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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Ataraxidermist on 2025-07-24 17:27:40+00:00.

Welcome back, deary, what a pleasure to see you again. If you missed it, here is the link to part 1, where we explored the history behind art in France and the scandals that littered the early history of the main prizes tied to literature.

We’ve seen sexism, generational grudges, jokes turned serious and jokes turned epic.

But this was all soooo last century. Our forefathers made mistakes, but we’ve changed. We have grown, we matured. We’re all adults now. And adults are mostly made up of tall children.

Follow me along for… whatever the hell this is.

Trigger warning that will be repeated when we reach the relevant paragraph: child abuse.

Live and don’t learn a thing

We previously went through a variety of isolated events. Isolated, or not so much. Because save for some peculiar cases like Romain Gary (you gorgeous madlad), old and new scandals are linked by the circumstances that allowed them to happen.

It’s all about ethics, impartiality, and a couple fundamental systemic failings.

One thing after the next, let’s start with the rentrée littéraire.

A librarian cannot read the 500 or so books coming out at the same period. It’s physically impossible. They need to trim down the list, and the trimming will fatally be based on criteria unrelated to writing quality. Beholden to the need for profit, books with more advertising and buzz around them will be put forward, being on the shortlist for an eventual prize victory gives a lot of adversiting. In turn, the lists of potential winners comes from juries who cannot physically read all the books coming out in the period, and the lists are then related by journalists.

The phenomenon isn’t unique to the country of baguettes and amazing rugby openings for both teams involved (the lyrics of both hymns are translated, if you want an idea of how much the french anthem is all about blood flowing).

Plenty of readers, writers, journalists and whatnot will point out that worldwide literature (English link) suffers from a surfeit of books making it next-to-impossible to keep an overview. The rentrée littéraire exacerbates the problem by concentrating the bulk of new french books coming out on one period, directly contradicting the idea of awards rewarding the written world alone.

Some books will be judged on these qualities… once they pass the bar by garnering enough attention. But, glass half-full and all that, at least some books are judged by their merits.

Allegedly.

Do you know how the various juries deliberate? Neither do I, or the medias for that matter, and the opacity is another issue. Mind you, it’s gotta be extremely hard to have an objective way of sorting things out when we’re talking about an eminently subjective matter. You may like a book I hate, whose opinion matters most? Do we encourage original novels breaking the mold? Or pieces tackling burning societal problems?

But without at least trying to give some guidelines of how juries judge, or make deliberations transparent, it’s open bar for deals between friends and colleagues.

You saw in part 1 how the fight between Proust and Dorgelès boiled down to having the most support among journalists and judges. Without rules or watchdogs to make sure these rules are applied, the situation remains the exact same.

Translated from the article above:

Since its inception, the Goncourt has mostly been awarded to books from large publishers. Gallimard, for instance, holds the record with over 40 wins.

Gallimard is one of the biggest publisher in France, and the other big players like Grasset or Albin Michel are close in number of wins.

Now, big firms publish the most books, it would make sense they proportionally win most prizes. But how do you justify fairness when the jury of a prize is paid by these same big publishers? It took the Goncourt until 2008 to realize there’s something wrong with that and put a rule in place forbidding judges to be employed by publishers. The Académie Francaise did the same, but not the Renaudot.

Christian Giudicelli, recently deceased, was a jury of the Renaudot. He wrote Les Spectres Soyeux in 2019, and I can’t find any link because it can be translated to Silk Specters, which is also the pseudonym of a character from Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Edit: Idiot me searched for an English link, not thinking that the book hadn’t been translated. whatisthisnowwhat1 got the link for me. The book sold 180 copies (Giudicelli’s, not Alan Moore’s).

180 copies. The man was judge on one of the greatest literature prize in existence. He is published by Gallimard, one of, if not the, biggest publisher in France. Gallimard doesn’t publish books that sell so little, or if they do, they course-correct and send the author packing. How could a guy with such a prestigious post and strong backing fail so abysmally? And much more importantly, why did Gallimard keep them in their employ despite it? There’s a strong consensus among critics and journalists that Gallimard kept him because it ensured votes going their way each year.

With an overwhelming number of books out, advertising and marketing makes the difference between having a book spotted or not. The aforementioned big groups have the means to unleash a campaign to promote their current darlings. And they have contacts to members of the juries for added benefits. But for prizes supposed to award the best work irrelevant of publishing house, how do the small teams get through? With no buzz, chances are they won’t.

So how does one get a book to be sold among librarians anyway? (translated from the linked article):

On the stage, four novelists paraded in the morning : Robin Watine, Cécile Tlili, Emmanuel Flesch, Fabrice Humbert, with translator Diniz Galhos who came to present Long Island Compromise from the American Taffy Brodesser-Akner. For the publisher, its an occasion to convince librarians that their books are the best. And authors are often the best advocates to convince them;

(…)

This presentation is only a small part of the great commercial campaign. The next day, Virginie Ebat, commercial director for Calmann-Lévy (another big French publisher, translator’s notes), presented these same five titles to 160 librarians from the Leclerc hypermarkets […] Virginie Ebat only had 20 minutes to convince librarians of these books’ relevance. The day prior, the seance lasted two hours. You must be precise, concise, and know how to pitch with talent.

(…)

The trek isn’t over. Until the end of July, the commercial team will travel France, with seven stopovers in Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Marseille and Nantes. The publisher invites librarians in these cities for lunch, and brings with them at least two authors who will defend their colors. To leave nothing to chance, commercials from the Hachette group (the group that owns Calmann-Lévy among others, translator’s notes) travel the roads of France to directly visit librarians.

(…)

Alexandre Wickham, publishing director of non-fiction for Albin Michel, explained clearly: to submit a book project to his boss, Gilles Haéri, he has in general 15 minutes before getting an answer. When the book is announced for publishing, the presentation to executives lasts 3 to 4 minutes per book. Afterwards, the representative w…

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