The Times on Damian Barr

[Lamahaha]

I really hope this is a share token!

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dad940b0-bcb1-11ea-82eb-1588bf47a52f?shareToken=5bf81c44388fe32a0652ade6648c914e&fbclid=IwAR2lICIV1NdloUXrX6l22i3NSsAL4tP3wKeyM4Q4xyneXM1BgWHZTTMBkBY

Amazon review "I borrowed this book from the library back in November and started reading it, but stalled fairly quickly. I renewed the book a few times and then lockdown hit, and here I am 8 months later and no further on. I did re-start a few weeks back, but didn’t make it past chapter 1. I should say that I was brought up in apartheid South Africa but on the other side of the political fence, so I had more than a little vested interest, but I just couldn’t get in to it and it didn’t feel authentic. And then about a week ago, it was announced that libraries would be re-opening and I felt under pressure to finish this book that I first picked up 8 months ago, but (a) I didn’t feel inclined and (b) the author very publically went on the attack and metaphorically dragged a woman naked out of her pondok and whipped her, without opportunity to defend herself - just like apartheid South Africa. The women were segregated from the men and judged on their sex. The parralels are blinding, but the “apartheid” status quo has been maintained and nothing could now persuade me to finish this book. It was not engaging to start with, but it is now tainted with misogyny too." one star....

There’s another one today. www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c0c51a14-bfc2-11ea-9bf8-0608ed4f9cc0?shareToken=e38ee9de8a47d76992e0b0699681a954

His tweet laughing or "tittering sickly" at an attempted suicide of a trans person is absolutely abhorrent. It is the worst thing I've seen said against a trans person. And all he does is apologise for "flippantly" using the word "tranny" ?!?!!! as a "hurtful and unkind word." Really! Is that all you think you need to apologise for here?!! Just the word " tranny "?!

Goes without saying I've never seen a GC person ever say anything like that.

Will he be cancelled from everything in his life? He is an advisor for Stonewall!?

No, he won't be cancelled. He apologised to those that matter. Women, sex workers, those with mental health problems, families of suicide victims are not clearly worthy of an apology.

I sent an email to the editor of The Times ([email protected]) to say that I was a subscriber because of Janice Turner's articles in this area and also because of the newspaper's commitment to free speech at a time when it is invaluable. Got a nice (brief) email back saying that he gets it.

Yep, okay, I will subscribe to the Times.

I subscribed to The Times for Janice too.
Incidentally, the Times web analytics people will be able to find all the threads about them on MN, so hopefully they’re passing on our feedback!

From the Times

The Booker Prize Foundation insisted that Lady Nicholson’s views on gay marriage had no bearing on her removal. A spokeswoman said: “Baroness Nicholson’s tweet calling a trans activist a ‘weird creature’ was likely to be seen by many as objectionable. In addition, and while still holding her honorary position, Baroness Nicholson publicly questioned the impartiality of a judge, Ted Hodgkinson.

“Too many believed the honorary positions carried weight in the life of the contemporary Booker prizes. [The foundation] thus clarified matters by removing all these positions.”

So that's it, the words "weird creature" from a woman?

Mind blowing.

The Times coverage is usually brilliant, but I found this article frustratingly focused on Baroness Nicholson's 'transgressions' while skimming lightly over Damian Barr's.

They make it seem a bit tit-for-tat - he tweeted about t**ys, BN called Munroe B a 'weird creature'... They include his apology without going into the profound offensiveness of the tweet (mocking a failed suicide attempt) or the extent of DB's misogyny and racism. If I was reading it without knowing the background I'd think it was one of those 'fault on both sides' cases we're always being gaslighted with.

It seems DB's rehabilitation into the literary inner circle is well underway.

He won’t be cancelled because he has a penis

I have been disappointed how much the media, if they've deigned to report on this, have faithfully followed this part of Barr's apology and have carefully swerved around the very unpleasant stuff:

In the past, I have used the word 'tr-nny'. Flippantly not maliciously.

Helpful record of the denouncers.

wildwomanwritingclub.wordpress.com/2020/06/24/literary-spine-watch/

I didn't realise that Damian Barr had written a book about South Africa - tbh as someone born in South Africa to think someone from the West Coast of Scotland can appropriate a history and a trauma for his own ends endears him little to me. I now think it may have been a book of the week or bed time on Radio 4 and can remember turning it off.

He did a bit of a Naomi Woolf with that book where he thought he'd discovered a scandal, whereas in fact the issue has been thrashed out for a long time from the perspective of many agendas.

But yes, he really knows how everyone else should be behaving without bothering to stick to his rules himself.