I spent a couple of days off Twitter recently. It was Mr Musk's fault: it seems that, in his determination to rename his site to X, for reasons that seemed important to himself, he'd instituted a redirect. Unfortunately, some of us have browsers that didn't approve of the redirect, which resulted in an interesting hunt. I finally located the errant site with the invaluable help of SashaQ, who is tech-savvy. Thanks, Sasha. Once I got back, the first thing I found was writers complaining about readers.

The object of the writers' ire, as so often, was a reader comment on Amazon. Somebody wasn't happy about this novel, you see.

This novel is set in Virginia during two time periods: The early 1940's, and the summer of 2020. . . The story was enjoyable, but every time I came to a chapter set in 2020, I asked myself, "when is the author going to say something about Covid-19?" The answer is – never. I found that very disturbing and distracting. The author apparently wrote the book before the pandemic and made the assumption that summer 2020 would be just like other summers. . .

Most of the writers felt that it was the reader's fault for not realising that the book was 'just fiction'. One commented sarcastically, 'How dare you not. . . predict the future?'

Others:

My brain broke - whew what a review.

I wish it was harder to imagine these people are real.

I think the problem is with the reader. . .

Honestly, the reader has to just deal. . .

In other words: authors are owed readers who will try to divine the intent of the author and go along with it. Personally, I am on the side of Lisa König, who said simply, 'I never set books in the near future.' That, I believe, is the answer. Of course you can't predict what's going to happen next year – and expecting your readers to ignore lack of realism in a realistic setting? Just who do you think you are?

We know the answer to that. 'I am an Author. My choices are law.'

I move on, through the accidental discovery of a lost Lithuanian dialect (cool! Okay, I think it's cool), outrage over the baggage handlers of a certain US airline for playing weight-throw with the golf bags of a champion college team (shame on them), and the rainy-day announcement of the British prime minister that they are going to hold their next election on the Fourth of July.

This was a poor choice. Not because it's US Independence Day. The US doesn't have a lien on the calendar. (It's also Philippine Independence Day.) No, it's a bad choice because, due to the US holiday, there are multiple opportunities for memes. Fireworks. An altered poster of the film Born on the Fourth of July. Altered movie posters with aliens in. You get the idea. It was already bad enough that during the announcement, not only was the prime minister getting soaked – maybe this was the only time they could be sure the cat wouldn't steal the limelight, since cats have the sense to come in out of the rain – some opposition wags were blasting music at them and playing things like the imperial troopers' march from Star Wars. I felt sorry for the man in the rain, and sorrier still for the voters.

And then I got stopped by a statement from John Dobai, speaking to a researcher at the Association of Jewish Refugees' Refugee Voices Archive. Mr Dobai was a child refugee during the Second World War who went to Britain. That organisation makes sure to tell people's stories so that we know what happened. Mr Dobai said something chilling but admirably honest.

We started school in 1940. By then Hungary was part of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia. There was very strong antisemitic propaganda. Because my parents & my friends' parents didn't tell us we were Jews, we became antisemitic as well. It seemed the normal thing to do.

I am reminded of something Jesus said about adults and children and millstones. We had a saying when I was growing up, 'Little pitchers have big ears.' Teach your children well.

People, what we say makes a difference. How we get our information is important. The confusion caused by the proliferation of misleading AI images matters. And, yes, our assumptions as writers contribute to the mix of misunderstandings that lead to the malaise known as 2024.

We have a duty to be as clear as we can. We should be trying to communicate with others rather than talking to ourselves. Yes, I know that's hard. I also know that we'd rather preach to our own personal choir, even if that choir is only in our own heads. But we are tasked, as temporary citizens of this world, with helping our neighbours with whatever gifts we have – including our ability to use words. We need to use them wisely, and we need to be learners in that area.

So we'll keep practising, if you don't mind. We appreciate the readers. We listen to the feedback. We're still learning, along with everyone else. The 21st Century needs you, friends: keep looking around, and keep telling what you see. Somebody is going to want to know what you know.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

03.06.24 Front Page

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