a little bit. He seems satisfied if he's
| able to reach that destination concisely.
| ttjjtt wrote:
| I just want to counter balanced this by sharing love ted chiang
| but cannot happily get through any p k dick and little Gibson
| either. I find Chiangs work hits me deeper on a conceptual
| level and perhaps it's that exact lightness of tone. I find
| Dick and Gibson too affected with gravitas and a vision of
| stylistic coolness that I do not share for me to enjoy them.
| But that is all purely subjective preference, they're both
| objectively fine writers
| spookybones wrote:
| I wouldn't say PKD is gravitas. He is often funny and has a
| workingman prose. Gibson, yes. Though, I find his later
| works, like Peripheral, less stylized and serious.
| m463 wrote:
| I used to read all the collections of "The Years Best Science
| Fiction" by Gardner Dozois
|
| I stopped reading them after a while, because it felt like
| eating a box of assorted donuts. Very creative/stimulating but
| too many idea changes, too short and too quick.
|
| I really find novels more compelling compared to short stories.
| They seem to have more depth, explore more adjacent things,
| allow for character development, take the time.
|
| In fact, nowadays from time to time I go too much the other
| way. I quit at book 7 of the 20 book series because there're
| not enough new ideas/momentum.
| modernerd wrote:
| "What's expected of us" is wonderful.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a
| kaiokendev wrote:
| Highly recommend his Tower of Babylon, I think about it
| regularly, love his brand of sci-fi
| Mobius01 wrote:
| I re-read it often. It's one of the best short stories I've
| read in the entire life.
| loudmax wrote:
| Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life" was the basis for Denis
| Villeneuve's film "Arrival". The movie isn't a literal adaption
| of the short story, but IMHO it is very true to the original.
|
| Since all of Chiang's stories are short stories or novellas,
| they've very approachable. You're not committing to a full novel,
| you can easily read these stories in a single sitting.
|
| Ted Chiang is one of my favorite writers. I don't think I've read
| a single story of his that I didn't find interesting, and a lot
| of the ideas raise profound deeply engaging questions.
| stavros wrote:
| The anthology "Stories of your Life and Others" was the best
| scifi anthology I've read.
| bognition wrote:
| Personally I love "Exhalation" a lot more
| stavros wrote:
| That's up there too, maybe it's because I read SOYLAO
| first. I really liked both, though.
| marshray wrote:
| Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
|
| I shared this with a friend who grew up native in an
| Arabic-speaking country. After finishing it, he said he'd
| like to read it again but in the original Arabic. He'd
| interpreted it as authentic from his native storytelling
| culture.
|
| Such an amazing writer.
| ACS_Solver wrote:
| I read both collections after, like others, getting
| introduced to Ted Chiang because of Arrival, and both rank
| highly among my favorites. Chiang can write some beautiful
| prose (best exemplified by "The Merchant and the
| Alchemist's Gate") and excels at taking a single
| interesting idea and taking it somewhere fascinating. With
| very few exceptions, his stories don't have real characters
| - they're just named tools to express ideas - but that
| works well with the kind of stories he writes.
|
| Highlights for me from Exhalation:
|
| The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate - beautifully written
| story in the style of Arabic literature
|
| The Lifecycle of Software Objects - resonated strongly with
| me due to its criticism of the software industry, and
| raises great ethical questions about AIs
|
| The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling - I was intrigued
| by the Tiv tribe's concepts of truth, and blown away when I
| later found out that "mimi" and "vough" are real concepts
| and not Chiang's imagination
|
| Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom - a great and plausibly
| seeming examination of the psychological and social effects
| of communicating with alternate realities
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| I understand that it's not really a story, but The Great
| Silence is also excellent.
| m_fayer wrote:
| Funny the last 3 are also among my highlights, but I
| would venture that they're specifically good examples of
| Chiang's ability to do character work. In various ways,
| they give a marvelously detailed and lyrical picture of
| people evolving over time, dealing with and coming to
| peace with circumstances and adversity.
| marshray wrote:
| Tower of Babylon, man. Just wow.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Science fiction as if it had been written 4000 years ago.
| marshray wrote:
| Right?!
|
| It makes me want a time machine just to go back and share
| it just to see the reaction.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > The movie isn't a literal adaption of the short story, but
| IMHO it is very true to the original.
|
| I think it depends on what you mean. It takes the literal plot
| in a different direction--I think necessarily, because it'd be
| very hard to convey on film the important parts of the story
| without something like very heavy-handed voice-over. But I
| could go for the argument that it is true to the spirit and
| mood of the story. (Personally, I enjoyed it--it's by far my
| favorite Villeneuve's movies--and, as a huge Ted Chiang fan, I
| didn't feel cheated, but neither did I feel that I'd seen a
| very faithful adaptation.)
| paxys wrote:
| It wasn't a different direction. Everything in the story is
| in the movie as well. The movie just contains a ton of more
| plot and details because of course you can't just translate a
| handful of pages of a sci-fi concept to the big screen.
| ericol wrote:
| I watched the movie first, found out who wrote it, and read the
| book it was in.
|
| I did love a lot the short story, and kind of got mad at
| "Arrival" for some of the changes it makes to the story. But.
| After several (SEVERAL) re watches of the movie, I got to
| "understand" what Villeneuve was about, and I fell in love with
| the movie as well.
|
| It currently sits in probably my top 5 preferred movies to re
| watch (Being the others both Blade Runners, About Time &
| Notting Hill in no preferred order)
| Fellshard wrote:
| I think Villeneuve - out of the current cream-of-the-crop
| directors - best understands how to /adapt/ for film. Chiang
| has a masterful grasp of the short story format, in turn.
| Both the short story and film delighted me, and both seem
| suited well to their medium.
| hehdhdjehehegwv wrote:
| Arrival and Dune Part 1 are both really good, 10/10,
| adaptations.
|
| Dune 2 to me shows that even with an amazingly talented
| adapter/director, that there are some limits to what can be
| conveyed from literature to film.
|
| The limit in Dune 2 comes down to the fact that much of the
| "action" in the novel takes place via internal monologue.
| To convey that in film ends up being very, very hard and
| with Dune you can't escape it.
|
| In my viewing of Dune 2 I thought they weren't able to
| really show the vastness of Paul's internal journey, his
| visions of Jihad, struggling with his place in the universe
| as his mind is transforming. I didn't feel that was in the
| film and made a lot of other actions and motivations more
| confusing.
|
| I'm glad we have so many ways to tell stories, and I'm
| wholeheartedly for adaptations, but the fact that some
| types of ideas and stories are best expressed via one
| medium over another is something to embrace as well.
| tenpies wrote:
| I do wish to add that while Villenueve was great, to me, the
| key man in this adaption was Eric Heisserer, who wrote the
| screenplay.
|
| There's a really good interview of the changes he made, how
| the script came to be, and how he got Villenueve on board:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDXlaa9JpuI
|
| The anecdote about the most important line in the film is
| also really funny in that the line seems so deep and
| philosophical, but it came about almost entirely through
| improvisation at the last minute.
|
| The whole thing is one of those rare cases where I consider
| the original story by Ted Chiang, the script by Eric
| Heisserer, and the film by Denis Villeneuve to all be
| complimentary.
| kubectl_h wrote:
| I guess I should re-watch it since I read the story first,
| then watched the movie and I had a hard time with what I
| perceived was unnecessary monkeying with the story of the
| daughter that I felt made the movie story less rich and
| complex. But it's probably time to revisit both mediums.
| acchow wrote:
| As much as I enjoy the original Blade Runner, it really does
| not feel like a _masterpiece_ the way 2049 does.
|
| Note the usage of quotes from Nabokov's Pale Fire during the
| baseline test. A few I liked: Do you feel
| that there's a part of you that's missing? Interlinked.
| Did you buy a present for the person you love? Within cells
| interlinked.
|
| * spoiler alert *
|
| Joe (aka "K") has to pass the baseline test to demonstrate
| his lack of emotional state.
|
| There's a scene early on in the film where K will be giving a
| present to his hologram love, Joi. She's the opposite of K -
| full of emotion, joy, sadness. Joe just had a rough day,
| comes home, and she tries to cheer him up Joi
| : Would you read to me? [gets up, crosses to table,
| 'picks up' Nabokov's Pale Fire] Joi : It'll make you
| feel better. 'K' : You hate that book.
|
| Yes, of course she hates that book. She is a glowing ball of
| emotion and doesn't want to ever give that up. She's the most
| emotional character in the whole film.
|
| It's clear the film is a true labor of love from Hampton
| Fancher and Michael Green. They put their entire being into
| this work.
| spookybones wrote:
| I barely remember 2049. I remember so much of the original.
| Ridley Scott and team created the world from scratch and
| mastered the atmosphere. 2049 is very good, but it's
| basically a requel.
| chillee wrote:
| I actually don't think that it's very true to the original -
| arguably, it loses the entire point of the original. In
| particular, I agree with Gwern's take (https://gwern.net/story-
| of-your-life) that the original Story of Your Life does _not_
| involve any time travel /precognition, while Arrival makes it
| very clear that Louise has precognition.
|
| To be clear, I quite like Arrival. I just think its message is
| quite different from the short story.
| why_at wrote:
| Yeah I agree. I read the short story after having seen the
| movie and I thought the language/time stuff was clearly
| different. That's also why they changed the cause of the
| daughter's death from a climbing accident to an illness,
| because it wouldn't make sense for her to be killed by
| mountain climbing if her mother could have seen it coming.
| travismark wrote:
| Disagree. I thought there's a part in the story where the
| narrator talks about the inability to change the future.
| she knew her daughter would die in a fall and couldn't
| change it
| why_at wrote:
| Maybe my previous comment wasn't clear enough, since I
| agree with you. I think both versions make sense in their
| own context:
|
| In the short story she sees all of her life
| "simultaneously" but it all still works with our typical
| notions of causality. The future can't influence the
| past, and so she can't use knowledge of the future in the
| present.
|
| In the movie, she gets glimpses of the future which she
| then uses in the present. She learns the Chinese
| general's phone number from a memory of the future and
| then calls him. In the movie it wouldn't have made sense
| for her to see her daughter die in an accident and then
| not act on that information at all, so they changed it to
| an illness which she couldn't prevent even with
| foreknowledge.
| lmm wrote:
| > She learns the Chinese general's phone number from a
| memory of the future and then calls him.
|
| Didn't she do something like this in the short story as
| well? The part where she learns the non-zero-sum phrase?
|
| > In the movie it wouldn't have made sense for her to see
| her daughter die in an accident and then not act on that
| information at all
|
| It didn't make sense in the story either. I remember
| being infuriated.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Frederik Pohl said "A good science fiction story should be able
| to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam."
|
| Chiang's stories are good SF stories in this vein -- even the
| stories with magic. He considers the consequences of his What-If
| hypotheticals in depth, whether they are plausible according to
| known physics or operate on fantasy suppositions.
|
| Consider his story [1] "Liking What You See: A Documentary." It's
| about a world in which people can have their perceptions of human
| beauty suppressed as an anti-discrimination measure. In some
| authors' voices this would be a strident sermon about a dystopian
| Equality Gone Too Far, or in others, about the new Utopia that
| arises when people are judged on their actions instead of their
| appearance. But Chiang doesn't preach to any choir. He plausibly
| represents how people would react to this hypothetical
| technological development without putting his thumb on the scale
| to tell readers how to feel about it.
|
| Most ideas are not as clearly bad as the Torment Nexus [2], nor
| as clearly beneficial as the polio vaccine. I love that Chiang
| can write about ideas that might as well be a pitch for a Black
| Mirror episode but with much more consideration than Black Mirror
| would treat it. His slow writing pace probably helps too.
|
| [1] https://waldyrious.neocities.org/ted_chiang/liking-what-
| you-...
|
| [2] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus
| z5h wrote:
| As someone with aphantasia, who typically reads non-fiction and
| watches fiction, Ted Chiang's work really stands out for me. Most
| visual descriptions are in service to technical details, and
| therefore they are enjoyable conceptually.
| shawnc wrote:
| Thank you! I too have aphantasia and I really appreciate this
| comment :)
| mkoubaa wrote:
| I'm another aphant who really appreciates Chiang's writing! I
| wonder if he is one too
| theragra wrote:
| You make me doubt myself. I can't imagine stuff with the closed
| eyes, but when I read book I kind of can imagine stuff
| somewhat. Is it aphantasia or not? Matter of degree?
| z5h wrote:
| Aphantasia is objectively measurable. Aphants lack a pupil
| response to "imagining" shapes of various brightness. They
| also lack the measurable "stress/anxiety" response to anxiety
| provoking written passages, but not images.
|
| If any part of your imagination is like the experience of
| seeing, you probably don't have it.
| leshokunin wrote:
| If you haven't had the chance, I highly recommend his short story
| called Understand. It'll resonate with a lot of people who are on
| the spectrum and like to think very meta.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Slightly off topic, but I now refuse to read any web site that
| does "malicious compliance" with cookies.
|
| If my only options are "consent" or manually going down a very
| long list unchecking everything, and don't forget to click on the
| little "vendors" link because there's an even longer list in
| there too... Then I give up.
|
| This isnt even compliant (you have to offer a way to reject
| easily). I don't know why they even bother; it's already illegal,
| and is just annoying.
|
| Bye!
| marshray wrote:
| IMO, discussion of website function ought to be always on-topic
| on HN.
|
| My solution is simply to open every website (that I don't
| specifically want to be logged-in to) in incognito mode, accept
| all cookies, and close all the windows when I'm done.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Ah, nice solution to prevent the cookies persisting. But I'd
| rather simply not give them my attention, if they're going to
| treat their audience with such contempt.
| injuly wrote:
| Well deserved. My top 3 Ted Chiang works:
|
| 1. The merchant at the alchemist's gate. 2. What's Expected of us
| 3. Exhalation
| n4r9 wrote:
| Thanks. I've only read Exhalation but really enjoyed it. Will
| check out the others.
| gyre007 wrote:
| I loved Stories of Your Life and Others. It had some really great
| stories. Exhaltation on the other I found mediocre. Stories are
| either elaborate or very tiresome.
| n4r9 wrote:
| What did you dislike about Exhalation?
| cubefox wrote:
| Science fiction is perfectly suited for short stories. It's a way
| to explore thought experiments, without being too constrained by
| the possibilities of the present, while also not being able to be
| as arbitrary as in fantasy and similar genres.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| If you like Ted Chiang and scifi short stories, consider checking
| out Jay Lake's Last Plane to Heaven, or Charles Stross's Wireless
| collection.
|
| Short stories are such a fantastic and frustrating format,
| because the best ones blow your mind and leave you wanting
| another thousand pages.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| I thought most of the authors nominated for PEN prizes this year
| were boycotting the organization and the awards were canceled?
| [1]. I guess Ted Chiang didn't withdraw his nomination like
| everyone else did.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/04/23/1246578813/pen-america-
| cancel...
| anamexis wrote:
| From your linked article:
|
| > But the event was canceled when nearly half of the writers
| and translators nominated withdrew their books from
| consideration. The awards will still be granted to those who
| did not withdraw.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Looks like this is sort of a lifetime achievement award you
| can't withdraw from. Other authors donated their winnings to
| Palestine in protest, so maybe he will as well.
| deanCommie wrote:
| I read the letter [0] and am deeply confused.
|
| For context, I agree with the basic philosophical premise. I'm
| a Jew, but Israel is a repressive apartheid state, and while it
| had a right to defend itself, it's approach in Gaza absolutely
| meets the internationally accepted definition of genocide. The
| positions of individual Jews and Israelis are on a wide
| spectrum, but it's also not controversial to say that as far as
| the current Israeli leadership, this genocide is not an
| accident, not even from a lack of care. It is absolutely within
| their goals and desires to have all Palestenians eliminated
| from the territory administrated by Israel, and they're going
| as far as they can without losing the international support of
| the United States.
|
| With all of that said, I have no idea what PEN has to do with
| this. If they are endorsing it, they should stop. If they're
| funding it, they should stop. If they're invested in
| organizations directly supporting the Israeli government, they
| should stop.
|
| But if all they are is "an organization in the US", then their
| tax dollars are going to fund the genocide. And every single
| American taxpayer is equally complicit here, which is to say
| not at all. People SHOULD be fighting for change, and
| advocating for it. But not through empty speeches or
| statements. Statements from PEN do not protect or save the
| rights of Palestinians.
|
| I also think this is meaningfully different from the BLM era
| when protestors stated that silence is violence, and a lack of
| a statement is a tacit rejection of the movement. BLM was/is
| about an inherently American problem of systemic racism. White
| Americans benefit from systemic racism through no action of
| their own, so acknowledging it and at least making an effort to
| get woke to it (the original meaning of the term) is at least a
| necessary step to choosing to helping to dismantle it. American
| Corporations do play a part in that.
|
| But on Israel/Palestine, I just think these moves do not help
| the cause.
|
| [0] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VEF-
| Hrg8wN7WHiSljqwd9IqH...
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Yeah, you're right, this letter doesn't give a lot of
| context, and honestly I'm only knowledgeable about the
| context because my wife is a writer and has judged awards for
| them in the past/we have a lot of friends in NYC lit circles.
|
| One of the major things that pushed things over the edge for
| writers affiliated with PEN is they were platforming Mayim
| Bialik [1]. They're an organization founded around free
| speech and protecting writers and they hadn't made any
| statements about the journalists killed in Gaza. For an
| organization that is often virtue signaling for (progressive)
| political causes their silence was pretty loud for many
| writers that interact with them as literary community
| members. They had even canceled events that featured stories
| of Palestinians due to not wanting to stir controversy. And
| then they go and platform Bialik and I think a lot of people
| just turned on them in frustration at that point.
|
| [1] https://lithub.com/two-novelists-have-cut-ties-with-pen-
| over...
| gallerdude wrote:
| For someone who loves Ted Chiang, what adjacent writers would
| people recommend? I tried Borges, and I like him, he just seems
| less accessible and intentionally opaque at points.
| gtsnexp wrote:
| I wish he would write more often, especially if he decides to
| tackle non-fiction using his distinct prose style. His
| creativity, combined with factual writing, could make for a
| deep/transformative read.
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