{"id":2032,"date":"2014-08-12T15:08:33","date_gmt":"2014-08-12T22:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/?p=2032"},"modified":"2014-08-15T11:51:17","modified_gmt":"2014-08-15T18:51:17","slug":"amazon-attacks-george-orwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2014\/08\/amazon-attacks-george-orwell.html","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Attacks… George Orwell"},"content":{"rendered":"

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”FGMaW10z0XI8nVQN7MfT1Ac9PxVEGJCS”]<\/p>\n

BOY, this is weird.<\/p>\n

The online bookseller, in an attempt to tackle its critics, has been quoting George Orwell WAY out of context. A New York Times story<\/a> gets at the whole messy business.<\/p>\n

In 1936 Orwell told a British paper: \u201cThe Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if the other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them.\u201d The Times picks it up from here:<\/p>\n

\n

Orwell then went on to undermine Amazon\u2019s argument for cheap e-books. \u201cIt is, of course, a great mistake to imagine that cheap books are good for the book trade,\u201d he wrote, saying that the opposite was true.\"220px-George_Orwell_press_photo\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cheaper books become,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthe less money is spent on books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of buying two expensive books, he said, the consumer will buy three cheap books and then use the rest of the money to go to the movies. \u201cThis is an advantage from the reader\u2019s point of view and doesn\u2019t hurt trade as a whole, but for the publisher, the compositor, the author and the bookseller, it is a disaster,\u201d Orwell wrote.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I give St. George points for prescience here — even if it took a while for his prediction to come true.<\/p>\n

Amazon, by the way, is now going up against Disney as well. (They’re the new Hachette.) Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/p>\n

Orwell’s literary executor has sent the following not to the New York Times in response:<\/p>\n

To the Editor:<\/p>\n

Re \u201cIn a Fight With Authors, Amazon Cites Orwell, but Not Quite Correctly\u201d (Business Day, Aug. 11):<\/p>\n

As you point out, Amazon is using George Orwell\u2019s name in vain: It quotes Orwell out of context as supporting a campaign to suppress paperbacks, to give specious authority to its campaign against publishers over e-book pricing; and having gotten as much capital as it can out of waving around Orwell\u2019s name, Amazon then dismisses what was an ironic comment without engaging with Orwell\u2019s own detailed arguments, which eloquently contradict Amazon\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

This is about as close as one can get to the Ministry of Truth and its doublespeak: turning the facts inside out to get a piece of propaganda across.<\/p>\n

As the literary executor for the Orwell estate, I\u2019m both appalled and wryly amused that Amazon\u2019s tactics should come straight out of Orwell\u2019s own nightmare dystopia, \u201c1984.\u201d It doesn\u2019t say much for Amazon\u2019s regard for truth, or its powers of literary understanding. Or perhaps Amazon just doesn\u2019t care about the authors it is selling. If that\u2019s the case, why should we listen to a word it says about the value of books?<\/p>\n

BILL HAMILTON
\nLondon, Aug. 11, 2014<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”FGMaW10z0XI8nVQN7MfT1Ac9PxVEGJCS”] BOY, this is weird. The online bookseller, in an attempt to tackle its critics, has been quoting George Orwell WAY out of context. A New York Times story gets at the whole messy business. In 1936 Orwell told a British paper: \u201cThe Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[612,35,88,642],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-amazon","7":"category-books","8":"category-brit-culture","9":"category-orwell","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}