Ernest Hemingway’s own life seriously damaged my enjoyment of A Farewell to Arms, though I suppose it would be a kind of creepy book anyway. But knowing its connections to its life just made me cringe the entire time I read it. Stupid 11th grade English.
I wanted to add Arthur C. Clarke,
but I just found out on wikipedia that the claims about him being a paedophile turned out to be lies,
Yay!
That would be a factor for me, too. I can read, with enjoyment, authors with whom I disagree. But I’d be very reluctant to help fund an organization or movement that I considered destructive. I also find that I simply don’t enjoy writing which I’ve come to believe is embedded in ways of thinking that I find repellent. To clarify: if I disagree with an author, I may still enjoy that person’s writing very much. But if I come to feel there’s simply something sour about the way an author looks at the world, that changes the way I read what that author’s written and takes much of the pleasure out of it. I’m thinking of one science fiction writer I used to enjoy very much, until I realized I could no longer distinguish her heroines from her sociopaths.