Lionel Shriver is a somewhat controversial author here in Australia, although I found myself agreeing with most of her opinions in Abominations - Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction by Lionel Shriver.
Some readers might remember when Shriver made Australian headlines after giving the keynote speech at the 2016 Brisbane Writer's Festival. Her speech was about cultural appropriation and in Abominations we hear the speech in full, together with the subsequent fall out, attempt at cancellation and finally her response to it all.
For the record, I agree with her. Political correctness and the woke brigade have definitely gone too far if wearing a sombrero at a party is considered cultural appropriation and therefore offensive. If authors can only write from their own lived experience in order to avoid being accused of cultural appropriation, then their work will be dull and limited. I want authors to have the creative freedom to write about a priest living in the time of the black plague or a courtier dancing in the court of Elizabeth I and this automatically extends to creating characters with different nationalities and ethnicities; ages; sexual preferences and identities; socioeconomic backgrounds; levels of education; backgrounds and personalities than themselves. (For more, I shared my thoughts on 'own voices' in my review of Honeybee by Craig Silvey in 2020).
Shriver is open about the many attempts that have been made to cancel her and while she admirably shrugs them off, she does highlight the impact a 'successful' cancellation has on authors, publishers, actors and other creatives and the often devastating and unintended consequences that follow. Shriver gives examples of well known celebrity cancellations and I agreed with most of her opinions on the topic.
Abominations contains more than 40 essays of varying length and covers a broad range of topics, including: tennis, politics (Brexit and the troubles), IKEA furniture, economics (wages and taxes), health care, ageing parents and the pro-death movement. I found her essay on the nature of friendship break-ups particularly interesting.
In her instantly relatable essay entitled Quote Unquote published in the The Wall Street Journal in 2008, Shriver breaks down her pet peeve of quoteless dialogue:
Listening to the author read her essays added to the overall experience and I'm giving Abominations by Lionel Shriver an extra star just for the sheer quality of the writing, vocabulary and turn of phrase. Whether you agree with her views or not, there's no arguing she's one hell of a writer!
"While the use of quotes to distinguish speech is still standard in English language fiction, undemarcated dialogue has steadily achieved the status of an established style. In fact, this is one of those stealthy trends that no-one confronts directly." Chapter 33Shriver explains that it's harder to read fiction without punctuation marks for dialogue and making the reader work harder isn't in the author's best interests. She goes on to address each of the arguments in favour of undemarcated dialogue - love that phrase! - including improved aesthetics on the page and a perceived edginess. Shriver asks editors, agents, critics and established authors for their opinion and discovered the majority found dialogue without speech marks annoying. I was nodding the entire time and occasionally thinking to myself, YES!
Listening to the author read her essays added to the overall experience and I'm giving Abominations by Lionel Shriver an extra star just for the sheer quality of the writing, vocabulary and turn of phrase. Whether you agree with her views or not, there's no arguing she's one hell of a writer!
