Re: For what it's worth (and it may not be, much)bookaddict88March 4 2008, 04:34:40 UTC
And as a reader, that's what I look for. I often say I don't like dark stories or stories with sad endings, but what I mean is that I don't like stories with darkness and no hope. If you're telling me that there is no good in this world or that life has no meaning or that society is going to pieces and there's nothing you can do about it (or any of these things on a smaller scale), then I'll avoid your book as much as I can. You're simply adding to the darkness of my world, where things often seem hopeless and pointless. If however, you tell me that there's darkness (because I agree that there is plenty of it in this world), but focus much less on the darkness than on the ways to overcome it, then I'm more apt to read your book because it sheds some light on the real world as well. When I'm escaping into a book, I need to be able to see good come out of the darkness, because it's often hard to see it in real life (though I admit I'm of the sort that believes that even in real life there's light in the darkness, though I may not be able to see it).
Re: For what it's worth (and it may not be, much)rj_andersonMarch 4 2008, 18:44:59 UTC
Yes. Very well said. I'm all in favor of honest presentations of darkness before the light shines in -- what I find dishonest is books that pretend it's all light and no darkness, and even more so books that pretend it's all darkness and no light.
Re: For what it's worth (and it may not be, much)carbonelleMarch 4 2008, 21:44:18 UTC
It's beginning to sound like a paraphrase of that old tag: "those of you who think you know it all are annoying those of us who do." That is, the writers and readers who have thought about this question are being unfairly lumped in with those who not only haven't, but don't even seem to be aware that the question exits...
Re: For what it's worth (and it may not be, much)rj_andersonMarch 4 2008, 21:51:17 UTC
"Unfairly lumped in" -- where? I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean that you feel your comments have been unfairly discounted by the responses in this thread (including mine), or are you referring to something else?
Re: Mi dispiaci!carbonelleMarch 4 2008, 22:09:59 UTC
I should've clipped the bit in the thread to which I was responding.
I was writing about authors (and readers) who have clearly thought about the "darkness" in their novels and why they are using it, telling stories about it, etc. and those who, well, haven't. Perhaps because the question, "Does the artist have any ethical responsibilities in what he creates?" hasn't occurred to them, or has and been dismissed as irrelevant.
It may be some of the difficulty comes from lumping the two together, hence the paraphrase of the old tag (which I probably should have written out): "Those of you who can't be arsed to think or care about these things are annoying those of us who do"
Re: Mi dispiaci!rj_andersonMarch 5 2008, 02:23:38 UTC
Ah, yes, all is clear now.
The difficulty, I think, is when people assume they know the author's mind and can tell by just looking at the book whether they put any thought into the darkness or not. It's so easy to dismiss something as gratuitous or sensational when the author may actually have agonized over it and only put it in because they truly felt the story could not be told any other way.
I know several people who complained of the end of Goblet of Fire and particularly the opening chapters of Order of the Phoenix as being gratuitously dark and grim with no redeeming value, and quit reading the series at that point; whereas I felt at the time that it was impossible to judge where JKR was going with the series or whether the darkness was justified until all seven books were in hand and we knew what the final outcome would be.
To me, stopping at that point could easily have been as great a mistake as putting down The Last Battle when the dwarves start shooting the horses; it's a terrible scene, almost unbearable in fact, and yet there's no question in my mind that a) Lewis knew exactly what he was doing, and was not merely throwing in darkness for darkness' sake and b) the outcome of the story vindicates it.
However, that being said, I myself have come to the point at times where I felt that nothing could justify this much misery, pain, torture, darkness and death: George R.R. Martin's books fall into that category for me. But I realize that others feel differently.
Re: Mi dispiaci!rj_andersonMarch 5 2008, 02:51:17 UTC
I'm glad it's not just me. It actually got to the point, in my mind, where my suspension of disbelief cracked under the weight of all that flagrant misery.
Re: Mi dispiaci!sartoriasMarch 5 2008, 03:11:06 UTC
Yeah--there was never any relief, moments of kindness and especially no beauty or wisdom or humor, just lots of nastiness--it finally was punishment to read that book, though the writing was good.
Re: For what it's worth (and it may not be, much)luckfireMarch 5 2008, 03:26:52 UTC
Very well said. I believe this is why I loathed a wide-spread theme in elementery school reading when I was younger: Holocaust Novel Year. In my fourth and fifth grades, we read several fictional accounts of children, usually our age, surviving the Holocaust while everyone they loved died around them. I've met many, many other people my age (22 now) whose schools did something similar, often packing all the books into one school year. Examples of these books include Number the Stars (which made me cry at the end), but unfortunately I can't seem to remember or find the titles of the other books I read then. (I'll post them when I do.)
At that point in my life, I was happily reading The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer, a near-future SF YA book in which the main characters (ages 11-13) deal with being sold as slaves, attempted infanticide, and nearly getting possessed by ancient demons. But I could not deal with those Holocaust books. They were dark, they were hopeless, the characters never stopped being scared and broken, the stories usually ended before the war did (which means the darkness might have gone on forever) and most of all they were real.
For all I knew, I was a voyeur on the intimate pain of these people who may as well have really lived. I knew that their pain was too big for me to handle, and I didn't understand why I had to try to deal with it. That was the dark YA that scared the crap out of me, the stuff I was in no way ready for. I spent most of my time then defending myself against by deriding the books as poor quality and building up a wall of hate of them to insulate myself.
I should also point out that this was the same time in my and others' school reading careers as the Dead Dog Books (such as Shiloh and Where the Red Fern Grows) and the Wilderness Survival Books (including Island of the Blue Dolphins and Hatchet). Those were not fun books, either, and usually just as drably hope-crushing.
Re: For what it's worth (and it may not be, much)sartoriasMarch 5 2008, 03:32:12 UTC
rachelmanija had a recent, hilarious poll on which were the most depressing YA books of all time. She started with all the dead dog, pet, and family ones, and went downhill from there.
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I was writing about authors (and readers) who have clearly thought about the "darkness" in their novels and why they are using it, telling stories about it, etc. and those who, well, haven't. Perhaps because the question, "Does the artist have any ethical responsibilities in what he creates?" hasn't occurred to them, or has and been dismissed as irrelevant.
It may be some of the difficulty comes from lumping the two together, hence the paraphrase of the old tag (which I probably should have written out): "Those of you who can't be arsed to think or care about these things are annoying those of us who do"
My apologies for the lack of clarity.
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The difficulty, I think, is when people assume they know the author's mind and can tell by just looking at the book whether they put any thought into the darkness or not. It's so easy to dismiss something as gratuitous or sensational when the author may actually have agonized over it and only put it in because they truly felt the story could not be told any other way.
I know several people who complained of the end of Goblet of Fire and particularly the opening chapters of Order of the Phoenix as being gratuitously dark and grim with no redeeming value, and quit reading the series at that point; whereas I felt at the time that it was impossible to judge where JKR was going with the series or whether the darkness was justified until all seven books were in hand and we knew what the final outcome would be.
To me, stopping at that point could easily have been as great a mistake as putting down The Last Battle when the dwarves start shooting the horses; it's a terrible scene, almost unbearable in fact, and yet there's no question in my mind that a) Lewis knew exactly what he was doing, and was not merely throwing in darkness for darkness' sake and b) the outcome of the story vindicates it.
However, that being said, I myself have come to the point at times where I felt that nothing could justify this much misery, pain, torture, darkness and death: George R.R. Martin's books fall into that category for me. But I realize that others feel differently.
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At that point in my life, I was happily reading The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer, a near-future SF YA book in which the main characters (ages 11-13) deal with being sold as slaves, attempted infanticide, and nearly getting possessed by ancient demons. But I could not deal with those Holocaust books. They were dark, they were hopeless, the characters never stopped being scared and broken, the stories usually ended before the war did (which means the darkness might have gone on forever) and most of all they were real.
For all I knew, I was a voyeur on the intimate pain of these people who may as well have really lived. I knew that their pain was too big for me to handle, and I didn't understand why I had to try to deal with it. That was the dark YA that scared the crap out of me, the stuff I was in no way ready for. I spent most of my time then defending myself against by deriding the books as poor quality and building up a wall of hate of them to insulate myself.
I should also point out that this was the same time in my and others' school reading careers as the Dead Dog Books (such as Shiloh and Where the Red Fern Grows) and the Wilderness Survival Books (including Island of the Blue Dolphins and Hatchet). Those were not fun books, either, and usually just as drably hope-crushing.
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