Author: williampeace141151661

Have You Read These Bestsellers?

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Saskia Kemsley has an article dated 20 December 2023 on the Standard website in which she asks whether we’ve read these very important and very popular novels.

Saskia Kemsley is a shopping writer at the Standard; she is a recent graduate from the University of Edinburgh. Passionate writer, freelance illustrator & language lover.

“Reading a best-selling piece of literature not only has the power to expand one’s worldview, but it can plunge you back into a significant moment in history, to help you better understand the past, present and future. If you’re in the market to dive into a legendary book that’s somehow not made it to your bookshelf, you’ve clicked through to the right place.

To come up with this list, we’ve stuck to a simple criterion of novels which have sold between 20 and 100 million copies across the world. Spanning timeless fiction as well as cult classics, keep scrolling to discover 24 of the best-selling novels of all time to read in 2024.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

One of the first novels to feature an interwoven narrative, Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities follows the lives of one exiled aristocrat, Charles Darnay, and a lawyer named Sydney Carton. The two men become irrevocably intertwined in a battle for the affection of Lucie Manette, the daughter of a political prisoner. A work of historical fiction set in the years before and during the French Revolution, Dickens’ iconic novel revolves around the concept of duality, and it’s where you’ll find those infamous lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Originally written in French, The Little Prince is technically a children’s book yet serves as a parabolic tale of morality and virtue, the lessons from which many of us have taken with us into adulthood. If you’ve ever found yourself questioning the meaning of life, we highly recommend picking up this seemingly unlikely, beautifully illustrated guide.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling

For all of J.K Rowling’s controversies, the Harry Potter series remains the bestselling set of fantasy books of all time. We’re not sure we have to remind you of the plot – which follows a young boy who discovers that he is a wizard – but take this as a sign to finally pick up a physical copy of your favourite magical series.

And Then There Were None

Perhaps the most beloved novel to come from the Queen of Crime herself, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None is the story of a motley bunch of 10 strangers who are picked off one by one while on a remote island near the Devon coast. The year is 1939, and Europe is on the precipice of war. Hosted by two mysteriously absent, yet highly generous benefactors referred to as Mr and Mrs U.N. Owen – when the first member of the party is killed, the remaining survivors must piece together the unravelling events before they too meet a most terrible fate.

The Story of the Stone / Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) by Cao Xueqin

Known as a ‘great novel of manners’ and one of the four great classical novels in Chinese literature, The Story of the Stone, which is also known as Dream of the Red Chamber is split into an eye-watering five volumes. Xueqin’s epic series charts both the glory days and devastating decline of the illustrious Jia family, while exploring universal questions of religion, philosophy, private and public lifestyle and social relations in 18th-century China.

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Published in 1937, the story which began the Lord of the Rings franchise is beloved by fans across the globe. When a simple hobbit by the name of Bilbo Baggins decides to set off on a wondrous adventure which takes him far away from the rolling hills of the Shire – Mr Baggins, alongside the wizard Gandalf and the thirteen dwarves of Thorin’s company – soon finds himself swept up in an unexpectedly Odyssean tale of heroism, sacrifice and delight.

She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard

H. Rider Haggard is credited with developing the ‘lost world’ genre which authors continue to emulate to this day. Her brilliant late 19th-century novel She follows a professor named Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey as they set off on an adventure to discover a lost kingdom in Africa. While on their travels, they encounter indigenous communities which lead them to the city ruled by Ayesha – otherwise known as she-who-must-be-obeyed.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

One for the lovers of codes and riddles, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code received high praise when it was first published. A few shoddy blockbuster adaptations later, and the general population seem to have forgotten the fantastic narrative-building and codebreaking achieved by Brown in the first novel in the brilliant series. When Harvard professor Robert Langdon is called to Paris after the brutal murder of an elderly Louvre curator, he and a gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu find themselves in the talons of a dangerous trail that leads them into the still-beating heart of Leonardo Da Vinci’s artwork.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

It’s rare to come across someone who has read Coelho’s The Alchemist, and who hasn’t declared it to be a life-changing piece of literature. It follows the journey of a young Andalusian shepherd who travels to the great pyramids of Egypt to discover a treasure which appeared to him in a dream. During his arduous journey, he is confronted by trials and tribulations which offer us greater moral lessons. Though often marketed as a self-help book, The Alchemist also serves as a philosophical text which offers insight into our motivations as human beings, and what we can offer to both ourselves and the world at large.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

The first of J.D Salinger’s books to be published, The Catcher in the Rye takes place over just two days in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield following his expulsion from prep school. An essential teenage read – whether you are currently a teenager, or you’ve found yourself caring for one – we follow Caulfield’s aggravated and convoluted stream of consciousness as he rails against the falsity of adult life.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

A masterpiece of magical realism this Nobel prize-winning novel follows seven generations of the Buendía family, and the town they built from the ground up called Macondo. Though scarcely considered a settlement, the isolated dwelling of Macondo suffers wars, disasters and even miracles on an almost global scale. As such, it slowly becomes clear that the Buendía family’s small town serves as a microcosm for Columbia as a whole. It’s extremely difficult to put into words the swirling, paradigmatic semantics of Márquez’s work, but it is often cited as one of the supreme achievements in world literature.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A timeless classic, The Great Gatsby tells the story of a wealthy man and his pursuit for his childhood sweetheart, all set against the backdrop of the glamorous 20s. A masterful example of the American Dream in action, Fitzgerald’s novel goes far beyond romance and addresses themes of excessive wealth, human follies and the fragility of life.

This special edition includes a foreword by famed movie director, Francis Ford Coppola as well as exceptional artwork throughout that brings to life Gatsby’s lavish parties and frivolous lifestyle.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

An extremely subversive novel that certainly isn’t for the faint-hearted, Nabokov’s Lolita is about the paedophilic poet Humbert Humbert and his obsession with a twelve-year-old girl called Lolita. Often deemed an inherently comedic, yet entirely repulsive literary monster – Nabokov by no means seeks to condone the thoughts and actions of this savage narrator.

Watership Down by Richard Adams

In a slight subversion of the classic ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ parable, a young rabbit called Fiver is convinced that his burrow is in imminent danger. Yet the rolling hills of Sandleford Warren are experiencing fresh dapples of Spring sunshine, and none of the other rabbits have any concerns. Together with his sister Hazel and a few other daring rabbits, they nevertheless leave Sandleford in search of the safe haven of Watership Down – encountering many trials and tribulations along the way.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Though not as popular on the UK literature syllabus as it is in the US, Harper Lee’s seminal novel is nevertheless just as beloved on our side of the pond. A story about classism and racism in the American Deep South in the 1930s, To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age story told through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, the children of a lawyer who has been tasked with defending a black man who has been falsely accused of rape. Delivering anti-racist messages far beyond its historical moment, Lee’s novel offers fascinating, yet gut-wrenching insight into southern society during the Great Depression.

Flowers in the Attic by V.C Andrews

A Gothic drama to sink your teeth into, four siblings find themselves trapped at the mercy of their own mother and grandmother. After weeks become months, the children soon come to the realisation that their mother might not let them out of the attic after all, and they embark on a terrifying struggle to survive the conspiring members of their family that live below them.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Though often considered the book on one’s shelf that remains untouched from the moment it was purchased (due to its whopping 1,440 pages), Tolstoy’s War and Peace is still one of the best-selling novels of all time. Set during the time of Napoleon’s doomed Russian invasion, War and Peace follows the lives and motivations of five families from each tier of the feudal system throughout the tumultuous, early 19th century Russia.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

An unforgettable, heartbreaking literary feat, Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is the story of an unbreakable friendship between a wealthy Afghan boy named Amir, and the son of his father’s servant – a boy named Hassan. The tragic story is narrated by Amir, as he reflects on his childhood in Kabul and the life-changing event which catalysed his desire for redemption.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Set in a dystopian universe which has been ravaged by a bloody revolution, an annual event known as the Hunger Games exists to quell rebellion and keep the country’s factions in line. A battle to the death which takes two tributes from each of Panem’s twelve districts, the series follows the unlikely success of a tribute from district twelve as she finds herself in the heart of the Capitol, fighting for her life and her freedom.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

This classic romance novel has captured the hearts of readers across the globe since its initial publication in 1813. Our supposedly plain Heroine Elizabeth Bennet wants nothing more than for her abundance of sisters to be married off, so she can live a quiet and peaceful life at home. Yet when she finds herself in the unshaking gaze of the handsome and wealthy Fitzwilliam Darcy – who judges, challenges and frustrates her beyond belief, all of Lizzy’s plans for herself appear to unravel.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Now’s the time to finally pick up your very own copy of the international bestseller. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first of Stieg Larsson’s six-part series which follows an unlikely team of murder investigators put together by the uncle of Harriet Vanger, who disappeared from a gathering on the family’s island forty years ago. Disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and tattooed hacker Lisbeth Salander risk everything to uncover the secrets of the twisted Vanger clan and solve the mystery of Harriet’s disappearance.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

A chronicle of the life of Okonkwo, a wealthy, respected warrior and the leader of an Igbo community, Achebe charts the rise and eventual fall of the novel’s protagonist following his accidental murder of a clansman, while delivering wider insight into the cultural practises of Igbo society.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

A parodic chivalric romance, Don Quixote has become a reference point in language for likening someone to an impractical idealist. Nevertheless, the protagonist of this sprawling narrative, Don Quixote de la Mancha, is on a mission to restore chivalry to its former glory by transforming himself into an admirable knight, using famous works of literature as his reference point.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt’s The Secret History isn’t your average murder mystery – for we know who is killed, and who the killers are, within the first few pages of this dark tale. The narrator of this inverted piece of crime fiction, Richard Papen, transfers to an elite liberal arts college in Vermont to escape his disinterested and abusive family in California.

Papen finds himself enamoured by a small group of seemingly perfect, erudite Greek students who are taught in secretive tutorials by an eccentric professor. Desperate to enter into the folds of the seemingly impenetrable group, Papen manages to convince the faculty to switch majors – a decision which would turn out to be both deadly and damning.”

I’ve read nine of these books. I need to decide which one will be number ten.

Writing about Sex

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The recent edition of the Sunday Telegraph had an article by Claire Allfree “The art of writing about sex (and getting it right)”

Ms Allfree is a freelance journalist specialising in arts and entertainment.

Bottoms up: an 18th-century painting of Jupiter and Io by Edouard Gautier-D’Agoty (after Correggio)

Ms Allfree writes:

“My friends joke that I’ve become a pornographer,” says Lucy Roeber. “I haven’t, of course. But the English don’t know how else to describe a magazine about sex. So we joke about it instead.”

Later this month, Roeber and her deputy editor, Saskia Vogel, will publish the first edition of the revamped and relaunched Erotic Review. During the late 1990s, the Erotic Review was a high-end, lavishly illustrated print magazine, but for the past 14 years, it has languished as a little-read online newsletter. Now, at a moment when sex parties and orgies seem to be all the rage, it will be back to its pomp as a physical product, available from bookshops and published three times a year.

Each edition will include a guest art curator, while highlights from the inaugural publication include an essay on the blossoming popularity of romance fiction, a photo sequence from the performance artist Esben Weile Kjaer celebrating the art of the kiss, an explicit short story about a porn shoot from the veteran contributor Michel Faber, and a Chekhovian portrait of marital desire from the Welsh novelist Cynan Jones. Where the original at times felt like a magazine for overgrown schoolboys (Boris Johnson was a contributor), this new iteration feels like a magazine for grown-ups. “If we were going to bring it back, we had to take it seriously,” says Roeber. “But I also think in 2024 the audience is really shifting. Today, young people in particular are much more open and curious.”

The Erotic Review has a chequered history. First published in 1995 by the Erotic Print Society as a pamphlet featuring articles about sex and desire, in the late 1990s it became synonymous with Rowan Pelling. She became the editor in 1997, at the age of 28, and, over the next six years, transformed it into an 84-page publication with a circulation of 30,000, while attracting writers such as Barry Humphries, Auberon Waugh and DBC Pierre.

Under her reign, the sensibility was distinctly British, which is to say that sex was either filtered through a heavy dose of irony or with a hefty side helping of cheesy end-of-pier smut. The art tended to feature cheeky shots of posteriors and bosoms, while pieces included meditations on “the best nipples in town”. Pelling even cheerily encouraged her female staff to wear stockings in the office.

Vogel, a 42-year-old Berlinbased author and translator who interned at the magazine under Pelling, remembers a prevailing obsession with “nurses and spanked bottoms”.

“The British have this real thing about vice and corporal punishment,” she says. “I loved my time there, but I did feel that perhaps the magazine could benefit from a different perspective.”

In 2004, it was taken over by the media company that produces Penthouse, and after changing hands again several times it became an online magazine in 2010. A descent into obscurity followed, despite it being lovingly maintained by its founder, Jamie Maclean – now retired. It feels a bold decision to bring it back as a print edition at a time when the cultural winds are blowing firmly towards the digital sphere. But Roeber and Vogel are upbeat. “It feels important that it should itself be an object of desire, something you can hold and collect,” says Roeber.

Anyway, they argue, there’s not much space in the mainstream for serious writing about sex. “If something gets labelled as edgy or erotic, it tends to be untouchable by the mainstream,” says Vogel, pointing to Rebecca Rukeyser’s personal essay about the curious internet porn phenomenon of “goon caves” (an online subculture in which men saturate themselves with porn while simultaneously practising abstinence), which had previously been rejected by several American journals.

Yet today’s cultural climate is very different from the lad culture of the 1990s. How does a magazine that once featured a photo spread of its female staff in their underwear navigate a post-MeToo world? “We are certainly moving away from the heterosexual male gaze that we’ve all been used to,” says Roeber. “That’s not to say we don’t have heterosexual men in the magazine, because we must. But there are lots of ways of talking about desire.”

All the same, our new hypervigilance when it comes to issues of consent and power has the potential to make writing about sex a bit of a minefield, particularly if you are a heterosexual man.

“I wanted to write a story about the male gaze and how women can change the power dynamic,” says Michel Faber, whose smartly subversive contribution, “Not Just Anybody”, about a porn shoot, reckons directly with this issue. “But it took me ages to think of a story that wouldn’t be guaranteed to attract condemnation from people who are not interested in art, but very interested in quarrelling with strangers on the internet.” Vogel agrees that “there is potentially something a lot more fraught about writing about heterosexual sex”. She points to the American writer Garth Greenwell, who combines the literary with explicit homosexual eroticism. He has said that with his most recent novel, Cleanness, he wanted to see if he could write something that was “100 per cent pornographic and 100 per cent high art”.

Most pornography, however, dispenses with the art bit, which is a shame, according to Roeber. “Porn is incredibly effective at arousal, but it’s very one-note,” she says. “We have a guest curator for each issue and the aim is to open our eyes to different sorts of images, and different ways of exploring desire through art.”

But what about the prudes? In Britain, we tend to deflect our profound cultural reserve when it comes to matters of sex through a nudge-nudge, wink-wink larkiness that Roeber argues previous incarnations of the Erotic Review knowingly played up to. “We are making the magazine much more international in terms of contributors, partly to sidestep this Anglo-Saxon moral awkwardness,” she says.

“As a culture, we are certainly very embarrassed about romance,” agrees the Scottish poet John Burnside, who is contributing an essay about the eroticisation of travel to the second issue. “We are the only country in the world, for instance, which gives out a Bad Sex Award, much to the amazement of many countries across the world. How we write about sex says a lot about the culture, about how relaxed and imaginative it is.”

So, what makes good erotic fiction? Vogel points to a couple of sentences in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. “It’s a moment of anticipation. Patrick Bateman [the novel’s sociopathic fantasist narrator] is lying on the bed, waiting for a couple of women to arrive.” The novel’s extreme violence is considered so controversial, some countries sell it with a shrink-wrapped cover. Is she saying the best sex writing is transgressive? “For me, it’s where the mind wanders,” she says simply. Burnside, who thinks a lot of so-called classic writing about sex – Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller – is “boring”, believes that some of the best erotic writing pivots on the unconsummated. “These days, I look down on old men writing about voluptuous women. I’m much more interested in the almost. The look across a room that comes to nothing.”

In essence, Roeber believes there is a loosening of “moral correctness” around sex and art that makes 2024 the perfect time for an Erotic Review relaunch. In fact, “I’m not sure this incarnation of the magazine could have existed 50 years ago.”

The first issue of the relaunched ‘Erotic Review’ will be published on March 11; ermagazine.com

Let me know what you think.

Our Heroine: JK Rowling

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There is an article in today’s Telegraph by Allister Heath (the editor of the Sunday Telegraph) in which the editor, rightfully, refers to J K Rowling as a heroine.

J K Rowling

Mr Heath says, “JK Rowling is a modern British heroine, and all those who have vilified, defamed, threatened and traduced her should hang their heads in shame. She has proved to be a far more effective defender of common-sense values than all but a handful of MPs, exposing the cowardice and moral bankruptcy of much of Westminster and Whitehall.

She has fought indefatigably for ordinary people, for the truth, for the rights of women threatened by the rise of trans extremism, incurring horrific hatred from tens of thousands of deranged woke fanatics. She has had a dramatic impact on our politics, unlike the managerialist politicians who dominate the Cabinet, most of whom go with the flow on all “controversial” subjects and are thus content to be in office but not truly in power.

She has almost single-handedly neutralised trans extremism by running the most significant extra-parliamentary campaign in recent history, using little more than tweets and the occasional interview or speech. She is an inspiration to anti-woke dissidents across all continents, and to anybody who believes in the power of carefully chosen words to change the world.

Until Rowling entered the fray, the Tories, under the calamitous Theresa May, were poised to allow gender self-recognition, extremist trans groups had gone mainstream, it was taboo to scrutinise “gender-affirming care” for children or the Tavistock Centre, and Labour was careering into full woke mode. Today, thanks also to a few brave politicians, while the battle hasn’t been won, the extremists are in retreat.

Unusually given our selfish and venal public culture, Rowling has asked for nothing in return, has been given neither the damehood nor the peerage she deserves, and has in fact paid an immense price for helping to rescue her country. As if this weren’t enough, as the author of Harry Potter, she has done more for the UK, for our soft power, for the happiness of our children, for our economy and for the taxman than any current member of the Cabinet. 

How have we come to a point when a centre-Left billionaire author from Edinburgh represents Middle England’s views better than the London-centric establishment class, and even many “Conservative” politicians? And why did so few come to Rowling’s defence when she started to expose woke madness, most notably when she rightly slammed the growing use of the idiotic term “people who menstruate”? She tweeted: “I’m sure there used to be a word for these people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

When almost our entire establishment – politicians, judges, business leaders, cultural leaders – ran for cover, Rowling took on cancel culture and won. She has broken the spell, proving that the best way to defeat social-media mobs is to call their bluff. By sheer force of personality, by refusing to accept that she had lost her freedom of speech, by crafting tight, sharp and rigorous arguments, by standing up to the bullies, she has drastically shifted the Overton window on issues of gender and sex.

She was at it again this week, writing what many wanted to say but were still too scared to verbalise. Reacting to the fact that a transgender cat killer who murdered a stranger was being described as a woman – and that judges have been told to refer to defendants by their chosen pronouns, whether or not they have undergone surgery or applied for a gender recognition certificate – she lashed out. “I’m sick of this s—”, she said. “This is not a woman. These are not our crimes.”

Rowling has exposed the woke commissars’ ultimate lack of power: The mainstream majority will vote with its wallets and has no time for woke capital. The Harry Potter franchise continues to boom. Hogwarts Legacy, an action role-playing game, sold 22 million copies last year, making it the world’s best-selling video game, generating $1 billion and delivering more royalties to Rowling. 

In theory, the wealthy have the freedom to speak out; in practice, most feel that they have too much to lose and prefer to exercise their influence in private, by lobbying or via political donations. This is unhealthy. They should take a leaf out of Rowling’s book, as the likes of Bill Ackman, a fund manager, has done over the vicious epidemic of anti-Semitism in US universities.

Rowling’s emergence as our era’s leading feminist icon reminds us that the sensible Left and Right must work together, that they have much in common against the dark, extremist, authoritarian revolutionaries who seek to overthrow our society. I, for one, never thought I would come to appreciate Rowling so much, given her background as a Labour supporter. 

But none of that matters any longer: the attempt at eliminating the very concept of man and woman, the irreversible damage inflicted upon children who have had the misfortune of falling prey to social contagion, the attempt at cancelling gay people, the terrible risk to women and girls from the eradication of single-sex spaces in gyms and prisons, the despicable misogyny of those who seek to pretend that it is women, and not men, who commit many rapes and murders, all of these are issues of existential significance to our civilisation that require the unity of all sensible people, of Left, Right or neither. 

Rowling’s should be a model for other campaigns. At a time when Parliament is being cowed by Islamist extremists, we need more brave people to stand up for the silent majority. The answer isn’t to spout nonsense à la Lee Anderson, but to unrelentingly marshal reason and facts to expose the threat and danger to our liberties and democracy. Who will be the next J K Rowling?”

What a great piece of journalism!

Review: LUKA

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This novel was recommended to me by a friend, and as it is about civil conflict situations, I bought a copy.

The author, Ian Bancroft, is a writer and former diplomat based in the former Yugoslavia for over fifteen years. He has written travel articles for various publications, and he has produced foreign policy analysis for The Guardian, Radio Free Europe, UN Global Experts and others. Ian’s first book, ‘Dragon’s teeth – tales from north Kosovo’, was published in 2020.

There are four main characters in LUKA. ‘A’ is a beautiful girl who grew up in Old Town; she has lived through a prior war. She is single and now twenty-seven. ‘L’ is a talented young painter who also lives in Old Town. ‘U’ is a long-serving police officer who never questioned the wisdom of his superiors. ‘K’ is the mother of ‘A’, and an assembly-line worker in a munitions factors. She vigorously defends her father known by the nom de guerre ‘Jinn’, as in ‘djinn’, owing to his almost mystical ability to conjure things into existence. Her father is rumoured to profit from illegal arms sales. ‘A’s great grandfather – unnamed- also appears in the context of previous wars. Most of the book deals with the historic and current conflicts of Old Town, New Town, Upper Town and Lower Town. These are not straight forward military conflicts, but anti-civilian conflicts, involving snipers, rape, torture, imprisonment, and other crimes against humanity. ‘L’ is imprisoned in Luka, an assortment of warehouses in a port. His left hand, which he uses to paint, is crushed by an invisible woman using a hammer. The woman smells of vanilla. At the conclusion of the conflict, ‘A’ and ‘L’ plan to marry. ‘L’ visits ‘A’ at ‘K’s house, where he suddenly recognises ‘K’ as the woman who smells of vanilla. ‘K’ runs out of the house, pursued by ‘A’ and into a nearby forest which is mined. There is an explosion which ends the novel.

LUKA is almost a catalogue of crimes against humanity, presented factually, but there is relatively little explanation of the motivations, the reasons, impulses, etc. which generate these crimes. The characters are realistic, but the use of generic letters to identify them deprives them of flesh and blood. Similarly, the use of generic place names takes away their authenticity. The time line of the book is sometimes difficult to follow. The actual narrative covers about twenty years, but the historic references cover nearly a century. A more conventional structure, cause and effect, and real world identification would have been far more satisfying.

Feedback

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Harry Bingham of Jericho Writers had this to say about feedback in last Friday’s email:

“One thing that mildly panics me when I offer advice via Feedback Friday is this: What if my advice is totally wrong?
There are some areas where I don’t have those worries. Sometimes, for example, I give specific editorial advice on a particular passage.
For example: “Your long second sentence would be better split over two sentences.” “The image of the X in this passage is interesting but currently a bit confused.” “You could lose word count here and still convey what you need to convey.”
In all those instances, I’d mostly expect any competent editor to agree with me, or at the very least to understand my concern. Exact strategies for dealing with the concern are legion, of course, but the editorial process is basically the same three steps, repeated endlessly: Figure out if you have a bad feeling; Figure out where that feeling is coming from; Figure out what to do about it. Those three steps are the same whether you’re a paid third-party editor, or a free beta-reader, or just you re-reading and re-editing your own work.
Obviously, the editorial process would be a bit pointless without that third and final step, but the first two steps are often the ones that feel transformative. “Oh, gosh, you’re right! Now I know why I felt uneasy and I can already see several different solutions all of which could work.”
Likewise, if I’m talking about something very brief and self-contained – an elevator pitch, for example – I feel well-qualified to offer feedback. Coming of age story in the world of Shakespeare’s Macbeth? That’s a wonderful, saleable pitch, and I’d pick that book up in a bookshop. Near-future eco-disaster novel for adults involving mermaids, flying killer robots and a talking rabbit? Um. Maybe not quite so good. Even here, it’s hard to be confident quite what I’m criticising.
If I come across a less-than-compelling elevator pitch, is it the pitch that’s at fault (a simple fix)? Or is it that the book itself doesn’t work (a terrifying prospect)? Because of this uncertainty, I try to proceed gently but I do tend to trust my gut feeling about the material in front of me. Other reasonable people might disagree, but I’d expect my views to be echoed by most genuinely competent judges. (Though, having said that, I’m meaner than most. Whenever I’ve given feedback alongside agents, I’m almost always pickier than they are. I’m Simon Cowell, minus the botox.)
Then we get to some more delicate areas. In last week’s Feedback Friday, we looked at very brief plot synopses. Thar’s a super-useful exercise for any writer because it forces them to consider the top-level shape of their plot as well as the causal unity of it. (What do I mean by causal unity? Simply that most novels don’t work if it’s one thing, followed by another thing, followed by another disconnected thing. We want the various events to flow, seemingly inevitably, from the one event that incites everything.) In those cases where I was underwhelmed by a synopsis, what exactly should the author deduce? That the synopsis is poor? That the book’s basic plot structure is poor? Or just that Harry didn’t like something, as a matter of his own personal taste? Honestly, in a lot of cases, I think any one of those three explanations are possible.
A short synopsis isn’t much to go on and a certain humility is in order from anyone offering advice. Much the same goes for any criticism of a passage where context is significant. So let’s say for example, I’m not that impressed by a passage where Princess Kara faces the dark Lord Mephilo. Suppose I think that Princess K just wouldn’t be likely to say or do X, or that a particular emotional reaction feels awry, or something else of that sort. Well, is that because the passage isn’t convincing? Or because there’s backstory dealt with elsewhere in the book which makes those things explicable? Again, any sane editor just has to approach questions like these with humility. All you can do is note an uneasiness and let the author use that observation in any way that’s helpful. In the end, the responsibility is always yours, the author’s. The issue isn’t really whether you like what I, or some other editor, say. Often enough you won’t. But I want the mermaids! I insist on keeping Pep the Talking Rabbit! And fair enough: this is your book, not mine. The question is always, “Is this comment useful?” Does it illuminate something? Do you the author get an insight that you personally find useful and actionable? Authorial responsibility never changes, no matter how far you go. Comments from me via Feedback Friday? Comments from an editorial buddy or beta reader? Detailed comments from a pro Jericho Writers editor following a read of your entire manuscript? Comments from an agent? From a publishing editor? From a copy editor who’s preparing your manuscript for publication? You must never let go. The manuscript remains yours. I literally don’t let a publisher change a comma without my approval.
When I’ve had copy editors who didn’t get my style, I’ve been through a whole 100,000+ word manuscript reversing the changes that have been made. It’s your book and no one else’s. Ever If a comment chimes, use it. If a comment doesn’t, disregard it. If a comment alerts you to a particular issue, but you want to deal with the issue in some way other than the one suggested, then go with your solution.
It’s your book.”

More Controversy at Royal Society

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Following up on last week’s post, there is an article in The Standard written by Merlanie McDonagh, an Evening Standard columnist on Salman Rushdie’s views on the dispute.

Sir Salman Rushdie

“Sir Salman Rushdie has intervened in the kerfuffle about the Royal Society of Literature under the presidency of Bernardine Evaresito, author of Girl, Woman, Other. Irked by questions from some members about whether the organisation is doing its job, especially protecting the interests of writers, she declared in the Guardian that this “historic institution” is doing just fine. But it had to be “impartial” about issues as in, though she didn’t mention it, the attack on Sir Salman at a literary festival.

The great man has responded on X: “Just wondering if the Royal Society of Literature is ‘impartial’ about attempted murder, @BernardineEvari? (Asking for a friend.)” Dame Marina Warner, a past president, had complained that the RSL hadn’t supported him.

Quite so, Sir Salman. If the RSL cannot bring itself to clamber onto its high horse about a homicidal attack on a writer because the attacker did not like Sir Salman’s views on Islam, it may as well shut down those agreeable premises in Somerset House and go home.

But the discontent about the society goes beyond this rather low bar. It’s a rarefied version of the problems that attend any institution that goes in for diversity and inclusion. It would be invidious to say that the appointment of Evaristo, a Booker prize-winner, is part of this, though she kind of invites the thought by saying that her presidency shows how the institution is modernising.

A more obvious example is the extension of fellowships to 40 under-40s. It took the waspish Philip Hensher to observe: “Some of the writers who have benefited from this widening are i) expensively educated and privileged ii) not very good.” Oof.

Most of us who keep authors afloat by buying books aren’t bothered about the RSL. But there’s a small stratum of writers for whom it matters desperately, whose status is bolstered by being a fellow. And it does do good work, for instance in getting books into prisons.

The row demonstrates the elephant traps that await organisations that try to modernise without taking on board what that entails. And Evaristo, though a feisty promoter of the RSL, is more activist than figurehead. Good for her, less good for the RSL.”

I agree completely with Sir Salman and Dame Marina!

Controversy over Selecting Royal Fellows of Literature

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The Guardian had an article on 29 January by Vanessa Thorpe, Arts and Media Correspondent, about proposed changed to the process of selecting fellows of the Royal Society of Literature.

Bernardine Evaristo, President, Royal Society of Literature

I quote from the article: “Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature, an august body founded in London in 1820, seemed poised to stride into the new year on a bold footing, with an inclusive programme of events and a revitalised membership. Its Booker prize-winning president, Bernardine Evaristo, alongside poet Daljit Nagra, chair of the society’s leadership council, were promising further modernisation soon.

But a major revolt among longer-term fellows is now threatening to destabilise the society. A council meeting of members next month will be forced to address a growing number of complaints.

‘There is a lot of turbulence,’ recent president Marina Warner told the Observer. ‘It is a question of a lack of respect for older members and a loss of institutional history, which was something fellows cherished.’

The RSL has not responded officially to public criticism, and did not respond to requests for comment, but this weekend the leadership sent out a letter to alert members to ‘a concerted campaign of disinformation’ and to ask them not to share this ‘misinformation’.

Set up under the patronage of George IV to ‘reward literary merit and excite literary talent’, the society, based in Somerset House, still has royal sponsorship from Queen Camilla. But those critical of its recent past speak of a ‘shambolic’ and ‘clubby’ institution – a place intended to shelter elite talent, rather than represent the wider community of accomplished writers.

‘The society should not just be for a group of older, rather entitled, people, however distinguished. These problems had to be sorted quickly,’ said one new fellow this weekend.

In a speech given last year, Evaristo challenged the assumption that the RSL was still ‘old-fashioned.’ It was, she said, now ‘very forward-looking, very progressive and committed to inclusion at every level’. Under the day-to-day leadership of director Molly Rosenberg the society has won greater funding and shed its cosy atmosphere.

But those same ‘radical moves’ heralded by Evaristo, designed to make the RSL more relevant and more diverse, have prompted a rebellion. The novelist and biographer Miranda Seymour recently resigned, and amid allegations of ‘scandalous’ disregard for proper procedures, a number of members have told the Observer they are considering following suit. This comes after the resignation in 2018 of Piers Paul Read in response to an initial call for younger fellows.

There are fears among members that the strife will soon rival divisions in the Society of Authors, where Philip Pullman stepped down as president last year because he claimed he could not speak freely in the role.

The RSL’s latest efforts to diversify followed Evaristo’s assessment that the charity ‘needed to change’ to become one that is ‘for all writers, rather than traditionally writers who are white and middle class’, and so last year 62 new fellows were inducted.

Plans for 2024 include a change to the method of electing fellows, who must have written a minimum of two distinguished works. Currently, to be recognised with fellowship an author must be nominated by an existing fellow or honorary fellow before being considered by the RSL council and senior officers. Under the new process the public will be invited to recommend writers for fellowship and then a series of broader-based election panels will consider the recommendations.

This is the sort of fundamental switch that unsettles writer Amanda Craig: ‘It used to be an enormous honour to become a fellow. But when people are just starting their writing careers, it is not the same.’

A former chair of the society, Anne Chisholm, told the Observer: ‘Of course the RSL, like all venerable institutions, has an imperfect past: it needed to change with the times. My worry is that the pace and style of change has lately been alienating too many fellows and disrespecting the RSL’s history.'”

I have given up my membership in RSL because it did not have events which interested me, not that I thought that there was anything wrong with the events. It is, clearly, an elitist and fusty organisation, but I think that any venerable institution invites disaster when it goes for sweeping changes. Far better, in my opinion to make careful, incremental changes, bringing the membership along at each step. The requirement for prospective fellows to have two distinguished works is probably fair, if one has a clear idea what a ‘distinguished’ work is. Under the old admission regime, long-time fellows looked for literary quality novels and scholarly non-fiction. Under the proposed regime, ‘broad-based election panels’ may have an entirely different idea of what a ‘distinguished work’ is. My concern is that literary quality may be sacrificed for popularity with particular readerships, genres, subject matters, or styles.

Rarely Used Power Words

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There is a list of 30 English words which are rarely used, powerful, and should be available to any writer appearing in the June 22, 2023 issue of Literature News and contributed by Alka. I think this is quite a good list, because all of them have a clear, crisp meaning, and while they may be rarely used, they aren’t obscure. Interestingly, none is an adverb. How many are familiar?

1. Abstruse (adj.): Difficult to understand; obscure.
Sentence 1: The professor’s abstruse lecture on quantum physics left the students bewildered.
Sentence 2: The book contained an abstruse passage that required multiple readings to grasp its meaning.

2. Acrimonious (adj.): Harsh in nature, speech, or behaviour.
Sentence 1: The divorce proceedings became acrimonious as the couple fought over their assets.
Sentence 2: The debate turned acrimonious as the politicians exchanged personal insults.

3. Alacrity (n.): Willingness to do something quickly and enthusiastically.
Sentence 1: Sarah accepted the job offer with alacrity, excited to start her new role.
Sentence 2: The team responded to the coach’s halftime pep talk with renewed alacrity on the field.

4. Ameliorate (v.): To make something better or improve a situation.
Sentence 1: The doctor’s treatment plan ameliorated the patient’s symptoms and enhanced their well-being.
Sentence 2: The charity’s efforts to provide clean water to the village ameliorated the living conditions of the residents.

5. Assiduous (adj.): Showing great care, attention to detail, and perseverance in one’s work.
Sentence 1: The assiduous researcher spent countless hours in the lab conducting experiments.
Sentence 2: The author’s assiduous editing process ensured that the final manuscript was flawless.

6. Clandestine (adj.): Done secretly or in a concealed manner, often implying something illicit or forbidden.
Sentence 1: The spies met in a clandestine location to exchange classified information.
Sentence 2: The couple planned a clandestine rendezvous under the moonlit sky.

7. Conundrum (n.): A difficult or confusing problem or question.
Sentence 1: Solving the puzzle proved to be a conundrum even for the most experienced players.
Sentence 2: The ethical conundrum presented in the novel forced the protagonist to make a challenging decision.

8. Deleterious (adj.): Harmful or damaging to health, well-being, or success.
Sentence 1: Smoking has been proven to have deleterious effects on both physical and mental health.
Sentence 2: The company’s deleterious financial decisions led to its eventual bankruptcy.

9. Ephemeral (adj.): Lasting for a short period; transitory or fleeting.
Sentence 1: The beauty of cherry blossoms is ephemeral, as the flowers bloom for only a few weeks each year.
Sentence 2: The actor’s fame was ephemeral, as he quickly faded into obscurity after his initial success.

10. Equanimity (n.): Calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in difficult situations.
Sentence 1: Despite the chaos around her, she maintained her equanimity and approached the problem with a clear mind.
Sentence 2: The leader’s equanimity during the crisis reassured the team and helped them stay focused.

11. Esoteric (adj.): Intended for or understood by only a small group with specialised knowledge or interest.
Sentence 1: The professor’s lecture on advanced mathematics was esoteric, and only a few students could follow along.
Sentence 2: The book delved into esoteric philosophies that were beyond the comprehension of most readers.

12. Exacerbate (v.): To make a problem, situation, or condition worse or more severe.
Sentence 1: The hot weather exacerbated the drought, leading to further water shortages.
Sentence 2: His careless comments only served to exacerbate the tensions between the two families.

13. Fervent (adj.): Intensely passionate or enthusiastic.
Sentence 1: The artist had a fervent desire to create meaningful and thought-provoking artwork.
Sentence 2: The politician delivered a fervent speech that inspired the crowd and ignited their patriotic spirit.

14. Gregarious (adj.): Fond of the company of others; sociable.
Sentence 1: Mark was known for his gregarious nature and always enjoyed hosting parties.
Sentence 2: The gregarious puppy wagged its tail and eagerly greeted every person it encountered.

15. Idiosyncrasy (n.): A distinctive or peculiar feature, behaviour, or characteristic that is unique to an individual or group.
Sentence 1: John had the idiosyncrasy of wearing mismatched socks every day.
Sentence 2: The small coastal town had its idiosyncrasies, including a yearly festival dedicated to seashells.

16. Impervious (adj.): Not allowing something to pass through or penetrate; incapable of being affected or influenced.
Sentence 1: The fortress was built with thick walls that were impervious to enemy attacks.
Sentence 2: Despite the criticism, her confidence remained impervious, and she continued pursuing her dreams.

17. Languid (adj.): Lacking energy or enthusiasm; slow and relaxed in manner.
Sentence 1: After a long day at work, she enjoyed taking a languid stroll by the beach to unwind.
Sentence 2: The hot summer afternoon made everyone feel languid and drowsy.

18. Melancholy (n.): A feeling of deep sadness or pensive sorrow, often with no obvious cause.
Sentence 1: As she watched the sunset, a sense of melancholy washed over her, and she reflected on the passing of time.
Sentence 2: The hauntingly beautiful melody carried a tinge of melancholy that touched the hearts of all who listened.

19. Myriad (adj.): Countless or innumerable; a large, indefinite number.
Sentence 1: The garden was adorned with myriad flowers, each displaying its vibrant colours and delicate petals.
Sentence 2: The old bookstore housed a myriad of books, spanning various genres and eras.

20. Nebulous (adj.): Vague, hazy, or indistinct in form or outline; lacking clarity.
Sentence 1: The concept of time is nebulous, as it is difficult to define precisely.
Sentence 2: The artist’s abstract painting featured nebulous shapes and colours, allowing viewers to interpret it in their own way.

21. Obfuscate (v.): To make something unclear, confusing, or difficult to understand.
Sentence 1: The lawyer attempted to obfuscate the facts to create doubt in the minds of the jurors.
Sentence 2: The politician’s speech was filled with jargon and obfuscating language to avoid addressing the issue directly.

22. Panacea (n.): A solution or remedy that is believed to solve all problems or cure all ills.
Sentence 1: Some people view education as a panacea for societal issues and inequality.
Sentence 2: The new product was marketed as a panacea for ageing, promising to reverse all signs of wrinkles and fine lines.

23. Querulous (adj.): Complaining or whining in a petulant or irritable manner.
Sentence 1: The querulous customer was dissatisfied with every aspect of the service and demanded a refund.
Sentence 2: The child’s querulous tone annoyed the teacher, who asked him to speak with respect.

24. Reticent (adj.): Inclined to keep silent or reserved; not revealing one’s thoughts or feelings readily.
Sentence 1: Despite the intense questioning, the witness remained reticent and refused to disclose any further information.
Sentence 2: The usually reticent boy opened up to his best friend, sharing his deepest fears and insecurities.

25. Sagacious (adj.): Having or showing keen mental discernment and good judgment; wise and shrewd.
Sentence 1: The sagacious old man offered valuable advice based on his years of experience.
Sentence 2: The CEO’s sagacious decision to invest in new technology propelled the company to unprecedented success.

26. Taciturn (adj.): Reserved or inclined to silence; habitually silent or uncommunicative.
Sentence 1: The taciturn loner preferred solitude and rarely engaged in conversations with others.
Sentence 2: Despite his taciturn nature, his eyes spoke volumes, revealing the emotions he kept hidden.

27. Ubiquitous (adj.): Present, appearing, or found everywhere.
Sentence 1: In today’s digital age, smartphones have become ubiquitous, accompanying people in every aspect of their lives.
Sentence 2: The fragrance of freshly brewed coffee was ubiquitous in the café, enveloping the space with its comforting aroma.

28. Vacillate (v.): To waver or hesitate in making a decision or choice; to be indecisive.
Sentence 1: She vacillated between accepting the job offer and pursuing further education.
Sentence 2: The committee’s members vacillated for hours, unable to agree on a course of action.

29. Wanton (adj.): Deliberate and without motive or provocation; reckless or careless.
Sentence 1: The wanton destruction of the historic monument outraged the community.
Sentence 2: The driver’s wanton disregard for traffic rules led to a dangerous accident.

30. Zealot (n.): A person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other beliefs.
Sentence 1: The religious zealot preached his beliefs on street corners, attempting to convert passersby.
Sentence 2: The political zealot refused to consider alternative viewpoints and dismissed any opposing opinions as invalid.

AI Wins Prize

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An article in today’s RTÉ website titled: “Japan literary laureate unashamed about using ChatGPT” caught my eye. There is no author contribution shown.

“The winner of Japan’s most prestigious literary award has acknowledged that about “5%” of her futuristic novel was penned by ChatGPT, saying generative AI had helped unlock her potential.

Since the 2022 launch of ChatGPT, an easy-to-use AI chatbot that can deliver an essay upon request within seconds, there have been growing worries about the impact on a range of sectors – books included.

Lauded by a judge for being “almost flawless” and “universally enjoyable”, Rie Kudan’s latest novel, “Tokyo-to Dojo-to” (“Sympathy Tower Tokyo”), claimed the biannual Akutagawa Prize yesterday.

Set in a futuristic Tokyo, the book revolves around a high-rise prison tower and its architect’s intolerance of criminals, with AI a recurring theme.

The 33-year-old author openly admitted that AI heavily influenced her writing process as well.

“I made active use of generative AI like ChatGPT in writing this book,” she told a ceremony following the winner’s announcement.

“I would say about 5% of the book quoted verbatim the sentences generated by AI.”

Outside of her creative activity, Ms Kudan said she frequently toys with AI, confiding her innermost thoughts that “I can never talk to anyone else about”.

ChatGPT’s responses sometimes inspired dialogue in the novel, she added.

Going forward, she said she wants to keep “good relationships” with AI and “unleash my creativity” in co-existence with it.

When contacted by AFP, the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Literature, the Akutagawa award’s organiser, declined to comment.

On social media, opinions were divided on Ms Kudan’s unorthodox approach to writing, with sceptics calling it morally questionable and potentially undeserving of the prize.

“So she wrote the book by deftly using AI … Is that talented or not? I don’t know,” one wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

But others celebrated her resourcefulness and the effort she put into experimenting with various prompts.

“So this is how the Akutagawa laureate uses ChatGPT – not to slack off but to ‘unleash creativity'”, another social media user wrote.

Titles that list ChatGPT as a co-author have been offered for sale through Amazon’s e-book self-publishing unit, although critics say the works are of poor quality.

British author Salman Rushdie told a press conference at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October that recently someone asked an AI writing tool to produce 300 words in his style.

“And what came out was pure garbage,” said the “Midnight’s Children” writer, to laughter from the audience.

The technology also throws up a host of potential legal problems.

Last year, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and “Game of Thrones” author George RR Martin were among several writers who filed a class-action lawsuit against ChatGPT creator OpenAI over alleged copyright violation.

Along with the Authors Guild, they accused the California-based company of using their books “without permission” to train ChatGPT’s large language models, algorithms capable of producing human-sounding text responses based on simple queries, according to the lawsuit.”

From my point of view, the use of AI to produce literature must sort out the copyright problem. When that issue has been resolved, using AI to write, or co-write, books will be accepted as commonplace, legal and ethical. We human beings have always adopted new technology, even dangerous technology, having found the good in it.

Fighting AI

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There is an article in Monday’s issue of the Daily Telegraph concerning a lawsuit filed by the New York Times against Microsoft and Open AI that, on the face of it, is about imitating copyright news articles. But what is at stake is whether an artificial intelligence company could ‘train’ its software on the works of, say, Salman Rushdie, and then produce new Salmon Rushdi titles without paying the author any royalty. The article which bears the title “Silicon Valley’s mimicry machines are trying to erase authors” is written by Andrew Orlowski who is a technology journalist who writes a weekly Telegraph column every Monday. He founded the research network Think of X and previously worked for The Register. 

Andrew Orlowski

Orlowski says, “Silicon Valley reacts to criticism like a truculent toddler throwing its toys out of the pram. But acquiring a bit of humility and self-discipline may be just what the child needs most. 

So the US tech industry should regard a lawsuit filed last week as a great learning experience.

The New York Times last week filed a copyright infringement against Microsoft and Open AI. 

The evidence presented alleges that ChatGPT created near-identical copies of the Times’ stories on demand, without the user first paying a subscription or seeing any advertising on the Times’ site. 

ChatGPT “recites Times content verbatim, closely summarizes it, and mimics its expressive style”, the suit explains.

In other words, the value of the material that the publisher generates is entirely captured by the technology company, which has invested nothing in creating it.

This was exactly the situation that led to the creation of copyright in the Statute of Anne in 1710, which first established the legal right to copyright for an author. Then, it was the printing monopoly that was keeping all the dosh.

The concept of an author, a subjective soul who viewed the world in a unique way, really arrived with the Enlightenment.

Now, the nerds of Silicon Valley want to erase it again. Attempts to do just that have already made them richer than anything a Stationer’s Guild member could imagine.

“Microsoft’s deployment of Times-trained LLMs (Large Language Models) throughout its product line helped boost its market capitalization by trillions of dollars in the past year alone,” the lawsuit notes, adding that OpenAI’s value has shot from zero to $90bn. 

With Open AI’s ChatGPT models now built into so many Microsoft products, this is a mimicry engine built on a global scale.

More ominously, the lawsuit also offers an abundance of evidence that “these tools wrongly attribute false information to The Times”. The bots introduce errors that weren’t there in the first place, it claims. 

They “hallucinate”, to use the Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year. Publishers who are anxious about the first concern – unauthorised reproduction – should be even more concerned about the second.

Would a publisher be happy to see their outlet’s name next to a ChatGPT News response that confidently asserts, for example, that Iran has just launched cruise missiles at US destroyers? Or at London? 

These are purely hypotheticals but being the newspaper that accidentally starts World War III is not something that can be good for the brand in the long run.

Some midwit pundits and academics portrayed the lawsuit merely as a tactical licensing gambit. 

This year both Associated Press and the German giant Axel Springer have both cut licensing deals with Open AI. The New York Times is just sabre rattling in pursuit of a better deal, so the argument goes.

In response to the lawsuit, OpenAI insisted it respects “the rights of content creators and owners and [is] committed to working with them to ensure they benefit from AI technology and new revenue models”.

However, the industry is worried about much more than money.

Take, for example, the fact that the models that underpin ChatGPT need only to hear a couple of seconds of your child’s voice to clone it authentically. AI does not need to return the next day to perfect their impression. After that, it has a free hand to do what it will with its newfound ability.

So, the economic value of a licensing deal is impossible to estimate beforehand. And once done, it cannot be undone. As one publishing technology executive puts it, “you can’t un-bake the cake”.

Previous innovations in reproduction, from the photocopier to Napster, were rather different beasts, as the entrepreneur and composer Ed Newton-Rex noted this week. Past breakthroughs were purely mechanical or technological changes. But this new generation of AI tools marry technology with knowledge.

“They only work *because* their developers have used that copyrighted content to train on,” Newton-Rex wrote on Twitter, since rebranded as X. (His former employer, Stability AI, is also being sued for infringement).

Publishers and artists are entitled to think that without their work, AI would be nothing. This is why the large AI operations – and the investors hoping to make a killing from them – should be getting very nervous. They have been negligent in ignoring the issue until now.

“Until recently, AI was a research community that enjoyed benign neglect from copyright holders who felt it was bad form to sue academics,” veteran AI journalist Timothy B Lee wrote recently on Twitter. “This gave a lot of AI researchers the mistaken impression that copyright law didn’t apply to them. “It doesn’t seem out of the question that AI companies could lose these cases catastrophically and be forced to pay billions to plaintiffs and rebuild their models from scratch.”

Would wipe-and-rebuild be such a bad thing?

Today’s generative AI is just a very early prototype. Engineers regard a prototype as a learning experience too: it’s there to be discarded.  Many more prototypes may be developed and thrown away until a satisfactory design emerges. A ground-up rebuild can in some cases be the best thing that can happen to a technology product. There’s certainly plenty of room for improvement with this new generation of AI models. 

A Stanford study of ChatGPT looking at how reliable the chatbot was when it came to medicine found that less than half (41 percent) of the responses to clinical conditions agreed with the known answer according to a consensus of physicians. The AI gave lethal advice 7 per cent of the time.

A functioning democracy needs original reporting and writing so that we all benefit from economic incentives for creativity. We must carry on that Enlightenment tradition of original expression. 

Some may find such arguments pompous and any piety from the New York Times difficult to swallow. But there are bigger issues at stake. 

A society that gives up on respect for individual expression, and chooses to worship a mimicry machine instead, probably deserves the fate that inevitably awaits.”