Accismus

This slim book, edited by Toni Morrison, has eleven short essays originally delivered by various PEN writers on the issue of “censorship and the power of the written word.” There’s an interesting divide here between the authors whose subjects have not generally been political (John Updike, Francine Prose, Russell Banks) and those writers who live and work in turbulent or repressive areas (whether they grew up in these areas, or have traveled widely in them) (Morrison, Pico Iyer, Orhan Pamuk, Nadine Gorimer). The first group tends to talk about the literary crappiness of novels written specifically to draw attention to some cause, or to protest an outrage. They emphasize the importance of literature as an observant and non-judgmental work of art.

Banks:

A true novelist. . . has no thought of his or her audience. . . . Not when submitting oneself to the discipline and rigor and tradition of the history of the form, which require that one be at all times wholly honest and nonjudgmental and as intelligent as possible – that one be, as Henry James prescribed, a person ‘on whom nothing is lost.’

Prose:

The polemicist, or the theorist, or the strategist would have trouble with the stance that Chekhov identified as basic for the artist. That is, the notion that writers must admit they understand nothing of life, that nothing in this world makes sense, so all a writer can do is to try and describe it.

The second group, while often agreeing with the first, tends to focus more on the revolutionary potential of the written word, and on the absolute indignity and intolerability of censorship. Both groups essentially agree with each other: the job of writers is to mirror what is true, and nothing – no cause or party or regime or nation or event – that impedes this truth-telling can be tolerated. So that when Orhan Pamuk (whose essay was, in my opinion, one of the most interesting) writes about Turkey, he is writing what he sees in the society where he lives. Whether or not he intends to make an overtly political statement (and if his book is to be of any interest, hopefully, making a political statement would not be his purpose in writing it), his work might still be censored by those who don’t agree with or like the reality it reflects.

Pamuk:

Whatever the country, freedom of thought and expression are universal human rights. These freedoms, which modern people long for as much as bread and water, should never be limited by using nationalist sentiment, moral sensitivities, or – worst of all – business or military interests. If many nations outside the West suffer poverty in shame, it is not because they have freedom of expression but because they don’t. . . . Yes, we must be alert to those who denigrate immigrants and minorities for their religion, their ethnic roots, or the oppression that the governments of the countries they’ve left behind have visited on their own people.

But to respect the humanity and religious beliefs of minorities is not to suggest hat we should limit freedom of thought on their behalf. Respect for the rights of religious or ethnic minorities should never be an excuse to violate freedom of speech.

The only form of activism appropriate for writers (when they are acting in the capacity of “writer” rather than, say, that of “citizen”) is witnessing, and it’s pretty much impossible to write anything of merit without witnessing. On that, it seems all these contributors agree.

Gordimer:

The extremity of human experience does not make a writer.

Updike:

To be sure, as a citizen, one votes, attends meetings, subscribes to liberal pieties, pays or withholds taxes, and contributes to charities . . . But as a writer, for me to attempt to expand my artistic scope into all the areas of my human concern, to substitute nobility of purpose for accuracy of execution, would certainly be to forfeit whatever social usefulness I do have.