Happy World AIDS Day! [Dec 1, 2004]

Today marks the publication of a spectacular world-literature collection that Nadine Gordimer put together to raise money for AIDS treatment and education in southern Africa. Writers contributing include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Updike, Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie, Gunter Grass, Christa Wolf, Susan Sontag, and Arthur Miller. Now THAT'S an anthology, though I'm disappointed that Gordimer couldn't get new stories from Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy, and Cervantes.

Ms. Gordimer's intentions for and reasoning behind this book are unimpeachable, and so is the participation of all involved, though I'm sure Larry Kramer is saying, to some of the American writers, "where the hell were you people in 1983?" Here's hoping they raise a million dollars or more.

Still, one has to marvel at the continuingly insane self-regard in which the American publishing world holds itself. Here's Frances Coady, from Picador, quoted in the New York Times as regards the book: "Perhaps now more than ever we should appreciate the power of fiction, the will to fight injustice and suffering."

There you go again, Walter. Fiction is not about fighting "injustice and suffering." That's the job of activism. Fiction is about telling stories. The writers involved committed a political act by donating their stories to the book for free. Writing is not a political act; that's left to the distribution of writing, and, depending on the circumstance, the reading of that writing.

If fiction were so damn powerful in the way that Ms. Coady means, then war and poverty should have ended the day Chaucer scripted his first pilgrim. The real fighters of injustice are the people who buy Gordimer's book. So buy it here, righteous people.

In other news, I have an ostensible humor piece on a literary topic in the current issue of the rejuvenated Ruminator magazine. An excerpt can be found within this link, but if you want to read the rest, you'll have to subscribe, which you should do anyway.