This week’s prompt: Do you judge an author’s works based on their political stances?
This is an interesting one. First of all, I guess I don’t really know the definition of politics. For me, politics is which party you support, how you vote and what form of government you support. But I suspect that this extends to social issues and your stances on those, because these days in a lot of the world (possibly excluding Trump-era USA) those are the more divisive issues. If the former is the case I’m not as bothered – I tend to feel like how a person votes isn’t really my business. I have a hard time understanding voting for Trump, but if an author is brilliant I don’t suppose that would stop me from reading and discussing their books.
There are, however, some examples of authors whose behaviour or public stances on issues have been a problem for me. For those who are no longer living, I tend to judge their work on itself and feel fine about buying their work (Roald Dahl being an example here, as any money I spend on his work isn’t going to him anymore, it’s going to his descendants, and I don’t know enough about them to have any sort of issue with them). If, however, it’s a living author (*ahem* JK Rowling *ahem*) whose vocal opinions have had or could have a negative impact on a group of people – particularly one that is vulnerable and already marginalized – then that’s a tougher one for me. I will think twice about putting money their way (it’s not a hard and fast rule, but I will have a bit of a moral wrestle with myself over it). But, unless their views are reflected in their work, whether I enjoy and appreciate their writing won’t automatically be affected by their views. That kind of depends on the books, the views and just my emotional landscape at the time. So I guess the short answer is… sometimes?
What about you guys? Do you have a firmer rule about this than I do? What kind of thing will affect your opinion, if anything?
The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly blog link-up that gives participants a different book-related question to ponder each week, and allows them to share their thoughts, find new blogs to follow and connect with new readers. The Hop was originally created by Jennifer at Crazy for Books and is now hosted by Billy at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. To see a list of upcoming prompts go here.
I don’t know that I have a firm rule. As I said in my response, I’ve seen a couple of authors who said, “if you didn’t vote my way in the election, my books are not for you.” So I’m taking them at their word. There are others I have wrestled with. Some I continue to read. Others, I don’t. It partially depends on what they said and how they said it, I think.
Great approach! I also kind of take it a situation at a time depending on what the issue is and what their work means to me!
I’ve moved away from authors like Neil Gaiman because of his behavior toward women.
Yeah, I’m disappointed, but oddly not all that surprised. It sucks because he has become such a big part of a lot of literary culture, so it’s annoying that he turned out to be such an unpleasant character, but at the same time there are better books and authors I can still respect!