Ok I want to say upfont that in general I hold to the view that an artistic work stands or falls on its own merit and shouldn’t be judged by the (possibly sordid) life of its creator. So I’m not so much interested in “I found out he was a total asshole so I can’t read/look at his work ever again” (although if that’s your experience make your case!)
More when the biography of the author gives you new insight into the work…or makes you :eek: when it doesn’t make sense.
My own inspiration for this thread is “Middlemarch”. One of me favourite books, that I’m currently rereading. A book that deals a lot with public image and how innocent people can be destroyed by perceptions of wrong doing…and for that matter how decent motives can seem outside of societal strictures. It was only now I noted in the indroductory essay that Mary Ann Evans lived much of her life with a married man. Something that made me :eek: because, I guess I assumed that was not something you could get away with in the 19th Century. And because I assumed that partially because of her book (admittedly she did write it about an earlier part of the century that she was living in).
Beyond that, I had to reflect on her own situation when reading about people undone by public condemnation. Something she had to be familar with.
Anyway, what are your experiences?
In the 1970s, I was thunderstruck by the work of a science fiction author who burst onto the SF scene with some of the finest short stories I’ve ever read. The author, James Tiptree, Jr., was a mysteriously reclusive person. In later years it was revealed that “he” was a “she.” Her real name was Alice B. Sheldon, and she was a former military officer who had worked for the CIA. I was totally amazed. Even though I am a woman, I had always thought that Tiptree’s literary voice was distinctly male.
Picasso was someone whose work I generally didn’t like, but could appreciate. One painting of his mistress asleep in a chair I actually found charming. Then I learned you could pretty much determine the health of his relationships by how he depicted them. I can’t enjoy that happy painting knowing she’d soon see how ugly she was, in his eyes, when things started to go downhill.
I’d always thought Yoko Ono was a demented, shrill goofball. I still sort of think that, but when I learned about her war experiences in Japan (in the thick of the bombings of Tokyo), I have more respect for her demented, shrill views about world peace.
Moby, who btw looks exactly like a friend of mine.
Never cared much about him nor his music. Then I found out he was a pacifist. Not in words but in action as well. I remember reading some story about how 3 guys beat him up one night. Cruel world.
“I’m not angry,” he said. “I don’t feel vindictive. Not to sound weird or wimpy, but I’m a pacifist and I believe in forgiveness. I just hope that at some point in these guys’ lives they come to realize that hurting other people is wrong.”
His thoughts on file sharing.
“well, as i’ve said before i’m happy and flattered if anyone makes the effort to listen to my music, regardless of the medium by which it’s delivered.”
Not that I support file sharing, but it’s good to see some artists out there just being happy that some people enjoy their music.
I met Ray Bradbury about ten years ago, and discovered that he was a Republican asshole. I’ve found it hard to take anything he’s written seriously since.
Did he just happen to be a Republican AND an asshole, or in your worldview do they just naturally go together?
Does your learning that he votes Republican really cause you to reassess your enjoyment of his work? Are F-451 or SWTWC or (fill in the blank) really diminished in your eyes because of his support for a particular political party?
I’m asking in all seriousness because I’ve read your posts over the years about books and authors and I’ve never let your obvious political leanings lessen my enjoyment and interest in what you had to say.
I read Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card after having already read his homophobic blog entry. I suppose that the fact of how readable I found the book to be made me think about how he expressed himself through the essay.
My apologies. I posted that brief message late last night (late for ME, anyway). I was too tired to be posting, and even so I knew that I was being too terse, was sloppily using “Republican” as shorthand for “asshole” (sorry, Senator McCain, and thousands of others), and had no chance of getting my message across.
When I met Bradbury, we started off by having a fun and interesting conversation about old comic strips and pulp magazine illustrators (turns out he’s a big fan of Alley Oop.) Somehow things moved on to contemporary American civil liberties, and he started to glowingly talk up Ed Meese and his attempts to broaden censorship during the 1980s. At great length. I found this very hard to reconcile with the author who created the “House of Usher” chapter in The Martian Chronicles and many other narratives.
Don’t worry, I’ll get over it some day. I still like Richard Wagner, possibly because I’ve never been forced to listen to him firsthand gabble about how the Jews are screwing up the opera world. Or had him steal my wife.
I was a big fan of George Bernard Shaw, having read all his plays as a teen. I thought he had an incredibly sharp mind. Then I found out a few years later that he was a big fan of Mussolini’s prior to World War II, that Mussolini was Shaw’s idea of what a superman should be. The superman and life force stuff in his prefaces had always struck me as out of context with his Fabian socialism, I guesss it was a little hole in his intellect that let a lot of bunkum in. I still liked Shaws stuff, but took his social ideas with a more jaundiced view.
When I found out HP Lovecraft was an anti-Semite and was also deeply bigoted WRT to Asians (I’m not sure what the term for that is, if any exists) I wasn’t so surprised. I still liked Lovecraft’s writings, but now it was obvious that when he spoke of “dark strange races conducting unspeakable rituals in the obscure corners of their blighted habitations” he was talking about Asians haggling over the price of fish in their markets. Didn’t change my view of Lovecraft, it was obvious he was freaky from the git-go.
I will agree with you re: his racism of foreigners. No real excuse, save for that he was a product of his times. However, I wish to point out that he married Sonia Green, a jewess. (Ok, so maybe they did only last seven or so years, but I blame his pathological hatred of the cities, and the fact he would have had to move to one, for that.)
After having already read a slew of his books, finding out that Orson Scott Card is a devout Mormon explained a lot. Both for bad and good - good: I understand parts of his writing better - bad: I understand parts of his writing better.
Finding out that Heinlein was seriously ill when he wrote The Number of the Beast stopped me from feeling guilty about despising that load of crap.
Most people believe (as I once did) that Elvis Presley was a lower middle-class kid who had a normal, happy, childhood, learned to sing and play music around his late teens, was discovered, and became an overnight sensation. Implicit in this marketing myth is the belief that ‘it could happen to anybody’, and that suffering and great art don’t have anything in common.
The fact is, Elvis came from a very poor, dysfunctional family. His lazy father didn’t do much in the way of providing, and his mother tried her best to fill in the gaps. By age 11, Elvis was playing his guitar on street corners for coins while his mother did laundry. The family’s poverty played a role in Elvis’ familiarity with African-American music: in the segregated south, really poor whites lived alongside blacks. The family also had a streak of ‘kooky loner’ – they didn’t really have many friends.
Elvis paid his dues and worked hard at his craft. He wasn’t a cardboard pop creation of Colonel Tom or anyone else. For example: the myth is that Elvis was first heard accidentally by Sam Phillips on a vanity recording of ‘My Happiness’ made as a birthday present for Elvis’ mother. The fact is, Elvis had been trying to get Phillips to hear him for over a year. But the effortless, happenstance, ‘overnight sensation’ story (with some filial devotion thrown in) made him more accessible to mainstream America, who tend to equate artsy suffering with French poets and beatniks.
The real Elvis was more kooky genius than happy, well-adjusted beneficiary of the American dream.
The story behind the song “Heartbreak Hotel” compounds the knowledge of Elvis’ hardscrabble life. The lyrics were written by schoolteacher Mae Boren Axton (mother of Hoyt Axton) and were based on a brief newspaper story of an anonymous suicide found in a cheap hotel. The man apparently had no ID, but left a note reading simply, “I walk the lonely street”.
Learning about Elvis’ early life gave me a newfound respect for his work. And for me, “Heartbreak Hotel” is no longer just a familiar, light-hearted pop cliche – the lyrics “I get so lonely I could die” make my blood run cold.
Ditto me for the Bradbury dislikers, but I also have some perspective. I have had several long conversations with the man, dating back to 1971 or so. He wasn’t always so “Republican” or so much of a curmudgeon. Comes with age, I guess.
I am totally incapable of taking any Scientologist’s work seriously, no matter what it is.
