We don’t usually publish emails we receive but this email indicated that she tried to comment but could not, presumably due to Intense Debate (we’re not sure why the comments tool isn’t working for all our readers - if anyone else has any problems can you let us know). In addition, we will not edit our review to add the email as suggested, because we don’t agree with the points raised but also because, even if we did, amending our reviews after the fact because an author emailed us is really not something we, or (we think) any review blog should actually be doing. In both cases, however, we feel there’s a clear wish to make these views known publicly on Fangs.
We also feel that the comments made are more generally applicable to comments we have received about a number of reviews and would benefit from being addressed in general
The email in question:
Hey guys, I appreciate the review for Masks. But I had a few comments I wanted to make on it. Unfortunately, the website isn't allowing me to do so. I am therefore sending them in , in the hopes that you will amend them to the review. They're below. Thank you I appreciate you reading the book and doing the review, but I would like to briefly point out a few things.
1) The book is not "erased". There are four major players who are non-white: the consul (Egyptian), the senator (mixed race), Hassani (Iranian) and Marte (Egyptian). On the subject of Marte, Mircea describes her early on as having dark, curly hair and eyes, but doesn't mention her skin tone. But then, why would he have? They are in Venice. Olive skin is normal there. He took her for an Italian at first, because that was how she was presenting herself. There are also many other people from all over the world mentioned in the book: a gondolier is African, the consul and senator are Egyptian (or partly so, in her case), Hassani is Iranian, a hat seller is Spanish, Bezio is Sicilian, Martina is Greek, etc. It was a multifaceted, multicultural bunch that, I think, fairly represented the Venice of its day.
2) LGBT issues weren't mentioned because there was a rash of homophobic hysteria sweeping Italy at the time. I wrote about this on my blog (http://www.karenchance.com/news/category/maskslife-in-renaissance-venice/), specifically in the entry Inspirations VI if you want to read more. But basically, being an out person in Venice of the day was illegal and homosexual people were subject to death--by burning--if caught. I have LGBT characters (including Mircea's brother Radu) in my Dorina Basarab series, but it would not have made sense here. Any LGBT people in Venice at the time would have been keeping very, very quiet about it.
3) Class issues: Can I point out that a person being born poor doesn't make them a good person, any more than it makes them a bad one? There were characters born into poverty who ended up on the "good" side, and other who did not. Just as in life. The book was about the hand we are dealt in life being important, but not all important. We still have to play that hand, and we still make some crucial decisions for ourselves. The characters made their decisions, some good, some not so good. And their fates depended on that every bit as much, if not more, than on the class they started out in.
1) On the Racial Erasure
We have spoken before on the problem of Invisible Inclusion. Unless a character is depicted as otherwise in fiction, they will be read as the most privileged body. Even when they are described otherwise this is often a problem, as we can see from many corners of fandom being shocked when Rue was depicted as Black in the Hunger Games film and when an Asian actor was cast to play Magnus Bane in The Mortal Instruments.
Relying on the readers’ assumptions that a character would be a People Of Colour (POC) is, therefore, highly fraught. We are trying to avoid spoilers here so we will talk around one of the characters in question: the Consul is a person from history - and they do have a POC ancestor. But holding that to be sufficient to make them a POC raises a very dubious and highly prejudicial “one drop rule” argument.
And even if they were - this would require the readers to be aware of the fact to read her as a POC. And ignore that fact that she has been depicted in fiction on numerous occasions - as white. Fictional portrayals of this character - and, indeed, numerous historical POC - are repeatedly depicted as white. Fictional whitewashing was prevalent and even the norm; history is no guarantee of a POC portrayal in fiction.
It is always dubious to assume that an audience will read a character as POC when it has not been expressly stated (especially if descriptors are, at best, ambiguous - like dark, curly hair and brown eyes); time and again we have seen that to expect that from a western audience is simply unrealistic and highly disconnected from societal attitudes. If you describe a character as having brown hair and brown eyes with no further description they will be read as white.
To further stretch this and assume that readers should read a character as a POC because of (a very questionable reading of) history, despite how that character has repeatedly been depicted in fiction without any other markers is to stretch this to breaking.
In my review I used the words “largely erased” to describe Masks. This doesn’t mean that there were no POC in the novel but that they didn’t play any significant roles in the story. A minor character of colour, even when they fit into a privileged role in the story does not mean good inclusion. It simply means they have been promoted to obscurity. These characters don’t drive the plot because the book could clearly exist without them; such is the case with Hassani. To the suggests a group of Europeans constitutes diversity is to completely ignore that diversity means more that multiple Eurocentric ethnicities occupying the same geography.
Good inclusion involves fully fleshed out characters of colour with important storylines. They don’t act as sidekicks and they most certainly are not passing characters like a gondolier. Running afterwards and counting POC without considering them within the context of the story itself is problematic.
