The emptiness of literature written for the market.

Kenneth Dillon, a writer from New York, posted an unusual video on his Instagram account. In it, author Elizabeth Gilbert, known for her bestseller "Eat, Pray, Love," appears distressed as she describes her upcoming book "Snow Forest" in the past tense. In the video, Gilbert talks about receiving an overwhelming amount of reactions from her Ukrainian readers, who expressed anger, grief, disappointment, and pain over her decision to publish a book set in Russia. As a result, Gilbert decided to remove the book from the publication schedule. The criticism Gilbert refers to seems to have been posted on the Goodreads platform. The "Snow Forest" page on Goodreads was flooded with one-star reviews condemning the book's tone during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The reviews were deleted, but it is unclear whether they were written by Ukrainians.

Gilbert's responses to this criticism seem quite passive. She states that she does not want to harm a group of people who have already experienced severe and extremely painful suffering. She does not apologize to avoid causing a scandal, nor does she call for peace to show that she has never supported anything else. In other words, she says as little as possible, missing an easy opportunity to defend her right to freedom of expression and each reader's right to read or not read what they want, which is currently and repeatedly threatened in Russia, Ukraine, and the United States.

Why does Gilbert take this seriously? When she says she doesn't want to harm those who have already experienced grief and suffering, her sympathy is justified, but it is also confusing and irritating. She stops halfway to avoid causing a scandal and does not call for peace to show that she has never supported anything else. In other words, she says as little as possible, missing an easy opportunity to defend her right to freedom of expression and each reader's right to read or not read what they want, which is currently and repeatedly threatened in Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. As a writer, she should have used this opportunity to make an active statement in defense of free speech and freedom of choice.

The book "Snowy Forest" describes the story of a group of eco-enthusiasts fighting to protect Siberian nature from the forces of Soviet industrialization in the 1930s. Critics on Goodreads, without having read the book, claimed that its plot in Russia signifies support for war, which is an unfounded assertion. Gilbert took this seriously but was unable to adequately respond to the criticism, raising questions about her position and reasoning. Her reaction suggests that she is more interested in maintaining her position in the book market than in defending her right to free expression and the freedom of choice for readers.

These events highlight the changes occurring in the publishing industry and their impact on book production and reading in the United States. The research of Mark McGurl and Dan Sinekina shows how shifts in the industry have transformed American literature from within.

Gilbert has traveled from being a writer to a lifestyle guru and influential social media blogger in her career. She offers her Instagram followers various writing prompts that are loosely related to the art of writing itself. She aims to give her fans, mostly women, a sense of their own power, which she believes helps them overcome challenges, embrace new ideas, and feel like the main characters in the stories of their lives.

The book "Snowy Forest" describes a more politically active and mystical version of these ideas, but Gilbert goes overboard. The abstract style that helped her express her subjective view of femininity and pleasure falls apart when she uses it in a social novel. Gilbert tries to generalize her self-help style to say something about the real world, but gets tangled up in speculation. In one of the striking lines from the promotional material for "Snowy Forest," Gilbert writes that the main theme of the book is "the incredible power of women working together to create the impossible - something that Alexis Kirschbaum and her team at Bloomsbury do every day." This unusual compliment shows how consciously Gilbert wrote "Snowy Forest" with the market in mind.

Writers have always been interested in their audience and the mechanics of publication. In 1909, Charles Scribner's Sons was preparing a five-year anniversary edition of Henry James's "The Golden Bowl" when the company received a new preface from the author. James had previously written critical prefaces for reissues of his novels several times, but here the master expressed his dissatisfaction with the chosen image on the title page - an impressive reproduction of a foggy London street scene taken by American photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn. For James, reworking his "fuzzy moments," though rare, was quite challenging; at that time, much of his work, including this last novel, was dictated by his assistant Theodora Bosanquet. Now it seemed to him that he would have to compete with Coburn for space in the imagination of British readers, as if the text alone were insufficient. Of course, James sometimes accepted advice, but his talent, reputation, and family wealth usually allowed him to avoid pressures from an industry that still affects most writers.

After World War II, the number of readers in the United States grew more than ever before. The GI Bill sent thousands of young people to college, where they were introduced to a more diverse and high-quality literature. Many small, inexpensive books were printed and sold everywhere, from bookstores to supermarkets. Sinekin shows that the mass market of popular literature changed reading in America by blending high and low genres, publishing works by William Faulkner alongside Mickey Spillane.

"The attempt to impose ethical principles such as pluralism and multiculturalism on the rational development of the publishing industry has failed, as in the U.S., the right to freedom of expression is exploited by conglomerates and private investment firms." Ultimately, none of the novels deserve publication, but the question is what incentives institutions use, which ones they suppress, and which ones they allow to exist only when it costs them nothing.