Well, now we know. One instance of child rape in a book written by a child rapist does not allow people to be disgusted by it. I’m sure we’ll all agree that is a reasonable and well-adjusted viewpoint to hold.
As to the other straw man argument you’re furiously accusing everyone of defending: it’s not that Dyan’s rape of Danilo is portrayed sympathetically. It is the child rapist who is portrayed sympathetically. Over several books in the Darkover series. And she furthermore has Danilo “come to terms” with his rapist who was made into his foster-father. The fact that this storyline was written by someone who was raping her own child makes it all the more stomach-turning.
Yes, I’m aware of that. I’ve been aware of that for a number of years now. I have zero hesitation talking about the Breen case, what he was accused and convicted of, his dying in prison, and her defense of him whenever the topic comes up. Why do I need to read those cites over and over?
The topic of this thread is “Now that Marion Z. Bradley’s child raping has come out, does it change your desire to reread her?”. The answer is no, in my case it does not. That statement is not based on ignorance, it’s based on my not judging the worth of a novel based on whether or not I personally like the author.
I get the feeling that unless I come down on the “ew, she’s sick, I’ll never read anything of hers again!” side of the argument you will never be satistifed.
Yes, what Breen and MZB did is reprehensible. Breen was convicted and died in jail. Perhaps, even probably, MZB should have been as well, but she wasn’t and since she’s dead that will never happen. I fully support any victims coming forward and telling their story. I will verbally smack down anyone even implying those victims shouldn’t speak up or “damage” their reputation.
I’ll still re-read the books. I don’t see what possible good it would do to take a battered paperback I purchased 30 years ago and burn it or whatever. Now, if someone else would derive some satisfaction from doing so, fine (well, I’m sort of opposed to book burning in general but I’m willing to make exceptions, a person’s mental health is more important than a book as a physical object).
Well I think I have a solution. I agree that MZB the child rapist does not personally deserve any accolades that her fiction might bestow on her memory. So how about requiring that all references to her have child rapist in parens after her name, i.e., Marion Zimmer Bradley (child rapist). This would include the covers of her books. That way no one could say, “I didn’t know she was a child rapist!” because until discovering the threads on the Dope about her, I didn’t know that she was a child rapist or that she enabled her child rapist husband. I did not read her books … I think I tried one a couple of decades ago and found it dull. But I don’t think I would have bothered to even try it had the words “child rapist” been attached to her name.
We should probably do the same for Roman Polanski, too.
I’m not kidding here, BTW, seems a workable solution.
I didn’t say I was not disgusted by child rape. I most certainly am. A lot of fiction has a lot of things in it I find disagreeable to revolting, that’s sort of how you tell who the villains are in a story.
I never said anything about how anyone else should feel. Really, I sometimes think Mr. Dibble is the only one actually listening to everyone in these threads. If you’re disgusted you’re disgusted. If you wish to express that disgust by never reading anything by that author again I fully support your actions. The only thing I would find objectionable is if you insist that I must have the same reaction and take the same actions you do.
Since not every story in every book she ever wrote involves children being raped I don’t think it was any sort of major inspriation for her. She didn’t become a writer being she raped little boys. In fact, according to her daughter, she only raped little girls, something I don’t think ever appeared in her fiction (that is, older woman/girl). Arguably she was influenced by Breen’s crimes in her writing, but not her own.
One of my best friends actually did reconcile with her father who raped her multiple times in about the same age range as the Danilo character. That doesn’t mean anyone is “sympathetic” to what he did - it was a horrifically evil series of acts - or is “OK” with it. It does not mean they’re best of friends or that all the horrible stuff is forgotten. It doesn’t mean he’s forgiven. It didn’t take him off the sex offender list or restore anything he lost for his crime. Yes, sometimes in real life people don’t want to eviscerate the bad guy and hang the pieces from the battlements. She choose, of her own free will after two decades of therapy and recovery, to re-contact her biological father and periodically visits him. That is her choice. I don’t agree with it, but it’s not my choice to make.
I will also state that the way such a thing is portrayed in the Darkover series is unrealistically pretty and sanitized.
In light of current knowledge I have to wonder if when she was writing that she was on some level hoping for some sort of forgiveness and/or reconciliation for Breen, to whom she was still married at that point (they separated 4 years after the novel was published). Obviously, that didn’t happen. Not the least because there was no prior relationship between Breen and his victim. The only time I’ve ever heard of that sort of thing in real life has been when there was a prior connection between rapist and victim, usually a biological/family one (parent/child, or sibling/sibling or something of the sort). If a stranger/acquaintance commits the crime there is zero motivation for the victim to have any sort of subsequent contact with the abuser.
If we really did issue scarlet letters to all the various artists guilty of various crimes and sins a part of me would be amused at the reaction of people who suddenly have it rubbed in their face just how common evil is in the world.
That’s part of why I won’t join a boycott - why just MZB and not all the other bad people who made something?
Note that I did NOT claim that all, or even most, abuse survivors become abusers. I claimed nothing except an increased rate. My claim is well-documented, given its relatively soft nature.
Even if my claim is wrong, though–and I welcome evidence that it is (note that I’m welcoming evidence that my soft claim is wrong, and explicitly not welcoming evidence about a more strident claim I didn’t make)–it’s incorrect to call the view “repugnant”; at worst it’s ignorant. A repugnant view would excuse her behavior based on increased prevalence of abuse among survivors of abuse, and nobody has done that.
It’s a bit unclear. If “one third” of abuse victims grow up to abuse their children, is that a greater rate than those who weren’t abused? I’m sure hoping that the percentage of non-abuse victims who end up abusing their kids is smaller than 1/3, but that particular cite doesn’t specify.
To be fair as I argued in the other thread I wouldn’t quite agree with that characterization. He was portrayed as a fairly complex character with some redeeming qualities, that I’ll grant. But he was a smug, arrogant, mostly unlikeable prick from beginning to end who winds up letting that arrogance lead him into disaster - he ends up in an antagonist role yet again by the end. Pretty gray, all in all.
The first part is true though and it is possible this is a window into MZB’s soul ( though maybe not, who knows how she compartmentalized her life ). It was a mild WTF even when I was a teenager. Not a huge WTF the way she presented it within the context of that quasi-feudal society, but still kinda…off. Insomuch as Dyan Ardais ends up fucking up yet again, you could speculate about where her head and perhaps feelings of guilt were, but again who knows.
I don’t know that I could categorize MZB’s fiction ( that I’ve read ) as having a particularly pedophilic or even grossly rapey vibe ( though there is certainly some of the latter ). But sex and sexual politics certainly ran through her work, so I think it does become easy to cherry-pick out passages and start trying to dig through them with a critical eye. Whether that is productive or not I have no idea.
I’m not a fan of her’s, nor have I ever been one. I’m just trying to argue that it is possible to separate the art from the artist. Not always of course, and I don’t think that people have to feel this way. BUT, if someone chooses to say hey, I still own these books, I like them, I’ll read them, I don’t think that makes them bad people. Obviously I don’t think this is an absolute – I’m not going to hang one of Hitler’s paintings on my wall. (Not to mention they were pretty shitty, anyways!). But if someone invited me to say, oh, a performance of Wagner, I might go, even though the man was an anti-semite. I won’t buy one of Gary Glitter’s albums, but if I’m watching a hockey game, I won’t mute the TV every time they play “Rock And Roll Pt. 2”. (I might even yell “Hey!” along!)
Besides I’ve only read one of MZB’s books – The Mists of Avalon. It was years ago, and I hated it, so I don’t know if that’s enough to comment on her work.
You might want to be a little more specific as to your criticism. Failing that, I don’t think my claim is what you think it is.
You might be suggesting that the 1/3 of abusers who abuse their own children is not an especially high rate. While I’m wary of mixing stats from multiple sources, since you can get into an apples-and-oranges situation, this website says that almost 1 in 100 children are abused every year. It’s very difficult to find a way to make “almost 1 in 100 children abused each year” work in a world in which 1/3 of adults abuse their kids.
I would not characterize them as being particularly pedophilic, either. (Darkover, at least; Avalon was so dull I can’t recall much of it.) Rape or threatened rape, there was in plenty.
However, the contention that Broomstick keeps arguing against is whether the child rapist wrote about child rape and child rapists in her books. She did. Dyan/Danilo is a well-known example. It apparently does not count as an example because Broomstick has proclaimed there must be “more than one” example to count.
Did MZB (child rapist) write about child rape in her books? Yes, she did. Does it make a difference to some people that such writing was perhaps limited in scope, and she was not writing all-rape-all-the-time? Apparently it does. I have no problem with people who decide one instance is too much, nor with people who decide that just the instance of the author’s actions outside of her literary work is too much.
I do have a problem with claims that the theme is not present in her work, because there may not be “more than one” example.
I did not say “various crimes” I said “child rape.” I might also include murder, torture and regular rape. We can leave bank robbery, jaywalking and overdue library books off the list. If there are a lot of artists who have committed such crimes … so be it.
The 1/3 stated in the cite is for children who are maltreated. Of which sexual abuse is only one form of maltreatment. It also includes physical abuse, neglect and mental/psychological abuse. The cite does not say that 1/3 of sexual assault victims will sexually assault others. Then there is the ol’ correlation vs causation problem. In the cite it notes that there are other factors which seem to make child maltreatment more likely. Lets lump them into environmental factors. Since the same environmental factors would be present with different generations of maltreated children it can be assumed that those factors effect all of them in some way.
The cite points out risk factors, not direct causes. It is about preventing maltreatment, not a study of what causes someone to sexually abuse a child. I’m sure there are plenty of those studies out there with varying degrees of usefulness. This cite ain’t one of them.
Is it not a perfect cite for exactly what was requested? Perhaps. Is it good enough for a fricking cafe society thread? You betcha. If your claim is that while 1/3 of mistreated kids go on to commit abuse, no similar dynamic applies for sexual abuse, I think the ball is in your court to show that sexual abuse is categorically different from all other varieties of abuse in this respect.
I didn’t claim a causal factor, either, so that’s irrelevant.
Please do not mischaracterize what I said. It is dishonest and despicable.
The question was, for me, was one example enough to make me give up on a series or a novel. That answer is, for me, no it is not. But hey, just completely ignore everything else I said about having zero issue with other having different opinions or taking a different action than I do. I have said nothing prescriptive in two threads on this topic.
Unlike Breen, MZB has never been dragged into court and convicted of child rape. The certainty of her guilt is not the same as the certainty over Breen.
Or do you want to move from a society where everyone gets a fair hearing to one where accusations are the same as convictions?
I have no reason to doubt Moire Greyland, but hers is one accusation made many years after the fact about a woman who is dead and can’t defend herself. While I think it is possible such a thing occurred given what we know of MZB it is still an accusation, not a conviction. I’d feel a lot more comfortable with some additional corroboration.
Again, you are distorting what I said in a dishonest manner to presumably promote your agenda.
One example is all it takes to say she wrote about it - I never denied that. However, it was not a major inspiration or major theme for an entire series of books, over 50 in total. 50 books and it only comes up once in that entire series. I just don’t see it being some sort of cornerstone.
If you find rape of an under age boy to be so disturbing you don’t want to ever read such a story then don’t read Heritage of Hastur. Or, if you really despise the author and don’t want to read anything of hers then don’t. But don’t tell other people what they are or are not allowed to read, or keep pounding that if they JUST READ THE CITE! they would magically convert to your viewpoint.
Yes, crimes are appallingly common, as is child abuse both sexual and otherwise.
While we’re at it, we should disband Bayer corporation and Volkswagon due to their connection to Nazi Germany, crush all Ford vehicles because the original owner and founder of the company was a rabid anti-Semite. Smash all the iPhones due to worker abuse in China. Burn every scrap of cloth produced or sewn into garments in India and Pakistan because of child labor. For that matter, we should remove all fresh fruit and vegetables grown in the US from store shelves because of the exploitation of illegal immigrants, including children, in harvesting them.
Maybe I just don’t get singling out this one person and her work when so many other things in our lives are soaked through and through with blood and misery. Is child rape horrific? It sure is. So are a lot of other things. Why is this the most important item on your list of horrors?
Well, can you name another author of roughly the same prestige and influence, who has done something approximately as bad, with about the same level of documentation, who is getting away with it with no criticism?
Are we “singling out” Bradley unfairly? This is one of the problems of “celebrity.” The nation paid a huge amount of attention to the O.J. Simpson murder trial…and other murder trials have been almost entirely neglected. But in the context of this discussion board, Bradley is a pretty prominent figure. A lot of us are fantasy readers (and writers. I know several people who have rejection slips signed by Bradley!)
If it turned out that Isaac Asimov was guilty of the same crimes, and we all said, “Oh, well, shrug, that’s not so important, because…” (whatever possible excuse, I can’t imagine) then, yeah, we’d be guilty of outrageous hypocrisy.
Nice strawman you are building there, Jack. I only advocated identifying the authors/directors/etc. who commit these terrible crimes as having done what they did. You’re right, there are a lot of rotten things going on in the world that need to be fixed, but I thought the solution I presented here was fairly simple and sensible. You must agree at some level, because I notice you are not arguing with the actual point I made but are haring off all over the place after points I did not make.