What Are You (Not) Reading Wednesday

[shipperx]

Not doing the Meme because I'm not reading anything at the moment, but seeing a few things on the sign-in page brought to mind a question.

While scrolling through my Amazon recs, I saw Marion Zimmer Bradley's books pop up and shuddered.

So my question is, how does the knowledge about the real-life person behind a book influence whether or not you read their books?

I admit that though I once read a Scott Orson Card book before I knew anything about him, I now find that I refuse to read anything that he has written.  Now, despite Mists of Avalon, the same applies to Marion Zimmer Bradley.  I just can't read her work.  Ever.  I won't.  ::shudder::

Is this a strange reaction?  (I hope not)

Should the author's real life invalidate their work?

If so there are tons of past artists that this standard could apply to.  Or is it perfectly okay to be so disgusted with someone's real life* such that you discard their work out of hand without even examining it because... ew.  And because they don't deserve the consideration.



*  Issues with Scott Orson Card are explained here and here  

Issues with Marion Zimmer Bradley here. (I cannot find the original article that gave me shudders and chills, so that'll have to do) 

Comments

[jerusha]

For me, it really depends on what the person has done, but it's hard for me to separate the person from their art. I think it can be a little different for actors, who are paid to become different people, and so it's a little easier for me to separate their work from their viewpoints or actions that I find objectionable.

It's harder when it's a writer, or even a director, because I think it's far more likely that some of those things will come through. I read Orson Scott Card before I knew his politics, and I read a ton of the Darkover books as a teenager that really resonated with me. MZB really moved SFF forward in terms of ensuring that women had a voice and a place within that genre, and I don't think we should forget that. But I also don't think that we can forget that she was a horribly abusive person who essentially helped her husband prey on small children.

So, I guess I don't necessarily take issue with someone who still loves her work, but I do take issue with some of the comments I've seen that excuse her actions, or try to downplay the sheer horror of what she did. You can like problematic things, and enjoy the work of people who have done horrible things, but you can't just sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen or wasn't terrible.

That said, I won't be reading MZB or Card's work any time in the near future.

[quinara]

I think if you're skeeved out by seeing her name on the front of a book, you're skeeved out by seeing her name on the front of the book and that's all the justification you ever need to not open the book.

From a more theoretical perspective, people these days tend to try and justify separating authors' reputations from appreciations of their stuff on the basis of ye olde Death of the Author, but that's actually basically unfounded because Death of the Author is really more about rejecting the idea that there's some sort of fixed and finite connection between literature's meanings and the inner self of its author from the point of creation onwards into the breach. Barthes and all his gang would be quite happy to point out that literature is socially contextualised and as long as MZB's stuff continues to circulate in attachment with her persona and (not least) with her name on the front as a marker of that, what you've got is some literature that's very much connected to all the chat surrounding her persona in the media. And skeeve sticks.

(The idea of Art as something which is pure and whole, to be appreciated aesthetically in isolation from all other stuff/in relation to de-historicised and universal principles is a much more modernist idea anyway. Which can go slightly fascistic if you're not careful.)

[cindergal.livejournal.com]

I don't think their personal life should invalidate their work, no. But if it squicks you, it squicks you. I don't think that's a strange reaction at all.

For me it depends, I guess, and I don't have any specific criteria. I still enjoy Woody Allen's films, and I went to see Ender's Game even though I have issues with Orson Scott Card as well. But I wouldn't read anything by Marion Zimmer Bradley now (and I just heard about all of this when Barb linked to it the other day).

I guess I agree with enigmaticblues in that I think it's okay for people to still like their work as long as those people recognize the issues (if they're aware of them - sometimes I wish I didn't know anything about anybody, lol) and aren't trying to make excuses for them.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I had a very rocky start with MZB, having read about 900 pages of the Mists of Avalon when I was 9 years old. I hated it, it took a story I had loved to pieces and made it all about sex.

When I had seen the cover in the library I thought it was more about the women in the King Arthur story, and it was. But instead of making them also do cool things, suddenly all the cool things were missing from the story and everything was about sex. As if women were good for nothing else.
I mean I was obviously far to young for that book, but it really turned me off women's fantasy until I found Tamora Pierce,Ursula Le Guin, Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton (the later two often used sex too but it wasn't sooo supercentral).

In hindsight I'm glad I always hated her, but yeah I know the experience of liking someone's work and finding out that they are a horrible person. I mean almost all older male writers have massive problems with women. I usually read stuff like that with more distance. I can still think Plato had interesting things to say, even though he was a massive misogynist and of course a pedophile.

It is different though with fantasy I can really dive into. I don't want to get lost in the head of someone who is a horrible person. Reading their books is like traveling through their brain and I don't want to do that when I believe them to be a person I would hate. I need more distance then and that would mean that I am no longer reading for entertainment.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

With MZB it's the sexual nature of her work combined with the sexual nature of her atrocities that has me backing away. ::shudder::

Scott Orson Card is just your run of the mill bigoted hypocritical asshole by comparison.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Card fortunately sounds like someone I will never miss not having read.

With MZB it's the sexual nature of her work combined with the sexual nature of her atrocities that has me backing away. ::shudder::

I agree. It's also because it feels terribly icky to be turned on by someone's sexual text when you learn that person has molested children. That's exactly what I meant, by visiting the inside of someone's head.

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

I can still think Plato had interesting things to say, even though he was a massive misogynist and of course a pedophile.

Interesting statement, because of course Plato is usually put in the context of his times, when misogyny and pedophilia were commonplace and accepted. It's appalling and disgusting to modern Western people, but he's usually given a pass because, well, ancient times.

That said, I loathe Card and will never give him my money or attention under any circumstances. His books could be the literary equivalent of spun gold, and I'd still spit on anything produced by that homophobic, whining blowhard. Bradley, however, was such a revolting person I can't even form words to describe my disgust, and while I did read MoA many years ago, I've never owned one of her books and now am very glad I never have. So horrible.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Interesting statement, because of course Plato is usually put in the context of his times, when misogyny and pedophilia were commonplace and accepted. It's appalling and disgusting to modern Western people, but he's usually given a pass because, well, ancient times.

There were also contemporaries of Plato that had a high regard for women, so I'm not inclined to let him off the hook. But still, Plato is nothing I'd read to lose myself in it. And of course he is not getting any money from my reading him.

I guess I would read political texts by pretty much everyone, even if it is just to be disgusted by them.
But fantasies? I'd rather hang in the head of people I don't find to have been horrible.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's easy to come across as almost "Orson Scott Card isn't all that bad by comparison." Which... yeah, I suppose that's true. But that doesn't mean that Orson Scott Card isn't a bigotted asshole who financially supports shitty causes to deny people rights. So... still bad. And I don't want to give him my money.

MZB thing though it outright, body-shudder horrifying.


It's a bit like that SNL sketch back during the Penn State case where they told a gleeful "Satan" that Penn State was being charged with NCAA violations. And "Satan" rubbed his hands together and was "Was it giving the quaterback a red corvette? Faking grades? Paying players?"

Then the desk person whispered to Satan what it actually was and "Satan" flips out and goes "Noooooooooo! Not that! Not that! Uggh! That's horrifying! Can't we go back to paying football players and faking grades?"

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

I have to say that Orson Scott Card and Marion Zimmer Bradley would be the examples I'd use too. I'd like to say that I'm able to separate my feeling about their politics and/or personal failings from books I loved, but I find it tough. It's like now that I know what they think I find it coloring my interpretation of the writing. At least I've found that with OSCs novels; MZB just makes me feel ill. I have no desire to read any more of her books ever again. ::shudders::

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

They're both cases beyond "they're assholes."

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Should the author's real life invalidate their work?

I have a bunch of thoughts on this, not all coherent or consistent. There are a lot of writers/musicians/film makers/actors/etc I have huge problems with as people, but also admire as artists. I won't deprive myself of, say, Polanski's films or Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High" just because I find the people who made them despicable. (ETA: Though I completely understand the reaction, and there have been cases where I've given up on things completely because it became too hard to separate art and artist.)

Whether I want to pay them is another matter.

And sure, the more I know about what they did, the harder it becomes to not let it influence my experience of their work. So then we come to the "should I boycott (for lack of a better word) their work?" And every time that question comes up you get a bunch of people complaining that you HAVE to separate the artist and the art, almost to the point where the more deplorable an artist's actions, the more you're expected to support them in order to show your respect for their work. Which is an impressive bit of doublethink. I've never read Orson Scott Card, but somehow, a few years ago my continued not-reading of him became, in some people's eyes, a political act rather than just a choice in how to spend the time I have available for reading. When he was just another sci-fi author, nobody cared if you read him or not; when he became just another sci-fi author and a massive bigot, suddenly you're violating his democratic rights by not reading him. (I don't know if you're familiar with the huge row regarding the HUGO awards this year, where some people nominated a writer who makes OSC look like your average tumblr social activist in comparison, and people tied themselves in knots trying to explain how freedom of speech would be dead if everybody didn't vote for him.)

The way I see it, nobody today ever chooses not to read a book, watch a movie, listen to a song, etc. None of us (well, few of us) are under any obligation to do it. We're born into the world boycotting everything by default, then we choose what to support in the [24 hours times 365 days times 80-odd years] we have available. And sure, what I know about the person behind it will be part of that, probably a larger one if I'm not already familiar with their work. We all base the decision whether or not to read a certain book on whatever paratext we have; the blurbs on the front, the summary on the back, the cover, the reviews ... and that little blurb about the writer. If all I know about a book is that the writer is a horrible person, I probably won't read it, and it's not like my life will be any poorer for it. I don't think any of us are at risk of running out of books to read.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I've read one (possibly two, because I'm pretty sure I read Enders Game way, way, way back in the day). But the one I read (a haunted house one) wasn't awful in itself (though, looking back, yeah, patronizing sexism lurked in it.) At the time I rated it as intriguing premise, intriguing theme (the ghosts and the people involved were stuck in a limbo of their own making, basically. Good metaphor for arrested development), but underwhelming execution of its premise. I thought someone could develop the theme into something more interesting than he did.

However, after becoming aware of his views and advocacy, I set on the thought that I don't want to give this guy any money. I might watch Ender's Game when I can see it for free, but I don't feel compelled to give this guy money.

The MZB thing squicks me. And, as stated above, given the sexual nature of her work and the sexual deviancy (real deviancy) of her lifestyle, I'm just a body shuddering "do not want" where that's concerned.

[cordykitten]

I can't answer the questions because it didn't came up yet. Saw this on my F-List now; it's the first I hear about it. (One of the reasons I lowe LJ - I get to know things).

Regarding MZB (haven't read the other article) - That's awful. I was always a big fan of MZB; she and Anne McCaffrey were some of my favorites back then. Didn't have Internet then were you can get to know things.

*thinks* That must have been in the 80s I guess, around 1980 - 1984?

Reading your entry got me to think: I know almost no to nothing about the author's personal lives. Just lately I try to follow some via Goodreads and Twitter. Still I won't get anything too personal there. I doubt that MZB would have posted about this issue. I wonder how many of the readers know about that and how many don't.

I'm not sure though I would have read the books if I had known back then.

[rahirah]

The MZB thing goes back to the 50s, which was when Walter Breen (the man she eventually married) was first convicted of child molestation. She knew about it. Married him anyway. Looked the other way as he preyed on children for the next thirty years, until he was finally sent to jail in the late 80s. And according to her daughter, she abused her own children physically and emotionally as well.

By all accounts, she was a lesbian in a time when that in and of itself was considered deviant, with a lot of internalized homophobia, and was abused herself as a child. She was a hot mess. But while that may explain her actions, it can't excuse them for me.