Curiosity: You Mormon (or any mormon family or big exposure to the religion)? I ask because Memory of Earth a retelling of the Book of Mormon- pretty much exactly, down to the character's *names*, I shit you not- and it's pretty impossible to miss if you have any background in the religion. I'm curious if you liked it *despite* that or oblivious to that.
Enderr's Game is one of the best books of modern SF, and the sequels, while they deteriorate in quality, still say these wonderful, deeply moral things about understanding and forgiveness and peace and acceptance.
When I realized that the man who wrote them was a complete bigot- PROUD of being a bigot, not even trying to hide it in polite society- I was crushed. It seems like a betrayal, you know? Someone who wrote so beautifully shouldn't be *allowed* to be so despicable. Or someone so despicable shouldn't be *able* to write so beautifully. It's a big fat warning sign against admiring a writer as a *person* based only on their fiction. You can write moral stories and still be an immoral douche.
I could have been his biggest fan. Instead, I do everything I can to keep people from buying his work. *shrug*
I didn't know that about Memory of Earth! I wish I had; I'm always interested in that kind of project, the reworking of significant myths into new formats.
I know what you mean about the sense of betrayal. I just keep wanting to go up to him and be like, "Speaker for the Dead -- SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD!!!" Did he *read* the fucking book? That's actually why I think of him as qualitatively less sane than the average bigot; I think the amount of cognitive dissonance it must require to be theoretically for all the things Card is theoretically for, and yet to put them all in abeyance at the sight of certain triggers -- there's just no way to look at that except as a type of insanity.
I felt the same way, btw, when I found out Paul Haggis was a Scientologist. I just kept imagining trying to explain to Fraser what a "suppressive person" is, and it honestly made me want to cry.
Paul Haggis? Seriously? Yeah. Wow. Gah. It's so hard when you respect an artistic work and respect someone as the creator of that work and then realize that you can't seem to respect them *as a person*. It sucks.
(Though, imagining Fraser's reaction to that conversation is fairly entertaining)
Enderr's Game is one of the best books of modern SF, and the sequels, while they deteriorate in quality, still say these wonderful, deeply moral things about understanding and forgiveness and peace and acceptance.
When I realized that the man who wrote them was a complete bigot- PROUD of being a bigot, not even trying to hide it in polite society- I was crushed. It seems like a betrayal, you know? Someone who wrote so beautifully shouldn't be *allowed* to be so despicable. Or someone so despicable shouldn't be *able* to write so beautifully. It's a big fat warning sign against admiring a writer as a *person* based only on their fiction. You can write moral stories and still be an immoral douche.
I could have been his biggest fan. Instead, I do everything I can to keep people from buying his work. *shrug*
Reply
I know what you mean about the sense of betrayal. I just keep wanting to go up to him and be like, "Speaker for the Dead -- SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD!!!" Did he *read* the fucking book? That's actually why I think of him as qualitatively less sane than the average bigot; I think the amount of cognitive dissonance it must require to be theoretically for all the things Card is theoretically for, and yet to put them all in abeyance at the sight of certain triggers -- there's just no way to look at that except as a type of insanity.
I felt the same way, btw, when I found out Paul Haggis was a Scientologist. I just kept imagining trying to explain to Fraser what a "suppressive person" is, and it honestly made me want to cry.
Reply
(Though, imagining Fraser's reaction to that conversation is fairly entertaining)
Reply
Leave a comment