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The Line Between Author and Ink


Cantabile

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Oh, I'm certainly not saying that there is no potential for bias, I'm just arguing against a one to one correlation. You can't say: "there's a misogynist in this book," or "the narrator thinks god is stupid" and from there deduce that the author is a misogynist/thinks that god is stupid or what have you. That certainly doesn't mean that the author isn't a misogynist/thinks god is stupid or what have you, just that you can't necessarily conclude that they are.

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Ligotti has said that he, personally, only enjoys reading fiction where the strong biases of the narrator shape the story

It can definitely be a good thing, even if you don't agree with the message. I'm thinking back mostly to sci-fi which tends to have a lot more of that than fantasy.

But I doubt misogyny is a value added message for any reader :unsure:

If a novel is like a lie, then a good novel must be like a good lie, and the best lies are all truthful. Momentarily, at least.

Then I hope for Bakker's sake his novels are merely good.

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We are what we eat, but are writers what they write? How easy is it to separate a novel from its novelist? I've always thought it was a commonly understood truth that there's a fine line between the two, but on this board I've often seen readers accuse the author R. Scott Bakker of being a sexist based upon the misogyny of his works, leading to endless pages of debates, which shows me it's not as distinct a line as I've always taken it for.

Certainly an author is influenced by his own beliefs, prejudices, and dogmas, and in turn his works may be to an extent, yet we've all read authors whose works are complete contrasts to their own character. Just as actors inhabit their roles, authors simply have to use imagination to craft characters and explore ideas that they do not themselves possess. For a very stark example: an author who is a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi may write a novel about racial minorities saving the world!

Now, if every novel an author produces has misogyny, does that make the author a misogynist? At what point do we, as readers, start to see the content of a work as being a reflection of the author?

Readers are a mix bag. We want to see what we want to see. We omit what we want to omit. Like the Author, our reception/decoding of a work will depend on how we are shaped and our environment. Sometimes, this runs parallel with the Author's beliefs, sometimes, not. In a way, reading is a clash of wills between the author and the reader. No matter how hard an author tries to hide it, I think his prejudices, principles, biases will seep through because as you said, he is a product of his own beliefs/environment.

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a classic worthy of this thread's attention:

The present writers, in a short article entitled "Intention" for a Dictionary1 of literary criticism, raised the issue but were unable to pursue its implications at any length. We argued that the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art, and it seems to us that this is a principle which goes deep into some differences in the history of critical attitudes. It is a principle which accepted or rejected points to the polar opposites of classical "imitation" and romantic expression. It entails many specific truths about inspiration, authenticity, biography, literary history and scholarship, and about some trends of contemporary poetry, especially its allusiveness. There is hardly a problem of literary criticism in which the critic's approach will not be qualified by his view of "intention."

[...]

There is a difference between internal and external evidence for the meaning of a poem. And the paradox is only verbal and superficial that what is (1) internal is also public: it is discovered through the semantics and syntax of a poem, through our habitual knowledge of the language, through grammars, dictionaries, and all the literature which is the source of dictionaries, in general through all that makes a language and culture; while what is (2) external is private or idiosyncratic; not a part of the work as a linguistic fact: it consists of revelations (in journals, for example, or letters or reported conversations) about how or why the poet wrote the poem‑to what lady, while sitting on what lawn, or at the death of what friend or brother. There is (3) an intermediate kind of evidence about the character of the author or about private or semiprivate meanings attached to words or topics by an author or by a coterie of which he is a member. The meaning of words is the history of words, and the biography of an author, his use of a word, and the associations which the word had for him, are part of the word's history and meaning. But the three types of evidence, especially (2) and (3), shade into one another so subtly that it is not always easy to draw a line between examples, and hence arises the difficulty for criticism. The use of biographical evidence need not involve intentionalism, because while it may be evidence of what the author intended, it may also be evidence of the meaning of his words and the dramatic character of his utterance. On the other hand, it may not be all this. And a critic who is concerned with evidence of type (1) and moderately with that of type (3) will in the long run produce a different sort of comment from that of the critic who is concerned with (2) and with (3) where it shades into (2).
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Thanks for the link.

I like this part:

The poem is not the critic's own and not the author's (it is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it). The poem belongs to the public. It is embodied in language, the peculiar possession of the public, and it is about the human being, an object of public knowledge.

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In a stroke of coincidence, I blogged about this today before I read this thread. It's an interesting debate. Do I, as an author, have control over the biases that may leak from my writing, or am I stripped naked (figuratively) by my prose?

I'd like to believe that I knowingly insert such biases into the work for dramatic purpose. If I create a prudish female lead, it isn't because I think all women are prudish by nature, but because it serves the story. But, a novel requires so many decisions to be made -- dozens per page, at least -- that much of what comes out is driven by the subconscious.

Hrmm, I seem to be arguing against myself (and winning).

But is the reader actually perceiving what the author intended? Or do we all bring our own prejudices to the table so that we see every story through our own different lens? We must, because it seems that no two people have precisely the same reaction to any story. (Just read the various reviews put up on Amazon and you'll see this in spades.)

So, my point is . . mixed. Yes, a deliberate author devises the aspects of his/her story with care, mixing character personalities and traits like a mad scientist, hoping to come up with something pleasing. And, yes, certain views and biases will come through, regardless of what the author intends. But readers should be wary in pronouncing judgment, because we do not always see what we think we see.

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But, a novel requires so many decisions to be made -- dozens per page, at least -- that much of what comes out is driven by the subconscious.

But is the reader actually perceiving what the author intended? Or do we all bring our own prejudices to the table so that we see every story through our own different lens?

This is a good point. If your subconscious prejudices are then muddled by the reader's subconscious prejudices, it does seem pretty impossible to draw conclusions on an author without very specific evidence.

(or even when the author does have an explicit message it can be misread: reading Atlas Shrugged as a spec-fic novel and applying suspension of disbelief to objectivism is much more enjoyable!)

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This is a good point. If your subconscious prejudices are then muddled by the reader's subconscious prejudices, it does seem pretty impossible to draw conclusions on an author without very specific evidence.

I feel like you're not giving yourself as a reader much credit here. An author doesn't have to be as blatant as Ayn Rand for a perceptive reader to notice some things about them. Back to racism, you'd have to be a little slow to not realize from reading Gone With the Wind that Margaret Mitchell has certain prejudices, and you don't have to know anything about her personal life to see that. It's right there in the text. I don't know if she disputed that or not, but it would be quite disingenuous if she did. Now, I don't know that coming to the conclusion "Mitchell was racist" is particularly helpful for anything, because in most cases we (or at least I) don't care about the author outside the context of the work.

But this must be frustrating for authors because there's no clear dividing line between what shows an actual bias and what readers are projecting onto a work. A lot of people saw Satanism in Harry Potter, which seems to us to be pretty clearly projecting their own evangelical biases onto a series that avoided religion as much as possible. Doesn't mean you can't tell what prejudices are behind a work though.

(Also, and again I haven't read Bakker so I can't pass judgment on him in particular, but sexism and racism are generally looked down upon these days and so I would expect any author accused of either to deny it unless they're a real fringe type. So the fact that someone insists on a blog or elsewhere that they don't have a bias isn't conclusive proof that they don't when it comes up again and again in their work. You see this especially with authors--and people generally--who take patronizing attitudes toward certain groups; they don't think they're being racist, or whatever, because they don't hate a particular group, but they still can't imagine people from that group being as smart/capable/fully human as they are. Making an effort doesn't mean you aren't still prejudiced.)

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Bakker doesn't go for realistic medieval societies. He goes out of his way to make them as misogynist as possible.

Here we go again...

Unless you are expert on medieval societies I would be hesitant in making this claim, his description of an army on the march could be argued to be far more realistic than most fantasy fare. 21st century western tinted glasses in history rewriting shocker.

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Koolkat, I think you're taking your personal analyses too far. Trying to determine a person's mental landscape via a piece of fiction they've written puts you on very shaky grounds. Even on forums such as this, where you can speak plainly (not through characters or artificial situations) people are forever misinterpreting each other. And I've seen too many "professional" critics completely miss the basic points of a book to believe that we all see the same thing when we read.

If a nutshell, if you see racists and mysogynists everywhere, the first place to look is in your mirror.

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Koolkat, I think you're taking your personal analyses too far. Trying to determine a person's mental landscape via a piece of fiction they've written puts you on very shaky grounds. Even on forums such as this, where you can speak plainly (not through characters or artificial situations) people are forever misinterpreting each other. And I've seen too many "professional" critics completely miss the basic points of a book to believe that we all see the same thing when we read.

If a nutshell, if you see racists and mysogynists everywhere, the first place to look is in your mirror.

Sure, I think anyone who interprets most modern literature to be racist, misogynist or both might want to consider what they're bringing to the table. But I never suggested that most of it is, only that biases of various sorts are often obvious in books.

If you prefer though, I can come up with a less offensive example. Take Juliet Marillier's books. She frequently inserts babies and small children into them, giving them far more screen time than is strictly necessary and portraying them as adorable. All "good" characters love them, and anyone who dislikes or doesn't care about them always turns out to be a villain. Characters who fall in love often think about how much they want to have babies with their partner, and books sometimes end with the characters happily producing a baby. Characters get very upset when they think they can't have kids for some reason. This is consistent across multiple books and series. I suppose you could try to make an argument that this doesn't reflect Marillier's love of babies and small kids and her belief that a person's life is less than complete if they don't produce them, but it wouldn't be very convincing.

Of course people can misinterpret each other, but that doesn't mean your beliefs aren't there. It just means some of your readers aren't picking up on the right things. I'm told that writing novels is really opening yourself up in a lot of ways, and it seems pretty clear this is one of them.

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Here we go again...

Unless you are expert on medieval societies I would be hesitant in making this claim, his description of an army on the march could be argued to be far more realistic than most fantasy fare. 21st century western tinted glasses in history rewriting shocker.

Actually I read quite a bit of medieval history, and I agree that Baker's world is far more misogynistic then reality.

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Actually I read quite a bit of medieval history, and I agree that Baker's world is far more misogynistic then reality.

Bakker's world is the significant bit there. A Fantasy author can draw inspiration from historical periods, and use history as the framework for their own work, but it is their world, and they are not confined to historical reality in their portrayals, as a historical novelist would be.

Could you provide examples of what you believe are disparities between the historical and fictional misogyny? Bakker himself has stated that he did exaggerate, purposefully mind you, this aspect, so I'm not saying you're wrong, I just disagree that his world is far more misogynistic. More? Certainly, but not necessarily far more.

Though I'm not by any means a qualified expert on this subject, and only know from my limited research and reading on the treatment of women during that time period, none of which I can cite without researching it again. So take my view worth a grain of a literary salt :)

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It does, a bit. Because then he's deliberately making the books sexist, while otherwise he would just be inspired by the real medieval times.

According to Cantabile, Bakker has said that he deliberately made them more so. Beyond that, if people want to debate the historical accuracy of the books, there are plenty of Bakker threads in which they can do so.

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I think if the same thread runs through every book, regardless of setting, there is a problem. An undercurrent.

I don't think that Bakker is sexist, i think he just has a dim view of everyone, men and women. There are no likable characters in his books. Ultimately, that does not make for compelling reading when presented as truth over and over again. I know plenty of people, but i don't think of them all nearly as darkly as Bakker does. Truth be told, i'd almost hate to meet the guy for fear of how horrible his projections of others are.

I absolutely think there is SOME of an author in every piece of a book, but i think in many cases its little more than a tool for plot advancement, or a thought excercise.

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Bakker's world is the significant bit there. A Fantasy author can draw inspiration from historical periods, and use history as the framework for their own work, but it is their world, and they are not confined to historical reality in their portrayals, as a historical novelist would be.

Could you provide examples of what you believe are disparities between the historical and fictional misogyny? Bakker himself has stated that he did exaggerate, purposefully mind you, this aspect, so I'm not saying you're wrong, I just disagree that his world is far more misogynistic. More? Certainly, but not necessarily far more.

Though I'm not by any means a qualified expert on this subject, and only know from my limited research and reading on the treatment of women during that time period, none of which I can cite without researching it again. So take my view worth a grain of a literary salt :)

I typed that post while only half awake. It certainly isn't far more by any means. And I realize it's his world and it can be as accurate as he wants. I just get a bit riled up when people drag out the "that's exactly what it was like!" excuse. Not just for Bakker but for defending anything people find unpleasant in medieval settings.

For my two cents, I don't think he's sexist. Cynical as hell yes.

Edit: For what's it worth, I get annoyed when people say that about things that are too cheery as well. Anything with shiny knights in armor rescuing damsels and all that chivalry nonsense, then saying oh, that's what it was like. Drives me nuts.

Also it makes a big difference if the AUTHOR claims its historically accurate or not. One of the reasons I want to slap that Other Boleyn author around with a large trout. :bang:

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Here we go again...

Unless you are expert on medieval societies I would be hesitant in making this claim, his description of an army on the march could be argued to be far more realistic than most fantasy fare. 21st century western tinted glasses in history rewriting shocker.

Being more realistic than most fantasy doesen't say very much. Bakker's society is not very much like medieval society at all. (nor is it intended to be, I suspect)

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