When the film version of A Clockwork Orange was released in 1971 it was the subject of a lot of controversy due to its portrayal of violence and sex. As I observed years ago:

The telling of Alex’s story is replete with, well, sex and violence. Roger Ebert’s original (non-flattering) review notes an ‘X’ rating, but the DVD calls it ‘R.’ There’s lots of nudity, for example, but the only sex involved is a single scene that’s so sped up (to the tune of the William Tell Overture, no less) that it’s mostly a blur. A presumed rape happens off screen. And while there’s copious violence, there’s very little blood. It’s nothing compared to what comes out these days. And it helps showcase not only the brutality of Alex’s shallow world view, but the equally shallow world view of those that take their revenge on him.

It was such a thing that a British prosecutor cited it in court the next year amidst allegations of copycat violence. In 1973, the film was withdrawn from British release at director Stanley Kubrick’s behest, even though he didn’t think it was inspiring anything. It wouldn’t be released in the UK again until after Kubrick had died.

I thought about A Clockwork Orange when Elizabeth Gilbert (she of Eat, Pray, Love fame) announced on social media that she was withdrawing from publication a new novel that was due to come out in 2024:

Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert is pulling her new novel from publication after Ukrainian readers expressed ‘anger, sorrow, disappointment and pain’ about her decision to set a book in Russia.

Gilbert’s The Snow Forest is a historical novel set in Siberia, and follows a family of religious Russian fundamentalists who have lived isolated and undetected for 44 years since retreating from the world in the 1930s.

When they are discovered in 1980 by a team of Soviet geologists, a scholar and linguist is sent to the family’s home to bridge the chasm between modern existence and their ancient, snow forest life.

A lot of the pushback to the book happened on Goodreads, as often happens even well in advance of a book coming out (and thus anybody actually reading it). By the time I got to the Goodreads page for the book (which is now completely gone) all the info about the book – the blurb, cover, etc. – had been taken down, so it was impossible to tell if there was something in the way the book was being sold that triggered the backlash or if it really was as simple as Ukrainians pushing back against a new book set in Russia.

Gilbert’s decision prompted a lot of discussion. Most of it’s been negative, as is perhaps inevitable in an era where “cancel culture” continues to weigh on peoples’ minds and books are being banned by state governments. This column from a former president of PEN American Center (a free speech advocacy group) gives a flavor:

But what’s equally unreasonable – and disturbing – is the precedent that Gilbert’s decision sets, the potential danger it poses to writers, to the future of literature, to the culture, and to our freedom of speech. What will happen if authors allow themselves to be bullied by their readers? What if the themes we write about, and how we write about them, are to become the subject of a general referendum? Should survivors of domestic abuse band together to prevent any future productions of Othello? Should we quit reading Anne Frank’s diary because it takes place in a country that was hospitable to Jewish refugees – until it wasn’t? Should animal rights activists campaign to have Moby-Dick banned for its portrayal of the horrors of the whaling industry? One can all too easily imagine what might have occurred had Nabokov submitted Lolita to the court of public opinion before it appeared in print.

All this after posing a series of hypotheticals about whether she should “build a bonfire in my backyard to consign Gogol, Tolstoy and Chekhov to the flames?”

This is, in a word, horseshit. There’s a conversation to be had about how to deal with Russian art, music, and literature at a time when the current iteration of Russia has invaded a neighbor without cause and there have been overreactions on that front. Likewise, the idea of telling writers that certain subjects are off limits for whatever reason is a bad thing and certain won’t be defended by me. But neither of those things are what’s happened here.

Gilbert wrote a book, which she clearly has a right to do. Once written does she then have a duty to publish it, regardless of any second thoughts on her part? That doesn’t make any sense. Writers and other creatives produce art all the time that they decide, for whatever reason, not to release to the public. You think I don’t have a novel or two buried in my closet that will never see the light of day? Free speech is not just about the right to talk or say something, it’s about the right to decide not to say it. Maybe Gilbert’s calculus is wrong on this occasion, but it’s hers to make. To use her decision as the jumping off point for a slippery slope that leads to book burning is ludicrous.

There’s a perception out there that unlike movies or TV series or albums that a novel is the product of a singular creative vision, the end result of one person sitting down at the keyboard and pounding out thousands of words. That’s romantic, but unrealistic. Most books that anybody would actually want to read go through the hands of editors, beta readers, and others before a final version is released. The book changes in that process. The author is ultimately responsible for making changes (or not), but the input of others is critical to a successful final product.

That’s all Gilbert did here. Had she run The Snow Forest past a few Ukrainian friends and they had said that now is perhaps not the time for a book like this and she’d stopped the publication process at that point it wouldn’t be news. It was only because a release date had been set and Gilbert withdrew the book in such a public way (to her credit) that this was a thing. That it was a thing, and a thing worth withdrawing the book over, is entirely Gilbert’s decision. Any other author is free to make the opposite one, if they choose.

If the right to speak means anything it has to be paired with a right to remain silent – just like the right to practice a religion has to be paired with the right to practice none at all. The same is true of authors, musicians, painters, and any other creative person. I’d hope that’s something that, at the end of the day, we could all agree on.