"Lionized" by the literary establishment during his/her own time, many a once-popular author is now denounced for racism, sexism, transphobia, and general deficiency in "DEI" credentials.
One such is Mordecai Richler, whose novel Barney's Version, lavishly praised upon publication, received Canada's Giller Prize 1997. It was "charged with comic energy and a wicked disregard for any pieties ..." says the blurb on the cover.
Disregard for pieties is still called wicked, but no longer in a complimentary way. "Wrongthought" is no joke; it's even being criminalized.
The hero of the novel (Barney), when falsely accused of variegated personal and professional immoralities, in his own defence responds with his own "version" of events -- and his entertainingly provocative views on culture and politics.
If he thought the latter were bad back in the 1990s, he'd be horrified at the atmosphere today. Satirical humour was his weapon against political correctness, but his weaponry did nothing to stop the ignorant armies clashing even more on our darkling plain of wokeness. (Matthew Arnold too, writing at the dawn of liberal humanist tradition, would be horrified to see the 21st century's plain, swept with even more "confused alarms of struggle and flight".)
As for the Giller Prize (a prize Richler would never be nominated for now), and the ideology of present juries: how could change happen so quickly in the literary world? Such shrinkage of imagination and narrow-minded condemnation of free thought? How could the imposition of obligatory self-censorship have gone so far so fast? Yesterday's lionized are today's verminized.
A literary critic writing in 2022 objected to Richler opposing the "special pleading" of politically correct groups, and his disagreeing that Western society is unjust toward minorities. Indeed, if he was writing today he'd probably be sued by allies of identity groups who felt triggered, harmed and epistemically violated by his words, although writing today he'd probably never find a publisher at all. Publishers are businesses, and they want to stay in business in a field where personal free expression is now unpopular.
In fact, according to the University of Southern California, we're not even allowed to refer to a "field" in case it brings to mind the fields wherein slaves once worked. Compassionate people may want to save others from hurt, but history will still be history, even if we legislate public ignorance of it.
There were no Anglo-Saxon names among authors on the 2022 Giller prize shortlist, and only one the previous year. Of course, Canada gets more international immigrants every year, but Mordecai Richler might suspect a bit of "special pleading" going on here behind the Giller scenes. Since 1997, when he won the prize, there has been less satirical humour on offer. We live in an era of intellectual straightness, of hearing only self -- an arid environment of cultural grazers who survive on poor soil and poor nutrition, and need much herding.
In an interview on Writers & Company, Eleanor Wachtel noted that Richler had been called "irreverent and smart-ass", and warned that listeners might find the excerpt he was about to read "raunchy". That word seems quaint; today, we'd warn of "toxic masculinity" that might trigger "trauma-spectrum diorder".
Richler himself said he aimed to satirize the absurd while witnessing his own times. If he thought his 20th century times absurd, one can only guess what he'd think about "the times" today. More than a little "out of joint".
Reviews of Barney's Version in 1997 used the words "wonderful, hilarious, gripping, touching and humane". Today they'd more likely accuse him of being "racist, trans-phobic, sexist, stigmatizing and trauma-inducing", and if Richler gave a reading, the de-platformers would be shouting outside and waving placards.
