An unfinished 'review'

My first post of the year, in February no less, and it's a fragment of something which I never finished. And now I never will, because it's opening section refers to contemporary events which are now no longer current.

I've put 'review' in scare quotes in the post title, because I'm not sure how many of the posts on this blog could really be described very accurately as 'reviews'. Or even if that's what I'm intending to write. I do worry that some of what I write is little more than a conversation with myself, and will hold little interest to anyone reading. But then I don't have much sense of an audience for this blog ('Hi!' if you are actually reading), and I don't think I post frequently enough to actually attract much of an audience.

Part of the reason why I don't post as much as I'd like is because I've increasingly found that should be relatively short appreciations become much longer pieces in the writing, taking up more time than I can really devote to them. That's certainly part of what happened here; I barely even start to talk about the book.

Still, I think I am trying to engage with an important point here, however ineptly. It's an idea which I've often come across, that the person of an author - whatever unpleasant opinions they may hold, or whatever unsavoury things they've done - should make no difference to one's appreciation of a work. In principle I agree, and it's surely necessary up to a point. But the experience of encountering a work where we know something about the person who created it will surely always colour our responses. And as a consequence, we might refuse to read something, or listen to a particular band, or watch a tv show or film. It's not that I think that's somehow wrong or even right, it's just inevitable, part of the filter we use to navigate the culture which is available to us.

So, anyway, for what little it might be worth:

William Mayne – A Game of Dark 

The decision to read some writers, whether we like it or not, make moral demands upon us. Of course, in principal, I agree with the proposition that creative works should exist independently of the people who create them. The fact that you disapprove of the behaviour of any particular writer shouldn’t automatically disbar them from writing a novel you consider to be a masterpiece. It should never be a reason not to read an author.

In practise, however, I don’t think it’s nearly so simple. We all make such decisions, and provided we don’t attempt to make this into a grand principal, disapproving of others for enjoying a work we have forbidden ourselves for whatever reason, then I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. These are personal decisions we make for ourselves, one of the many ways in which we decide what we’re going to read, or listen to, or watch. 

Until a friend posted a link to a news story about the singer, I’m not sure I’d even heard of the band lostprophets, but I can well imagine that many fans are revaluating their relationship with the band’s music. For all that that seems unfair on the other musicians involved who have committed no crime. I’ve made a couple of similar decisions just recently. When I heard of how Noel Fielding had inspired an incident of cyber bullying on twitter which led to a young woman attempting to take her own life. And recently the comics blogosphere has been made aware of writer/artist Brian Wood’s repeated sexual harassment of women at comics conventions. In both cases, the individuals only compounded things through their responses. Noel Fielding deleted his incriminating tweets, whilst Brian Wood issued a poor apology which failed to even address all of the complaints against him. 

So I’ve gotten rid of my Mighty Boosh DVDs, but on the other hand I’m still reading the Conan the Barbarian comic which Brian Wood is writing. I’ve actually given some thought to this, justifying it to myself that I’ve liked much of the art on the series, as well as his writing, and besides, there’s only a few issues to go. Yes, it’s a pretty mealy mouthed justification, but then who, apart from myself, am I trying to justify these decisions to? I don’t pretend to be morally spotless, and if I wanted to find a reason for not reading something, I’d be much better off looking at the text. 

I’m not comparing the behaviour of any of these individuals, or explicitly judging one worse than the other. In practise any such decision is going to be taken in isolation, partly effected by other considerations. Perhaps I just don’t like The Mighty Boosh as much as I thought I did when I first saw it? Perhaps as a man I just don’t believe or value the complaints of a woman making claims of sexual harassment? Well, actually I do, and if I am going to read the last few issues of his Conan series, then I’m still not going to seek out any of Brian Wood’s work in the future without feeling rather ashamed of myself. It’s probably fortunate that I’m not interested in many of his other comics anyway.

These are individual decisions I’m making. In both cases, it’s really only my own choice that they call for an ethical decision in the first place. I could just ignore these issues if I wanted, and I don’t think that would make me a bad person. So my opening sentence is incorrect. Books only make demands upon us through their contents. The specific acts of any writer only affect us if we come to know about them, if we allow them to do so. In practise, it’s messy, because while we most likely read plenty of books written by people we disapprove of, it’s only when we come to know about specific things, or specific statements, which cross what for us is a line on acceptable behaviour, that we’re going to want to make such a choice.

* 

William Mayne is another writer I never encountered as a child, but The Game of Dark certainly fits fairly comfortably alongside the kind of children’s fantasy I did enjoy. As far as I can tell from a brief survey of amazon, all his work is now out of print, so anyone reading him now, as an adult, is going to have to go looking for his work, and is almost certainly going to know about the nature of his crimes before they read, or even re-read anything he’s written. Clearly a collective decision has been taken between publishers, librarians and parents, and given the nature of his crimes, that’s not at all surprising. 

I picked this up in a charity shop for 50 pence, but of course I knew who he was when I did so. Obviously, nobody with any conscience could approve of the crimes for which was convicted, so if we read a book by him, then we’re choosing to not make an ethical decision. Assuming there’s an ethical decision to be made. It’s not as though a book can have this effect. The fact that he’s now dead somehow makes this easier. 

If I had tried to read The Game of Dark when I was a child, I do wonder if I would have finished it.

And there I broke off.