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Writers: The Person /Persona Quotient

Gita V.Reddy

Gita V.Reddy

Active Member
Does the person / persona of a writer weigh with you while you read his works? And more important, should it?

Among the first books I read in school were few abridged works of Charles Dickens and I soon followed them up by devouring some more unabridged novels by him. A few years later, I read that Dickens had separated from his wife, mother of his nine (?) children, and had seen to it that she had no contact with her children. Though he used a lot of sophistry about her being incompetent, the truth was he was enamoured of a young actress (eighteen to his mid forties) and kept her as his mistress, albeit hidden.

After reading this, I never truly enjoyed Dickens. I found a lot of parts unreal, pretentious, even bogus. Had I grown up as a reader or was it the person clashing with the persona?
 
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Sadly I suffer from the same affliction which is why I prefer not to find out about the person. There are some actors whose movies I will never watch on pain of death because of their personal life. Fortunately for my enjoyment of books, authors are far less famous than actors and you don't generally have their personal lives paraded in the tabloids (with a few exceptions now and then).

Just as well I wasn't the biggest Dickens fan to start off with
 
Sounds like it was the person clashing with the persona.

I know that a lot of people have a hard time with Orson Scott Card because of his personal views.
 
As far Card goes, as long as he can write a good story then I don't give a damn about his antiquated views.
 
aah he does have a few odd views on life, the universe and everything. I already knew he was a Mormon and that his writing conveys a Mormon world view, but it's ignorable.
 
Meadow337 said:
Sadly I suffer from the same affliction which is why I prefer not to find out about the person. There are some actors whose movies I will never watch on pain of death because of their personal life. Fortunately for my enjoyment of books, authors are far less famous than actors and you don't generally have their personal lives paraded in the tabloids (with a few exceptions now and then).

Just as well I wasn't the biggest Dickens fan to start off with
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When it comes to actors, they play a part conceived and visualized by someone else. For me, when an actor projects something on screen that is totally contrary to his personal life, I will still watch him if the overall project is good. I will not watch the movie for him but in spite of him.
However, when it comes to a writer, I expect to hear the 'writer's voice', I expect integrity in his writing. If he has radical views, scandalous ones even, let them come through in his writing.
 
Aah - no I really don't want too much personal stuff to come through even though it does. It can't be helped, but I would prefer to judge the view on its own merits rather than know too much about the person.
 
I tend not to know much about specific writers....so I don't run across the problem a lot, but I think it would bother me. I'm with Meadow though... never liked Dickens much anyway.

As for Card. Ender's Game was awesome, beyond that most of his works are just meh.
 
I think once you learn something significant about an author (e.g. radical religious or political views), it's difficult to put it completely aside while reading their work. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Depending on the type of book, it helps better inform your understanding of the writing (e.g. Ayn Rand).

Though, I must say I'm glad I read Orson Scott Card's Ender series before I knew anything about his personal views. :)
 
I don't know all that much about Card's personal views...I've just heard tell that he's rather arrogant. *shrug* never did any research on the man.
 
readsalot said:
I don't know all that much about Card's personal views...I've just heard tell that he's rather arrogant. *shrug* never did any research on the man.
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Well, I think it goes beyond rather arrogant. Arrogance in writers and celebrities is not new or unexpected. Just do a quick internet search: The terms homophobe and racist tend to crop up.
 
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