(no subject)
1/9/06 21:27![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlectomy"Why on earth do you care what the author's political position is, if he writes well, and the book's not overtly ideological?", I have heard. And also, of course, "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written."
The thing is, I don't want art that aligns with my personal ideologies.
(Okay, sometimes I do, to persuade myself that I'm not utterly alone. Moving on--)
I want art that is true. I find myself in agreement with John Gardner:
Most people's moral and ideological viewpoints are built upon what they imagine to be objective truths. And when authorial assumptions about reality clash with my own assumptions about reality--one of two things happens. Either I get very annoyed with the book, as annoyed as when fictional twins have the same fingerprints or when Japanese characters speak the Japanese of an American in his second semester of community college Japanese, or else my interpretation of the book turns out all wacky.
Example the first: the book I'm currently reading, "The Hollow Kingdom." Two orphaned girls live in a country house in England. A horrible, ugly, cruel goblin (not even the David Bowie kind of goblin, y'know?) stalks Kate and eventually gets her to marry him through machinations that allow the reader to just barely not accuse him of rape. And then she falls in love with him. (Didn't we get over that in the 70s?) I just flat-out don't believe it. Or, if I can believe it, I can only believe it as a horror story, not a happy-ending romance kind of thing.
Which brings me to example the second: "Twilight," by Stephenie Meyer. Edward is an overprotective, self-proclaimedly dangerous guy with temper issues. I peg him as abusive stalker guy, because that's how he reads to me. Only he's the designated romantic interest. So I keep waiting...and waiting...and waiting, for the reversal that shows him to be not exactly good boyfriend material. It doesn't come. (There is a sequel, and I expect it'll end up as a trilogy, but do I still hope that Ed will be revealed as the creepy guy he is? Nah.)
Similarly, there are a lot of Harry Potter fans out there who think that since the moral subtext of the books is so self-evidently bankrupt, there must be some major revelations coming in the last book. I don't think Rowling is that smart, personally. But their interpretations are fascinating, regardless.
My problem with these books isn't that they're not sufficiently feminist for me. And neither of them is ever overtly even the slightest bit in the "Get in the kitchen and make me a sammich!" mode. It's just that I can never quite believe in them.
Mind you, I get the same reaction with books that superficially seem to be on my side, when they're too glib and simplistic (see also: Tamora Pierce). And I can always read them as fantasy to some degree, although that really depends on how much I was expecting of the book.
I would rather have a book try to diligently persuade me that we should all paint ourselves blue on Tuesday, than have a book assume that all right-thinking people paint themselves blue on Tuesday and it's not a question up for debate.
(I have to add, it's not that I'm so sure that my own personal convictions are the right ones; it's just that they're mine, and by definition they're the ones that match most closely with the reality I believe myself to have observed.)
The fun part is, even as I'm arguing that I'm not going to like an 'immoral' book no matter how well-written it is, I'm also arguing that fiction should never try overtly to be moral, because you're not going to convice anyone who doesn't already agree with your assumptions. *g* And I'm profoundly uninterested in whether books make people better people or not. I'm pretty sure that there's almost no book, video game, CD, or movie in the world that would turn me into a serial killer. I just don't think there's such a sharp line between aesthetics and morality; good art is good art because it says something true, and at the macro-level--looking across an entire novel--a novel can hardly help saying something (true or not) about politics, or morality.
The thing is, I don't want art that aligns with my personal ideologies.
(Okay, sometimes I do, to persuade myself that I'm not utterly alone. Moving on--)
I want art that is true. I find myself in agreement with John Gardner:
No one with a distorted view of reality can write good novels, because as we read we measure fictional worlds against the real world.
The good writer sees things sharply, vividly, accurately, and selectively (that is, he chooses what's important).
Most people's moral and ideological viewpoints are built upon what they imagine to be objective truths. And when authorial assumptions about reality clash with my own assumptions about reality--one of two things happens. Either I get very annoyed with the book, as annoyed as when fictional twins have the same fingerprints or when Japanese characters speak the Japanese of an American in his second semester of community college Japanese, or else my interpretation of the book turns out all wacky.
Example the first: the book I'm currently reading, "The Hollow Kingdom." Two orphaned girls live in a country house in England. A horrible, ugly, cruel goblin (not even the David Bowie kind of goblin, y'know?) stalks Kate and eventually gets her to marry him through machinations that allow the reader to just barely not accuse him of rape. And then she falls in love with him. (Didn't we get over that in the 70s?) I just flat-out don't believe it. Or, if I can believe it, I can only believe it as a horror story, not a happy-ending romance kind of thing.
Which brings me to example the second: "Twilight," by Stephenie Meyer. Edward is an overprotective, self-proclaimedly dangerous guy with temper issues. I peg him as abusive stalker guy, because that's how he reads to me. Only he's the designated romantic interest. So I keep waiting...and waiting...and waiting, for the reversal that shows him to be not exactly good boyfriend material. It doesn't come. (There is a sequel, and I expect it'll end up as a trilogy, but do I still hope that Ed will be revealed as the creepy guy he is? Nah.)
Similarly, there are a lot of Harry Potter fans out there who think that since the moral subtext of the books is so self-evidently bankrupt, there must be some major revelations coming in the last book. I don't think Rowling is that smart, personally. But their interpretations are fascinating, regardless.
My problem with these books isn't that they're not sufficiently feminist for me. And neither of them is ever overtly even the slightest bit in the "Get in the kitchen and make me a sammich!" mode. It's just that I can never quite believe in them.
Mind you, I get the same reaction with books that superficially seem to be on my side, when they're too glib and simplistic (see also: Tamora Pierce). And I can always read them as fantasy to some degree, although that really depends on how much I was expecting of the book.
I would rather have a book try to diligently persuade me that we should all paint ourselves blue on Tuesday, than have a book assume that all right-thinking people paint themselves blue on Tuesday and it's not a question up for debate.
(I have to add, it's not that I'm so sure that my own personal convictions are the right ones; it's just that they're mine, and by definition they're the ones that match most closely with the reality I believe myself to have observed.)
The fun part is, even as I'm arguing that I'm not going to like an 'immoral' book no matter how well-written it is, I'm also arguing that fiction should never try overtly to be moral, because you're not going to convice anyone who doesn't already agree with your assumptions. *g* And I'm profoundly uninterested in whether books make people better people or not. I'm pretty sure that there's almost no book, video game, CD, or movie in the world that would turn me into a serial killer. I just don't think there's such a sharp line between aesthetics and morality; good art is good art because it says something true, and at the macro-level--looking across an entire novel--a novel can hardly help saying something (true or not) about politics, or morality.