21st Century Literature discussion
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Where Is The Line Between Authorial Exploration & Authorial Exploitation? (3/10/19)
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Marc
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Mar 10, 2019 07:38PM
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(I have thoughts, but I'd rather check back in after others have commented.)
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In general, given the quality of the literature this group and our members gravitate toward, we've all read books that have pushed this envelope, effectively and ineffectively.
These are touchy subjects because they hit on issues of identity, politics, power, etc. They're frequently in one direction when they cause argument/issues (men writing women characters, whites writing minority characters, etc.).
It's like cultural colonization to an extent. No one complains when they find out a gay writer has written a nongay character or a Native American has written a caucasian character.
But I'm still assuming, and this could be wrong on my part, that most of us don't think an author's identity (age, race, country of origin, religion, sexuality, gender, etc) should define their fictional topics or characters. Maybe that's the better question to start with: How do you feel about authors tackling subjects or identities that aren't their own?
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Hugh wrote: "...(and the author is prepared to accept criticism on what he/she got wrong)!"...And who gets to define "wrongness"? Do publishers have "responsibilities" and what does such a word mean in this context?
I don't know the controversial cases referred to by Whitney and Marc and am on a strange PC where searching is not easy for me. Can you give us a link or two, or is that only likely to muddy the discussion?
I think most of us know "fiction" (and story) may convey more "truth" than "fact"-- but I'm not sure how or if that should get mixed into this discussion.
I suspect
Trans-Sister Radio
by Chris Bohjalian is one book I read fairly recently that falls into the "category" we are discussing here. I perceive, rightly or wrongly, that I learned from it, but both the reading itself and the reviews have also left me wondering about the "facts" and "truths" that were short-changed. But I'm not certain but what those concerns do or should apply to any read.
I feel they should be able to but in practice I rarely read them these days. There is limited reading time and I'd prefer to read a novel by someone who has some kind of expertise in a topic. But sometimes you can't demand everything.
e.g. Just posted review of Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants by Mathias Énard. Author is French but a scholar of Arabic and Persian - has much deeper knowledge of topic and area than the average white author writing about the Middle East. Don't know what his sexuality is but he was writing about gay /bi men in this novel and there didn't seem anything clumsy about it and felt just as authentic as e.g. Hollinghurst writing about gay men.
Example of a book I'd tend to avoid without further info : The Death of Murat Idrissi by Dutch author Tommy Wieringa. A few weeks ago I made myself a list of books I really hope don't come up on the MBI longlist (an exercise in adjusting to it in case they do) many of them with petty reasons like "sounds boring" or "sounds gory" or "too long". This one got "awkward to review". A few days ago I saw this Twitter thread expressing potential misgivings about it, https://twitter.com/arablit/status/11...
but there don't seem to be any reviews of it around by women with a Mahghrebi background who can provide informed comment on the portrayal. It's not a book I'd want to read off my own bat and would rather not have the responsibility of commenting on it as an uninformed outsider.
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How A Twitter Mob Destroyed A Young Immigrant Female Authors Budding Career (Note: This article is pro-author.).
The other article I had seen was about Kosoko Jackson's book: Wolves
A YA sensitivity reader watched his own community kill his debut novel before it was ever released. Apparently, the YA market is somehow particularly prone to this type of social media scrutiny/dynamic, but it also reminds me a bit of Ron Johnson's book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, which talks about how being outraged socially has become almost like a past-time online and how a shaming mob mentality sort of builds up easily.
It's not as if there aren't genuine, long-standing issues and grievances that don't rightly deserve outrage. It just seems like a balance should be possible where art pushes boundaries and challenges readers without repeating past injustices or power structures. But than art has a long tradition of defying conventions, bucking against social norms, and sometimes just trying to piss people off (which doesn't seem to be the case in either of the YA instances linked to above).
I think Hugh's and Antonomasia's posts start to get at what matters more to readers: accuracy/believability, expertise (whether that is direct or just incredibly well-researched)... Both of those speak to a respect that a writer has for either the story or the topic. I don't want to oversimplify these things, but many times these debates and or political correctness itself seem to be about a lack of empathy, respect, or civility.
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Most of the arguments take place over young adult books. One is the aforementioned Amélie Wen Zhao's , book which was pulled after the outcry about its portrayal of characters from a science-fictional race who bare a close resemblance to black American slaves. Here's an article from Slate (I don't agree with their conclusions, but it sums up the controversy); https://slate.com/culture/2019/01/blo...
There are a few others, one notable one is "Black Witch". This Bustle article is long, but is more considered about the controversy than the Slate one (but was written prior to the Zhao book controversy) https://www.bustle.com/p/how-ya-twitt...
I’m personally sympathetic to the idea that every time a privileged person writes or speaks for a marginalized group, some degree of domination/ harm is going on. The same way I think for me to exist at all, I will inevitably contribute to pollution, consumption, death of sentient animals, depriving resources from more needy humans, etc etc.So the line for me is fuzzy, even if you risk harming others, you should probably still live, and write if you’re a writer.
I also think it’s fair to criticize, to point out prejudice in the language or the depiction. That is, I think publishers should be able to keep printing and selling Conrad to readers and especially to schools; and Achebe can legitimately criticize Conrad, and that exchange itself can be instructive.
I should point out I’m sometimes guilty of identity-based critique of novels — my reaction to The Shock of The Fall is case in point. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... TL;DR: My main problem with the book is that a psychiatric nurse decided to write a book using the language and quirks and “logics” of a mentally ill person. That, to me, is exhibit-A of people in position of power dominating others by pretending to speak in their voice and their quirks, without being sensitive to the fact that mentally ill people have been and still are systematically silenced and marginalized. A crude analogy would be for a slaughter house owner to write a book about a pig that wants to be eaten. They can write it, I think people should be able to criticize it.
What I really, honestly, seriously have problem with, is related to what Marc said about “Publicly Shamed” — I think social media had turned that into something far more injurious, mean spirited, and terrifying.
Some other relevant articles to consider:
He [Kosoko Jackson] Was Part of a Twitter Mob That Attacked Young Adult Novelists. Then It Turned on Him. Now His Book Is Canceled https://reason.com/archives/2019/02/2...
The Toxic Drama on YA Twitter [Black Witch] https://www.vulture.com/2017/08/the-t...
With a translated literary novel, the reader is expected to do a lot of the work in understanding the author's and characters' world view, which may be very different from their own.Whereas with contemporary English-language YA it seems as if (especially based on the Amelie Wen Zhao cotroversy, which I'd read about before today) the author is expected to gear things towards the worldview of an audience that is either American or suffused with American culture. And these books are really made for a younger audience - even if many of the people discussing them on social media are adults. It seems to go in tandem with the reading level of many YA books being lower than those for an equivalent audience c.40 years ago.
I just led a group read in another group for Praise Song for the Butterflies by Bernice McFadden, and while reading and discussing with others I came to feel that this novel's characters are almost painfully balanced, and the story painfully equivocated, to make it really hard to blame either the characters or the author for anything that happens. McFadden used a sensitivity editor. I have very complicated feelings about this level of mediation between an author and her work. Why not let the writer write about whatever and whoever she chooses? Then readers can read into the work anything they want to. It's about the book, not the author. Sometimes there is a lot to be learned from unsettling references or hidden biases or whatever else might be there in the unmediated work.
Speaking of social media ... I have not been following and was unaware of the polarizing opinions on Lionel Shriver. I was the miscreant who inadvertently ruined someone’s morning by committing the gaffe of sharing the “whinese” of “the likes of Lionel Shriver”
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I read the article in print, I thought it was relevant to a discussion in this group, so I googled it and shared the link without being aware of the reputation or polarizing opinions. I thought it was a timely article with reasonable points, Anotonomasia made some very thoughtful critique; which broadened my perspective, but then the snark also came in.
I didn’t know what’s wrong with what Shriver said at that point, but I was sufficiently embarrassed that I stopped responding.
In this thread, Whitney immediately cited Lionel Shriver as the emblem of what not to do. Which reminded me of that encounter, and the effect of social media. Read alone and in print form, I considered Shriver’s points, agreed with some, disagreed with others, and I gained a perspective I didn’t have and didn’t consider before. Once I posted it on social media (i.e. Goodreads,) I feel pressured to ‘read the atmosphere’ and figure out (and signal) Shriver is not cool.
I did do the legworks, FWIW:
The controversial speech: https://www.theguardian.com/commentis... 'I hope the concept of cultural appropriation is a passing fad'
The dissent: https://www.theguardian.com/commentis... “As Lionel Shriver made light of identity, I had no choice but to walk out on her”
Another take on why Shriver is “not cool” https://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12163144... : “Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles is the smuggest dystopian novel this side of Ayn Rand”
So I didn’t know about Shriver before, I now know more than I care to thanks to social media, but I also think the same force that made me feel embarrassed or even ashamed for sharing an article by her in this group is maybe the same force that made twitter [YA] book critics so toxic — there’s a lot of identity and group-belonging signaling pressure going on, because it is primarily a social media platform.
So, again, for me it’s not what people should or shouldn’t be able to write, that line has always been contested, and mean, nasty, snarky criticisms had always existed (IMO.) What I personally want to reconsider, is whether I want to make reading a social activity — that is, sharing my criticism on social media, participate in reading groups etc. I noticed it’s certainly influencing how I read, what I read, and mostly it’s been positive, but still, there is a down side that worries me.
Another issue I have about "only X authors can write about X" is that it can work in reverse to ghetto-ize the authors instead of leading to the more positive spin of 'allowing people to tell their own stories.'So the publishers say to authors of color: "You are X minority, and so, obviously, you can only write about people who are just like you, and preferably your story is about racism." And we readers are conditioned to expect it too.
I felt my own sneaky narrow bias coming right to the fore when I read Everything Here Is Beautiful, by Mira T. Lee--when Lee was writing about Chinese-American sisters I was a-ok and then when she switched to the pov of a Latino man my brain resisted. I found that pretty appalling in myself.
Representation is just another axis of quality in a book, but we often do not treat it as such and writers like Shriver get upset that they might judged along that axis. If someone wrote about a non-marginalized group and got basic facts wrong, it wouldn't be uncommon to see reviews calling it "lazy" and "poorly researched." The comparison to translated novels is a good one, in that sense. We expect translators to put effort into honestly representing the worldview of the author.
When you get into elements of identity and experience that can't be fact checked, the least a writer can do is listen to those who live that identity.
I've seen positive reviews from Black readers of Lovecraft Country and of gay men readers of A Little Life. Garth Greenwell even called it "The Great Gay Novel." There are certainly examples of authors who do it well. I especially can't wait to see Jordan Peele's adaptation of Loveraft Country--a Black man's adaptation of a white man's book about Black life.
When you get into elements of identity and experience that can't be fact checked, the least a writer can do is listen to those who live that identity.
I've seen positive reviews from Black readers of Lovecraft Country and of gay men readers of A Little Life. Garth Greenwell even called it "The Great Gay Novel." There are certainly examples of authors who do it well. I especially can't wait to see Jordan Peele's adaptation of Loveraft Country--a Black man's adaptation of a white man's book about Black life.
Lark wrote: "Why not let the writer write about whatever and whoever she chooses? Then readers can read into the work anything they want to. It's about the book, not the author. Sometimes there is a lot to be learned from unsettling references or hidden biases or whatever else might be there in the unmediated work. "That's how it's expected to work with literary fiction, although it doesn't necessarily in practice, because not everyone approaches a book this way.
The underlying issue is really behaviour on social media, and the culture that has created.
To touch on one of Marc's comments upthread:
No one complains when they find out a gay writer has written a nongay character or a Native American has written a caucasian character.
A gay writer has a much easier time entering the mind of a straight character because they live with double consciousness. The straight viewpoint is the water we fish swim in.
No one complains when they find out a gay writer has written a nongay character or a Native American has written a caucasian character.
A gay writer has a much easier time entering the mind of a straight character because they live with double consciousness. The straight viewpoint is the water we fish swim in.
Lia wrote: "Read alone and in print form, I considered Shriver’s points, agreed with some, disagreed with others, and I gained a perspective I didn’t have and didn’t consider before. Once I posted it on social media (i.e. Goodreads,) I feel pressured to ‘read the atmosphere’ and figure out (and signal) Shriver is not cool."More people need to be honest about viewpoints like this and also not start reading something assuming it will be all bad (or all good). Assuming one will like and dislike, agree and disagree with, parts of any piece of writing is surely a more productive approach to start with, that guards against either gushing or condemnation. (There is also a massive problem online with people responding to articles they've only read a small amount of.) Current internet culture (especially on short-form platforms like Twitter) is very resistant to that.
Thanks for the links. I will read whatever I can get through over the next several days/weeks (am in the midst of family demands, however). Let me just comment here that it sounds like this discussion could go many, many directions. From what Facebook faces in monitoring posts, to the publication of tracts soliciting membership in all sorts of things, to mob - like, vigilante actions that have become possible and that can curtail or expand people's lives, let alone their careers... I look forward to reading what may be said. Given that in recent years I have spent a bit of time among writers, I know strong views exist that it is in exploring a topic, writing a topic, that knowledge and understanding can come. Now, the steps from writing and publishing and distributing and making available to a wide swathe of readers and then the responses thereto, ..., well, here we are. Right now, my context for this discussion includes Gogol's Dead Souls and Tocqueville's
Democracy in America
, each full of issues on the perspectives and objectives of their authors.
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Exactly. No one (seriously, no one) is saying "only a member of a group can write about that group", that's just ridiculous exaggeration from people who think they should be free from the rabble daring to question their same old lazy stereotypes. (How gleeful they are now to be able to defend a poor, innocent Asian girl from these kinds of attacks, as if that's somehow proof they can't possibly be racist.)
There is an unfortunate culture of piling on in social media. I note the writers of the sited articles don't seem concerned about the kind that results in death and rape threats, just the kind that threatens their right to say anything about anyone without being called on it.
Unfortunately this disease has infected websites , other than social media ones. Two weeks ago reputable music website pitchfork was doing the exact same thing to a another musician (not R Kelly)
I think this is a very difficult discussion. One of the main issues for me is that when we read fiction, we should be aware that it is fiction. Also, so many times people jump to conclusions on social media while they are not completely informed.For example: I just read the discussion on Twitter regarding Tommy Wieringa. The question was if he could portray moroccon women, being a white male.
Strangely enough, noone asking questions or making remarks, read the book. The novel is about two dutch students with Moroccon roots who don’t feel at home in both cultures they belong too.
Maybe a white male can’t do it, maybe only a woman in exactely the same position could manage it. But this way we’ll be short in interesting literature pretty soon.
If authors need to limit their stories to the group they belong to themselves, I wouldn’t have enjoyed the wonderful The Silence of the Girls because to my knowledge the author has never been a slave, lived anywhere in or around the Trojan war and she cannot make up for this (as far as I know) by being a historian specialized in ancient Greece.
I am much more annoyed by non fiction works, presented as scientific books that show clearly a lack of good methodology.
So, I’ve said it. Sorry for any mistakes in the english, it is only the fifth language I learned.
Now I go back to silence:-)
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Claire wrote: ".... One of the main issues for me is that when we read fiction, we should be aware that it is fiction. ...."Claire -- what do those words "mean" -- I happen to be of the position that stories, including fiction, are one of humankind's major ways of exploring what is "truth" and that sometimes fiction reveals "truth" more readily than "facts." But I'm also aware fiction/stories can be a ways of distorting or misrepresenting "truth."
Lily wrote: "Claire wrote: " Claire -- what do those words "mean" -- I happen to be of the position ..."I agree there is truth in fiction. But storytelling tells stories. When telling stories, people chose certain facts, themes, characters, ommit others, distort them.
I am by all means a relativist in this regard. I believe all stories distort ‘truth’. Our worlds are allways ‘subjective’. We only can try to be as objective as possible. It is part of human to be subjective. You simply cannot escape that.
As a reader you should be aware of that. You should try to acknowledge it and take it into account when reading.
There is a landscape of colonial feeling and current privilege just now that makes some representations harder for out-group authors than others. and there is without a doubt a marketing advantage where being an in-group writer has resonance with publishers and with book buyers. And these two things lead to very weird unfortunate outcomes, particularly for fictional subjects where there is some genuine and well-deserved feeling that authentic experience is necessary to get to the true story, even to write fiction.
So in the Native American/indigenous book market we have complete posers like "Nasdijj" and Forrest Carter forging completely fake identities to sell stories, and others like "The Orenda" author Joseph Boyden claiming more heritage than he apparently has.
And in the world of Holocaust memoir and fiction we get Enric Marco and others claiming they are Holocaust survivors.
I can see why that can be a problem, Lark. But maybe it is the task of readers, publishers and critics to warn about these novels and ignore these writers. But you can not deny authors to write about who and what they write, I think.
Lark wrote: "There is a landscape of colonial feeling and current privilege just now that makes some representations harder for out-group authors than others..."Not quite sure what you mean to imply with those words, Lark. My initial reaction: has this not always been true?
Perhaps if I knew the positions of the examples you cite, I would better understand. Mia culpa.
I grew up inculcated with a deep belief in free speech -- and the power of words of "truth" (and goodness and righteousness and compassion and love) to ultimately "overcome" falsehood (and hate and ....). I was one of the (thousands of) people that helped create the early versions of what we today call the "Internet." I am sure I never dreamed in those days (or had nightmares about) what might ensue. Now, in "old age," I ask what the current generation and the generations that follow need learn about how to identify and to react to what the current U.S. President glibly calls "Fake News." (As many of us know only too well, all those tools of word smiths Claire attributes to fiction writers are also available to and sometimes used by chroniclers of "fact".)
My stance on this has always been and remains to be: you do not police art. In all its myriad derivatives, be it on the literary page, the canvas, the cinematic screen, etc., art should not be stifled, suppressed, or censored. An artist's creative obligation is to themselves, so they should be allowed to write, paint, film as they wish, in which ever angle they choose to do it.Equally as an artist should not be policed, so too must the artist prepare themselves for all manner of criticism, feedback, love, and hate from their audience and the public at large. Meaning, if you're an artist, be as creative as you want, embellish as you wish, but also prepare and steel yourself to every level of opinion and consequence that your work will garner. That to me is the purpose of art, to provoke and make the audience think.
If the finished art contains fallacies and falsehoods, it is up to the individual, the audience, to seek the factual truth themselves. If an author writes a novel and in it writes that the chemical formula for water is H4O, the audience should discern that this is categorically false. Still, the author has the right to write it if that is what carries their story's narrative. If your argument is that children will read it and get the wrong idea about water's molecular composition, then that's the failing of a parent, a school, a town and the failing of a country. It is a society's duty to teach facts to the impressionable, and to teach the impressionable how to discern what is truth, and what is fiction.
Scholars, historians, and academics in respective fields have the authority to write truths and facts in non-fiction books. An author who writes fiction is obliged to write as their heart dictates to them in order to tell the story they want to tell. Open a science book and you'll learn the correct, undisputed properties of water. If you open the latest NYT best seller and on page 51 the author writes that each water molecule has four hydrogen atoms to one oxygen atom , why get riled up and be offended when you know the truth? Ask yourself why you are letting the narrative technique of a fiction author supersede the facts written in an academic's well researched and proven textbook?
Currently when I read, I have my iPhone nearby to quickly google something that I'm unfamiliar with or something that sounds odd on the page. Despite there being seven billion opinions on one thing, there is one truth about that same thing. When you know the factual truth, hardly should you allow fictional embellishments in a fictional story to cause you offence.
Lastly,
1. William Shakespeare was not a horny Italian teen, but he wrote beautifully about the doomed love of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet.
2. George Orwell died in 1950, 30 years before his imagined dystopian world of the 1980s.
3. Donna Tartt was a woman in her late forties, but she wrote convincingly about drugged out, orphaned thief, Theo Decker.
4. Reginald Rose was not a sadistic, rough & tumble father angered by his son, but be wrote frighteningly and realistically about juror #3.
5. Anthony Doerr is not the son of a German Nazi, but he wrote about Frederick, a character that I still think about often since finishing the book over eight months ago.
So again, please let authors write fiction with full creative freedom. Because remember, it is fiction.
Cindle || kindle w/a C. wrote: "...Because remember, it is fiction. ..."I wish it were that simple. A toast to all becoming more discerning readers. And let us teach each other how?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/techno...
"The company’s unprecedented steps to remove the content brought into sharp relief the limits of the computerized systems that Silicon Valley companies have developed to manage the massive volume of user-generated content."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-new...
"...correlation can be confused with causation in these numbers...."
Lily wrote: "I wish it were that simple. A toast to all becoming more discerning readers. And let us teach each other how?"Lily,
I am a fan of the Nash Holdings/Jeff Bezos owned The Washington Post and I find their news reporting reputable and trustworthy. However, I am not too sure why you have linked that article by them and also linked that particular article by The Daily Beast to further this thread's original discussion.
To my understanding, this thread is about fiction book authorial exploitation versus fiction book authorial exploration as it pertains to published works of literature. Yet your attached articles are about the tragic mass shooting in New Zealand and skepticism over the Robert Mueller probe.
What is your angle here? What does the initial topic of this thread - published books and how authors write them - what does that have to do with either of those topics you've linked to? I participate more in book discussions on Goodreads that stay on topic, and not ones that get derailed with unrelated links.
If the point you are trying to make is that there is rampant instances of fake news in the United States, I agree, there definitely are. However, there is also factual news being reported by reputable news organizations and if adults cared enough, they would seek fact based news, instead of depending on click-bait and misleading headlines; and if they cared about facts, they would also refrain from watching Fox News, a network notorious for spewing lies daily. I live in the United States and I make every effort every single day to stay informed by reading news from reputable news organizations and reputable news sources. I do so because I care about facts. When you care about facts, you will seek it.
So again, if you'd like me to provide a rebuttal to which ever point you were intending to make, it'd be best that your supporting details stay on topic as it pertains to fiction authorial intent in book publishing for literature, the original topic of this thread.
A new article from the New Yorker which is, like the one from Bustle that Whitney posted upthread, more sympathetic, and sees these early reviewers as doing work that publishing staff should be doing: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under...
And this is a fantastic piece by a sensitivity reader:https://alllitup.ca/Blog/2019/They-Ca...
What would it take to create a literary context that allows for such an ideal exchange to become a standard part of any editing process? In the first place, those to the right of the issue would have to give up a knee-jerk reactivity against the ways that social justice values seek to change literary production and consider the possibility that there are, indeed, benefits to opening up space for minority voices and minority criticism. They would have to consider the possibility that sensitivity readers bring more to the table than political correctness, that we are for the most part skilled writers and editors with literary and cultural knowledge.
Those on the left would have to acknowledge the frightening historical precedents of moral censorship that do exist in history. Moreover, we would have to give up the utopian fantasy that any piece writing could ever capture the complexity of the world and all of its power imbalances and colonial histories. We would have to accept that writing that offends or disturbs is not evil by default, and that the occasional cultural and literary blunder does not in itself constitute a traumatic act of violence. We must rein in the impulse to purge the frustration born out of generations of oppression on any individual author.
I also love the beginning of the article - in which she refers to her family's background in Communist China, and to being a kid in the 90s when everything seemed to be anti-censorship.
As someone with family from Eastern Europe, and who was a teenager & university student in the 90s, I appreciated this acknowledgement that wariness of this sort of stuff isn't just about being right-wing, and that it can be a product of other cultural currents too.
Antonomasia wrote: "And this is a fantastic piece by a sensitivity reader:https://alllitup.ca/Blog/2019/They-Ca...
What a great article. Her fictional memoir Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir sounds great too....
I was reading an article about Octavia Butler that included tributes to her by some authors with whom I was not familiar. I decided to see what types of books they had written. One was Nisi Shawl. In looking at the descriptions and reviews of her books here on GR, I discovered Writing the Other, which caused me to remember this discussion from a few months ago, so I decided to bring it to the groups attention.
LindaJ^ wrote: "I was reading an article about Octavia Butler that included tributes to her by some authors with whom I was not familiar. I decided to see what types of books they had written. One was Nisi Shawl. ..."Thanks for these recommendations, LindaJ^ and Nadine and Antonomasia. What an important topic. I think a lot about the assumptions I make about a character, based on an author's ethnicity, gender, and race. There are so many missteps to point to, and so few good examples of writing about 'the other.'
I love it when authors leapfrog our assumptions--just now I'm thinking about Welcome to Braggsville which plays in every way with expectations.
I'm also thinking about The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer, how annoyed reviewers were that he didn't reveal the protagonist was a black woman until the second chapter or so. I don't remember people feeling bad about his portrayal of this character, only that he didn't signal earlier in the book that she wasn't white.
Well, I don't know what to think about any of this except I think it's wonderful the discussion is here, finally.
Lark wrote: "Another issue I have about "only X authors can write about X" is that it can work in reverse to ghetto-ize the authors instead of leading to the more positive spin of 'allowing people to tell their..."I was surprised that Lovecraft Country didn't seem to get any pushback about a white author writing a book whose characters (except for the villian) were all African American. The book is a complex riff on Lovecraft's writing and racism and reviews talk a lot about that, but nothing I've seen has talked about appropriation. Jordan Peele is making a movie version of it.
I've been a big fan of Matt Ruff for years - I think hes the only author I've been a completist for, but this was the first one I DNF'ed. It felt too simplistic and cartoony to me. Maybe part of the problem is I am not a Lovecraft fan. I hope it's not because my taste has changed since I read his other books. I do think it could be a good movie in Peele's hands though.
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There are many, many books with characters that aren't of the author's race that don't come under criticism, usually because the author has actually done a good job of portraying people instead of stereotypes. Lovecraft Country is one. It's actually being made into a series for HBO, which I'm pretty excited about.
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If you have a choice, do you prefer to know about the author (background, race, gender, etc.) before starting a book?
Whitney wrote: "There are many, many books with characters that aren't of the author's race that don't come under criticism, usually because the author has actually done a good job of portraying people instead of stereotypes. Lovecraft Country is one. It's actually being made into a series for HBO, which I'm pretty excited about. ."That's encouraging! Jordan Peele is making the HBO series - I was wrong, it's not a movie. Which is great - I think it would be better as a series. I'm looking forward to it too.
Marc wrote: "If you have a choice, do you prefer to know about the author (background, race, gender, etc.) before starting a book?"It is not something I make an effort to know in advance unless I've set myself, or joined, a challenge to read something that requires knowing something about the author, such as a translations by women or books written by authors of color. Some books, however, lead me to want to know more about the author.
Mod
Same here. The less I know about a book and an author, the less likely I'm likely to have my own biases/preconceived notions enter into the mix.
Here's today's article from author Laura Lippman's perspective:
Is it okay for a white novelist to write black characters? I'm trying.
Thanks Mark for that article. Lippman may not be the most literary author but I do like her thrillers. She seems quite honest in the article about her own response to the question she asks.
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21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
Lovecraft Country (other topics)Welcome to Braggsville (other topics)
The Story of a Marriage (other topics)
Writing the Other (other topics)
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Tommy Wieringa (other topics)Chris Bohjalian (other topics)
