New in PJ Media:
Readers have now been warned. Anyone in our enlightened age who is crazy and daring enough to read Ernest Hemingway, an author who is not a person of color, not trans, and not a victim of white patriarchal oppression, will now be waved off by Hemingway’s own publisher. New editions of the work of the man who was once considered one of America’s greatest writers, before such things came to be measured solely by the author’s race, gender, and political proclivities, contain a “trigger warning” alerting fragile wokesters to the fact that if they are actually so foolish as to read the book, they will encounter thoughts that today’s elites have most decidedly not approved.
The UK’s Telegraph revealed Saturday that Penguin Random House, which publishes Hemingway’s novels and stories, has slapped them with “a trigger warning” due to “concerns about his ‘language’ and ‘attitudes.’” Hapless new Hemingway readers are also “alerted to the novelist’s ‘cultural representations.’”
I can imagine what Ernest Hemingway himself would say to all this, but I wouldn’t be able to publish it. The arrogant, self-infatuated, blinkered, miseducated woke dopes at Penguin Random House don’t seem to understand that the whole idea of reading Hemingway, or any other great writer, is to encounter “language,” “attitudes” and “cultural representations” that are not one’s own, and are not the same as the language, attitudes, and cultural representations of contemporary culture.
Back in those dark days before schools turned to teaching the really important stuff, like whether you’re of the opposite sex and how evil you are if you’re white, children were taught that there was a pantheon of great writers throughout history, starting with Homer and going through Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, the Romantic poets, and the like. Hemingway was often included as one of the few Americans on the list. Someone who picked up Shakespeare or Milton was not expecting them to sound like or reflect the attitudes of Ibram X. Kendi and Dr. Fauci; readers were instead expecting to be carried to a very different world that would help them see their own with new eyes.
All that is gone now. The problem with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the rest is that they would all today be considered members of the worst group of people on the planet, white males. As we live in what used to be known as Western civilization, this is not all that surprising. It is also not in the least surprising that this pantheon has now been swept away and replaced with writers whose sole claim to relevance is not their insight, wisdom, or the power of their words, but their race and their gender. Hemingway was another white male, and so his star has dimmed from the days when he was considered one of the greats, and now he has been hedged around even more to keep him from leading anyone into wrongthink.
There is more. Read the rest here.
Buraq says
Penguin Random House should stamp “Parental advisory” warnings all over Hemingway’s books and market them as “they-don’t-want-you-to-read-this” kind of thing.
Sales would rocket!
Infidel says
GReat idea
Kesselman says
The great novelist, hunter, journalist, drinker, warrior, and bullfighter aficionado Ernest Hemingway has since my youth been a kind of hero to me. Luckily, I have nearly all his writing on my selves, so I spare myself buying the newly published one with a warning.
You cannot subdue Papa and he would, if living today, use a language Millenials and liberal woke people would faint listening to.
In his “The Sun Also Rises” he describes a Jewish figure rather negatively. Should I as a person with a Jewish heritage be perplexed? Nah, Papa wrote as he did and he did it excellently. Long live Papa Hemingway!
mgoldberg says
It is scary to see just how far these ‘elites’ have fallen and taken down our sense and sensibilities. What will it take to restore common sense, common decency and an understanding of just how far they’ve fallen with this descent into the pointless bigotry of ‘woke’?
Pray Hard says
F ’em. I already have originals AND I have the collected writings of Flannery O’Connor! So, I reckon the trick is on them.
Rarely says
How could you omit the late great Geoffrey Chaucer — the first great pornographer?
Ray Jarman says
This is an interesting article for me as I have been reading poetry and short stories from one of my English literature classes titled, “Literature, Structure, Sound and Sense.” One of the short stories was a William Faulkner masterpiece titled “Spotted Horses” where the characters’ language and actions would certainly not fit within today’s narrow minded fools’ life outlook.
I think that a lack of historic sensitivity caused by the inefficiency of not only our education system but also that of Europe. As the old but still true statement about a lack of historic knowledge prevents a person from being able to decern the future or where that person is in that perspective. If the “Magna Carta” means nothing to an American, then the U.S. Constitution is also meaningless and has very little value. I totally agree with Vivek Ramaswamy that the Department of Education needs to be eliminated and place our education system back into the hands of the local community. The attack upon literature, history and even the cinema is a result of a lack of education which enables one of understanding and appreciating the historic circumstances and sensitivities.
Imagine trying to obtain funding for a stage performance of the “Taming of the Shrew” or even the “Tempest,” much less Molière’s, “The Mischievous Machinations of Scapin” as the Muslims would have a conniption.
Infidel says
Conservatives keep saying they want to eliminate the Educ. Dept. and leave it up to individual states. Well, in socialist states like California that would make zero difference.
Ray Jarman says
I do not disagree but most of the states (even here in Washington State) would be better off for a number of reasons such as having school administration departments reduced since they would not be beholden to DC for large parts of their revenue. The Parent & Teachers Associations would regain their place in the decision making of the curriculum which would enhance the influence of parents. My parents knew a number of my teachers and that was in San Diego. The national teacher’s union would cease to be effective and taxpayers would be net winners. It certainly could not become any worse.