Comments on: Review: At Large and at Small, Anne Fadiman; or, A Review Post that Took a Turn for the Introspective

By: Christy

Christy — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:06:33 +0000

I think that sometimes I’ve been affected by the author’s life story, when I’ve known of it. But on the other hand, I’ve loved two of Dickens’ books wholeheartedly and do not feel conflicted about it. So I can compartmentalize in that sense.

But yeah, if the book itself seems unwelcoming to me as a reader, i.e. incredibly misogynistic, then I feel fine not liking it for that reason.

The quotes you’ve included from Fadiman’s book are great.

By: The Literary Omnivore

The Literary Omnivore — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 15:55:56 +0000

In reply to Jenny. Yeah. I think context is important.

By: helen

helen — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 15:24:49 +0000

I’m very late to the party but I do think this is such an interesting question. Do you know, it never occurred to me to feel excluded by an author’s books, that s/he might not want me to be a reader? Too bad, authors.

I was thinking that I didn’t mind about how horrible people were in real life until Charlotte reminded me of William Mayne. There the horror is just too close to the material, it’s part of it. Ugh.

As for your dilemma, Jenny, I think if you don’t like someone’s books – let’s call him Hemingway – and you don’t care for his character and there’s basically nothing of his work or himself that interests you, then don’t read him. There are already too many good books out there for us to read in our lifetimes. Gavel.

By: Katy

Katy — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:20:19 +0000

I think people are often too quick to seize on one aspect of an author and say,”This is bad, therefore this author is a bad person, therefore I don’t like his/her writing.” People are complicated, and I think part of the beauty of fiction is that we get to see a side of the author that we would not have seen if we had just known him/her in person. I think, also, that you have to distinguish between the qualities/ obsessions/ prejudices that are central to the writer’s life, to the point where they spill over into the work, and the qualities that are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. And when you reach the point where the writer’s problems become problems with the work, you’re back at evaluating the work, not the author.

By: Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness)

Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:07:35 +0000

I like the verdict up at the top of these post. I always have a super hard time summing up thoughts in a sentence.

I think the personality of the author mostly bothers me in memoirs, especially those written by politicians. I don’t worry about it so much in fiction, although I do feel a little “Ugh, gross” when the language or tone of an older piece of writing deliberately doesn’t include me.

By: charlotte

charlotte — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 01:11:20 +0000

I was very sad to have lost my ability to appreciate William Mayne’s books (English, children’s books) when it came out in 2004 that he lured adolescent girls into his company with the bait of being characters in his books and then molested them. The sickness of the author is far too much part of the reading, certainly when the main characters are girls, less so when its all boys, to pretend all is well.

By: Bookgazing

Bookgazing — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:17:18 +0000

Jane Austen, according to Kate Williams’ book, also did not care for Emma Hamilton which… I feel like we should all strive to love Emma Hamilton because she got such a rough deal and she kind of made Nelson the oh so very famous man he is today. While I still love Jane Austen’s work, I can’t help but think about her and her objections to Emma’s fashions (turbans etc) when I think about her rather than her books.

I think for me whether I can get over an author being obnoxious, or vile to the people in their lives, has to do with how long ago it was and what they were being obnoxious about (am I going to read books by James Frey – no I am not, but I would like to go for more Dickens despite his awfulness). And how long ago they were writing has a lot to do with whether I can get through books that make me feel excluded too. It’s much easier for me to be more objective about writers who are dead (which probably says something terrible about me) and it’s easier for me to push through that exclusion knowing they aren’t around to add any more comments to what they’ve already left behind.

How do you feel about authors who really don’t like bloggers btw? Do you bother with them or no?

By: NWK (@MumsyNancy)

NWK (@MumsyNancy) — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 20:15:10 +0000

I read with awe (but not agreement, necessarily) those people who don’t care who the author is or what s/he does. I definitely care. I loved Alice Walker’s work so much more when I didn’t know what a crap mother she was. It’s not the only thing, but now it is an eternal asterisk in my mind. Because, you know, while I am reading I am living in the author’s world -s//he is the God of that world, so his/her character matters to that world. It doesn’t mean that the world is not clever and beautifully crafted. But it does mean that everything in it is a little bit tainted and corrupted. Or so I see it. I mean, after I read Hawthorne saying that women writers should have their faces scarified by broken oyster shells, how can I ignore that, or think it didn’t impact his conception of the men and women in his novels?

Re: Lolita: I thought the point was how Humbert Humbert had thrown the veil of his own fantasies over another human to the point of utterly ignoring the actual person – whose name is not even the name he calls her? Which is a thing we all do to some extent? That’s a pretty cool point to make, and an artful way of doing it, I think.

Also, I must hear more about this feud between Austen and Bronte. I never knew that! Dang, that’s what happens when you major in Arabic instead of English.

By: Ana @ things mean a lot

Ana @ things mean a lot — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:45:40 +0000

I can often (though not always) compartmentalise whatever I know about the author’s life and/or whatever horrible views they may hold, but I do struggle with the not feeling wanted as a reader thing. I don’t know whether this is something we SHOULD try to get over. I suspect that if we do, it’s only to the extent that it might be beneficial to us – maybe our lives will be enriched if we engage with this person’s work even though said work excludes us; maybe there’s something we can take away from it that will be valuable to us and worth the effort. But at the same time, I try to go easy on myself when I just can’t push through the feelings of exclusion and persist. We’re only human, after all, and feeling actively rejected by a text is such an unpleasant thing.

By: Alice (@alice_sings)

Alice (@alice_sings) — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:38:48 +0000

FIRST OF ALL. Hawthorne is a beautiful writer and should be read. And Scarlet Letter is wonderful and ahead of its time and you have to take cultural context into account and ALSO you can be good in some ways and bad in some ways and this is true of everyone, and maybe his bad-in-some-ways was an ignorant attitude about women writers because a lot of them at the time weren’t educated and probably sucked.

“I have a hard time being interested in people who were not sufficiently bothered about being good to their loved ones”

I’ve done multiple posts about how I love Dickens’s work an insane amount, but would punch him in the nose if we met. So I won’t talk overly much about that. And I do find myself far less forgiving of contemporary authors who’re supposed to be jerks (sorry, Franzen), but you can be terrible at dealing with people, but get out essential truths in your writing nonetheless. I don’t think entire authors should be discounted because of some dumb things they say in real life. If that happened, no one would read Ender’s Game, which would be a terrible thing.