1tregatt
With the recent bombshells involving Alice Munro and Cormac McCarthy, I have been thinking about this. How does one carry on enjoying the work of art created when you discover something unsavory about the artist? Should you take it in your stride? Avoid the books and stop recommending them? Is it a matter of degree? Does our response depend on the transgression? I think that it's quite the problem, and would love to hear what you think. Artists are not prefect and I am not suggesting that they be prefect, and yet...
22wonderY
The Guardian’s opinion piece about McCarthy:
Opinion
Let’s be honest with ourselves: Cormac McCarthy groomed a teenage girl
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/28/cormac-mccarthy-vanity-fai...
Opinion
Let’s be honest with ourselves: Cormac McCarthy groomed a teenage girl
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/28/cormac-mccarthy-vanity-fai...
32wonderY
What do we do about Alice Munro now?
Reckoning with the late author and Nobel Prize winner’s complicity in her daughter’s abuse.
https://www.vox.com/culture/359588/alice-munro-daughter-andrea-skinner-gerald-fr...
Reckoning with the late author and Nobel Prize winner’s complicity in her daughter’s abuse.
https://www.vox.com/culture/359588/alice-munro-daughter-andrea-skinner-gerald-fr...
4timspalding
>1 tregatt:
Some other factors to consider:
1. Is the author dead? While an author is living, there's a case to be made that promoting their book is also promoting the author. This does not apply to, say, Caravaggio. And it doesn't apply to McCarthy.
2. How extensively are the misdeed implicated in their work, or not at all?
3. Are the victims alive? What do they think?
And lest we forget: How sure are we of the facts of the case? How did the author react to the alleged misdeed? Did they deny it? Did they cover it up? Did they express remorse? Did they never get a chance to respond?
To take some examples:
1. McCarthy is dead, and Britt does not ask for his works not to be read. I have only read one of this works, but it won't stop me from reading another.
2. At this point, I would not do something socially with Gaiman.* I would not interview him for LibraryThing, both for that reason and to avoid offending members.** But I have a lot of questions about the story, which is strange and murky on many levels. I don't get a clear sense of what he actually did. (This may change.) Perhaps I would know better if I dove into whatever's come out in the last few months. I have not "decided" anything and am not sure I will ever know enough to. I am not his judge. And I don't get the sense his misdeeds are implicated in his work. I'm not a fanboy, but I will continue to read and recommend his work as it comes up.
3. I am repelled by Marion Zimmer Bradley. (I wouldn't read her anyway, but now I have another reason not to.) Her crimes were many, many times worse those of McCarthy or Gaiman, she covered up and was a hypocrite about them and her husband's crimes, her victims are still alive and traumatized—and all of it is woven into her work.
*I've met him and we've interacted a little since then, so it's not impossible.
**I think he should be interviewed, but not without these things coming up, and I'm not a reporter.
Some other factors to consider:
1. Is the author dead? While an author is living, there's a case to be made that promoting their book is also promoting the author. This does not apply to, say, Caravaggio. And it doesn't apply to McCarthy.
2. How extensively are the misdeed implicated in their work, or not at all?
3. Are the victims alive? What do they think?
And lest we forget: How sure are we of the facts of the case? How did the author react to the alleged misdeed? Did they deny it? Did they cover it up? Did they express remorse? Did they never get a chance to respond?
To take some examples:
1. McCarthy is dead, and Britt does not ask for his works not to be read. I have only read one of this works, but it won't stop me from reading another.
2. At this point, I would not do something socially with Gaiman.* I would not interview him for LibraryThing, both for that reason and to avoid offending members.** But I have a lot of questions about the story, which is strange and murky on many levels. I don't get a clear sense of what he actually did. (This may change.) Perhaps I would know better if I dove into whatever's come out in the last few months. I have not "decided" anything and am not sure I will ever know enough to. I am not his judge. And I don't get the sense his misdeeds are implicated in his work. I'm not a fanboy, but I will continue to read and recommend his work as it comes up.
3. I am repelled by Marion Zimmer Bradley. (I wouldn't read her anyway, but now I have another reason not to.) Her crimes were many, many times worse those of McCarthy or Gaiman, she covered up and was a hypocrite about them and her husband's crimes, her victims are still alive and traumatized—and all of it is woven into her work.
*I've met him and we've interacted a little since then, so it's not impossible.
**I think he should be interviewed, but not without these things coming up, and I'm not a reporter.
5prosfilaes
>4 timspalding: I am repelled by Marion Zimmer Bradley. (I wouldn't read her anyway, but now I have another reason not to.) ... and all of it is woven into her work.
I'm curious why you say that it's woven into her work, especially as opposed to McCarthy. Britt says McCarthy wrote her into several books, oft times with bad ends. I've only read Bradley's A complete, cumulative Checklist of lesbian, variant and homosexual fiction, in English which I did for Gutenberg, but you don't even have that perspective. How exactly does the 101st most popular author on LibraryThing, whose works have been built upon by many authors, have child abuse "woven into her work"?
(Interestingly enough, Thomas Malory, whose Le Morte d'Arthur is the basis for most post-medieval Arthuriana, is believed to have been a rapist writing from jail. Many argue he can't be the Thomas Malory who wrote the book because of that.)
I'm a little skeptical when people go back and look at, say, Bill Cosby's work and conclude it was obvious who he was from it.* It's easy to go from knowing the facts to saying it was obvious; it's the other way around that's convincing. I find the Tarnsman of Gor and following works disturbing, at least by reputation, but John Norman doesn't have any attacks on his personal reputation.
* He made some jokes about roofieing women. As a successful comedian, he made jokes that people laughed at; is it really possible to tell the difference between an entertainer selling his audience what they want, a entertainer talking big and dirty about things they wouldn't actually do, or an entertainer telling on themselves in a joking manner? (A lot of rap has the same issues; who's selling pure story, who's selling personal fantasy, and who's really criminal?)
I'm curious why you say that it's woven into her work, especially as opposed to McCarthy. Britt says McCarthy wrote her into several books, oft times with bad ends. I've only read Bradley's A complete, cumulative Checklist of lesbian, variant and homosexual fiction, in English which I did for Gutenberg, but you don't even have that perspective. How exactly does the 101st most popular author on LibraryThing, whose works have been built upon by many authors, have child abuse "woven into her work"?
(Interestingly enough, Thomas Malory, whose Le Morte d'Arthur is the basis for most post-medieval Arthuriana, is believed to have been a rapist writing from jail. Many argue he can't be the Thomas Malory who wrote the book because of that.)
I'm a little skeptical when people go back and look at, say, Bill Cosby's work and conclude it was obvious who he was from it.* It's easy to go from knowing the facts to saying it was obvious; it's the other way around that's convincing. I find the Tarnsman of Gor and following works disturbing, at least by reputation, but John Norman doesn't have any attacks on his personal reputation.
* He made some jokes about roofieing women. As a successful comedian, he made jokes that people laughed at; is it really possible to tell the difference between an entertainer selling his audience what they want, a entertainer talking big and dirty about things they wouldn't actually do, or an entertainer telling on themselves in a joking manner? (A lot of rap has the same issues; who's selling pure story, who's selling personal fantasy, and who's really criminal?)
6kiparsky
How does one carry on enjoying the work of art created when you discover something unsavory about the artist? Should you take it in your stride? Avoid the books and stop recommending them? Is it a matter of degree?
I'm afraid that's not something that someone else can answer for you. Your reading of a particular novel will never affect anyone but you. If, knowing what you know now, you find McCarthy or Munro or Bradley repulsive, maybe you don't want to read their work. That's fine, there's plenty of novels to read, you won't go without. (I can recommend the work of Myrlin Hermes, who is an awfully nice person and has nice cats.) If you think the work stands on its own, apart from its creator, or if you think their work is in some way sufficiently Important as Literature that you must read it despite your misgivings, then read it and find out how it makes you feel. If you're not sure, you can either read it and find out, or not read it and don't.
Whatever you do, nobody will ever be affected by your decision but you, and nobody will ever know or care who you read or why unless you decide to tell them. So it's really up to you.
What is interesting to me, while we're in this area, is the two-step that we see around Roald Dahl. Clearly a repulsive man, but with a fantastically lucrative back catalog. And so what do we do? We clean up some of the more egregious evidence of his shittiness and crank out yet another adaptation. I suggest that a culture machine that can tolerate Dahl really has no problem with any of the others except for their relatively low profit margins.
7LolaWalser
This is a recurrent debate that likely doesn't have a resolution, with "acceptable" and "unacceptable" varying from one person to another. Larry David and I apparently don't have a problem with Wagner's music, but that one neighbour of his in Curb your enthusiasm sure did.
8librorumamans
And there's T. S. Eliot, who was such a prick, quite apart from his appalling treatment of Vivienne.
9tregatt
Definitely agree that there are so many wonderful writers and composers and artists and that we should shift our focus away from the "troubling" ones and stop lionizing them. What I found interesting about myself was that while it is very easy for me to decide to stop reading an author like Munro, I still listen to Puccini. He died before he could give his full throttle support to Mussolini, and I remember feeling so relieved about that. As if I had been given permission to carry on enjoying his music. Definitely my moral compass is flawed if it can cherry pick what I can except and not except.
Which of course leads to the interesting point brought up: the two step we do around certain authors like Dahl and Enid Blyton and mystery writers from the Golden Age, for example. Which goes back to my observation about what we "allow" ourselves to overlook and we do not. Ultimately as was pointed it is a matter of personal choice and it is interesting and perhaps a little troubling (depending on your personality) what you give yourself permission to accept.
PS regarding comedians: comics who make misogynistic jokes about rape and racist observations about a society or culture should never be given a free pass. And it has nothing to do with the so called "cancel" culture. Such jokes are just cruel, bad manners and just unacceptable
Which of course leads to the interesting point brought up: the two step we do around certain authors like Dahl and Enid Blyton and mystery writers from the Golden Age, for example. Which goes back to my observation about what we "allow" ourselves to overlook and we do not. Ultimately as was pointed it is a matter of personal choice and it is interesting and perhaps a little troubling (depending on your personality) what you give yourself permission to accept.
PS regarding comedians: comics who make misogynistic jokes about rape and racist observations about a society or culture should never be given a free pass. And it has nothing to do with the so called "cancel" culture. Such jokes are just cruel, bad manners and just unacceptable
