Dang it. You replied and edited before I got a chance to clarify and edit my response. So not fair! ;-)
I get the avoiding. And I haven't immersed myself in the information the way you have. Mainly because why would you want to? How does this help? See, that's something else I'm questioning why this need to rip back layers on author's lives and read about what they've done?
I tend to like to read books not knowing anything about the writer. And I've learned reading about writers of tv shows and movies does little for my enjoyment of the text. Once the story is out there - it's a story. (OR a better way of explaining it? I prefer the Watsonian to the Doylist interpretation of the text. I don't think Doylist helps all that much.)
Now there are writers whose agenda is present in their books and icky that way. American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis made me feel icky. I got rid of it. And so did the book by Rick Warren - Purpose Drive Life. And Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan novels which are alarmingly racist. Not to mention Mein Kampf. I'm not condeming anyone for reading them. But I avoid them. And then there's anything written by the popular Gillian Flynn...ew.
But MZB? eh. I can't see it in her books. The books don't further that. And the victims aren't still suffering at her hands, nor does my reading her books hurt them - they don't know I'm reading them. Also the books are about other things. I'm not saying you shouldn't feel icky. I'm just saying I don't. That said, I can't say I want to read her books either - outside of being curious as to what all hubbub about this particular book, Mists of Avalon, itself is about, positive or negative. I've always been bewildered. It's not that good a book. It bewilders me in the same way Lord of Light did.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2014-07-03 01:32 am (UTC)I get the avoiding. And I haven't immersed myself in the information the way you have. Mainly because why would you want to? How does this help?
See, that's something else I'm questioning why this need to rip back layers on author's lives and read about what they've done?
I tend to like to read books not knowing anything about the writer.
And I've learned reading about writers of tv shows and movies does little for my enjoyment of the text. Once the story is out there - it's a story. (OR a better way of explaining it? I prefer the Watsonian to the Doylist interpretation of the text. I don't think Doylist helps all that much.)
Now there are writers whose agenda is present in their books and icky that way. American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis made me feel icky. I got rid of it. And so did the book by Rick Warren - Purpose Drive Life. And Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan novels which are alarmingly racist. Not to mention Mein Kampf. I'm not condeming anyone for reading them. But I avoid them. And then there's anything written by the popular Gillian Flynn...ew.
But MZB? eh. I can't see it in her books. The books don't further that.
And the victims aren't still suffering at her hands, nor does my reading her books hurt them - they don't know I'm reading them. Also the books are about other things. I'm not saying you shouldn't feel icky. I'm just saying I don't. That said, I can't say I want to read her books either - outside of being curious as to what all hubbub about this particular book, Mists of Avalon, itself is about, positive or negative. I've always been bewildered. It's not that good a book. It bewilders me in the same way Lord of Light did.