Elizabeth Gilbert and the debate over cancelling Russian culture

Elizabeth Gilbert has withdrawn her forthcoming novel “The Snow Forest” from publication amid increasingly vociferous fallout over her decision to set the narrative in Russia while the war in Ukraine is ongoing.

Gilbert, known for the best-selling 2006 memoir “Eat, Pray, Love”, described “an enormous, massive outpouring of reactions and responses from my Ukrainian readers, expressing anger, sorrow, disappointment and pain” at her choice to write about 20th-century Russia.

Consequently, she asked her publishers at Penguin Random House to withdraw the new book, which had been due to be released in February next year. Gilbert called the move “a course correction”.

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The furore has “re-ignited a wide-ranging debate over the place that Russian – or Russian-set – culture should have in the contemporary sphere of creative production”, The Guardian said.

PEN America, a non-profit organisation that aims to promote free expression around the world, said Gilbert’s decision was “well intended” but that withdrawing a book because of an ongoing military conflict was “wrong-headed”.

‘Flooded with one-star reviews’

Shortly after teasing the release of the book on her social media platforms, Gilbert said she began to hear criticism that her work was “glorifying” Russians and was similar to “writing a book about brave Germans in the 1940s”.

Yet the decision to withdraw the book may be a pragmatic rather than principled one. When “The Snow Forest” was added to Goodreads, an Amazon subsidiary that allows people to review books online, it was “flooded with one-star reviews from people who could not have read it yet”, said Imogen West-Knights on Slate.

“While Ukrainians are dying from russian terrorists, famous authors are writing books about them and romanticizing these bastards,” one commenter wrote.

“It’s time to forget about all imperialistic shit that Russia doing over the centuries,” said another. “Maybe, Elizabeth, you should’ve spent your pandemic time reading about all the Russian terror. Sad that after 15 months of invasion you still think that book about poor Russian family is a great choice.”

‘A dangerous precedent’

Not everyone took such a straightforward position. Writing on Twitter, the novelist and critic Lincoln Michel said: “This seems very weird to me. I mean the author’s decision but… no book should be set in historical Russia now? A novel about people resisting the USSR no less? Huh?”

The sentiment was echoed by UnHerd’s Leigh Stein, who said that Gilbert’s decision to withdraw the book set a “dangerous precedent” for all future writers.

“The idea that a novel about a family fleeing religious persecution from Communists is in any way ‘pro’ Russia is not only absurd – it’s also the exact same argument of potential ‘harm’ wielded by the crusading book banners in American schools,” Stein added. “If we can’t stomach novels set in countries that have dark and ugly stains on their records, I have bad news for anyone writing fiction about America.”

It is hard to “conjure a reason for why the delay of Gilbert’s book benefits anyone”, said Franklin Foer, writing in The Atlantic.

He added: “Gilbert had a chance to gently explain herself and defend her work, to argue for the importance of literature in a time of war, but she chose to abnegate her responsibilities as a writer and go another way: eat, pray, pander.”

“The publication of a novel set in Russia should not be cast as an act exacerbating oppression,” Suzanne Nossel, PEN America’s chief executive, said in a statement. “The choice of whether to read Gilbert’s book lies with readers themselves, and those who are troubled by it must be free to voice their views.”