A discussion with P.E. and Mari.
With the change in Goodreads' reviewing standards prohibiting a reader from reviewing a book with mention to the author, and with the controversy of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, I've begun to wonder about the impact of an author on their book. Let's begin with Goodreads: should a review ever mention the author?
I don't know about others, but I do mention the author every now and then. How can one not mention the author? In my opinion, the book is the author in many ways. It's their genius or sometimes not so much, but either way, by critiquing the book you're critiquing the author's work, their writing and their skill. What's your take?
This was probably a stupid question to begin with because I'm not a person of absolutes. I think it's okay to mention the author; we've both established that. Now, to what extent? Should personal feelings of an author be part of an honest judgement of their book?
I would say moderation is key. It's really important to focus on the word honest. It's not very honest if one reviews a book based on their preconceived notions of the author. That defies the point of an honest review. You can read a book with a horrid cover, but once you start reading, the cover shouldn't bug you and neither should your feelings on the author. I guess what I'm trying to say is, review their work not what you read in the gossip column about them.
Okay, so I'm assuming you know all about the Orson Scott Card situation. (If not, Google is your friend :) ) If I were to read a book by him, should I mention how I feel about his values? Would that have any place within the book? And is it legitimate to refuse to read a book because of the author? I'm not asking whether you can or can't do that- obviously, everyone can do whatever they want; it's none of my business. Reading pieces like this (h/t to We Heart YA for the link!) emphasize two things in my mind. First, we are people and people change. I can have one very strong opinion about and issue and I can change it later on. That's my prerogative. Second, a book doesn't have to necessarily preach the author's values. What if it's preaching a good message? How do you reconcile that?
As you said, I cannot tell you what you can and cannot do, which is one of the problems with the Goodreads situation. If you feel like talking about Card's values halfway through your review then all the more power to you. I haven't read or really plan on reading any of his books (has nothing to do with the present situation) but I would say that the art is not always the artist. Many struggle with appreciating Hitler's art due to the horrible person that he was and that's fine. Not everyone can separate the artist from the art, I know sometimes I can't. There are book that I wont read because of their authors, but as long as I don't type up a long review on why the book stunk due to its author I think I'm doing my part as an honest reviewer.
I also won't read certain books because of the author. Some authors have let me down too many times for me to ever want to read another book of theirs. I'm not sure however how an author acts has the biggest influence on my reading habits. In general, I don't stay up to date with all the author gossip and I don't really want to. I think the most my opinion can be influenced by an author is in positive ways. Lauren DeStefano is so cool on Twitter that she got me to read Fever. I'm forever a fan of Sarah Rees Brennan just because she's so hilarious, so these authors affect their books positively. Have you ever purposely boycotted a book because of an author's behaviour?
Maybe unconsciously. Like if the author is racist or openly advocates hate, things that I'm morally against then I think I would naturally gravitate away from them and their work. But, this would require me to be very knowledgeable about the current author gossip, which I'm not. Overall my stance as a reader and reviewer is do what you enjoy and what you can live with. If I enjoy a book I will respect the author for it despite the person they are. Or at least I would like think so, since this hasn't been put to the test :) What's your stance?
I separate books and their authors, for the most part. A book does not represent an author's views and I won't be ashamed to read it. However, I have no problem with people consciously deciding to not read a book by an author they don't want to support. Undoubtedly, they have their reasons. At the end of the day though, the author doesn't really influence my opinion on books too much.
This was probably a stupid question to begin with because I'm not a person of absolutes. I think it's okay to mention the author; we've both established that. Now, to what extent? Should personal feelings of an author be part of an honest judgement of their book?
I would say moderation is key. It's really important to focus on the word honest. It's not very honest if one reviews a book based on their preconceived notions of the author. That defies the point of an honest review. You can read a book with a horrid cover, but once you start reading, the cover shouldn't bug you and neither should your feelings on the author. I guess what I'm trying to say is, review their work not what you read in the gossip column about them.
Okay, so I'm assuming you know all about the Orson Scott Card situation. (If not, Google is your friend :) ) If I were to read a book by him, should I mention how I feel about his values? Would that have any place within the book? And is it legitimate to refuse to read a book because of the author? I'm not asking whether you can or can't do that- obviously, everyone can do whatever they want; it's none of my business. Reading pieces like this (h/t to We Heart YA for the link!) emphasize two things in my mind. First, we are people and people change. I can have one very strong opinion about and issue and I can change it later on. That's my prerogative. Second, a book doesn't have to necessarily preach the author's values. What if it's preaching a good message? How do you reconcile that?
As you said, I cannot tell you what you can and cannot do, which is one of the problems with the Goodreads situation. If you feel like talking about Card's values halfway through your review then all the more power to you. I haven't read or really plan on reading any of his books (has nothing to do with the present situation) but I would say that the art is not always the artist. Many struggle with appreciating Hitler's art due to the horrible person that he was and that's fine. Not everyone can separate the artist from the art, I know sometimes I can't. There are book that I wont read because of their authors, but as long as I don't type up a long review on why the book stunk due to its author I think I'm doing my part as an honest reviewer.
I also won't read certain books because of the author. Some authors have let me down too many times for me to ever want to read another book of theirs. I'm not sure however how an author acts has the biggest influence on my reading habits. In general, I don't stay up to date with all the author gossip and I don't really want to. I think the most my opinion can be influenced by an author is in positive ways. Lauren DeStefano is so cool on Twitter that she got me to read Fever. I'm forever a fan of Sarah Rees Brennan just because she's so hilarious, so these authors affect their books positively. Have you ever purposely boycotted a book because of an author's behaviour?
Maybe unconsciously. Like if the author is racist or openly advocates hate, things that I'm morally against then I think I would naturally gravitate away from them and their work. But, this would require me to be very knowledgeable about the current author gossip, which I'm not. Overall my stance as a reader and reviewer is do what you enjoy and what you can live with. If I enjoy a book I will respect the author for it despite the person they are. Or at least I would like think so, since this hasn't been put to the test :) What's your stance?
I separate books and their authors, for the most part. A book does not represent an author's views and I won't be ashamed to read it. However, I have no problem with people consciously deciding to not read a book by an author they don't want to support. Undoubtedly, they have their reasons. At the end of the day though, the author doesn't really influence my opinion on books too much.
Great discussion, ladies! (And glad you enjoyed the link. :))
ReplyDeleteFor our part, we agree with you guys: Authors are not "off-limits," in reviews, but there's a difference between reviewing THEM and reviewing their WORK.
If a reader doesn't want to read the work of someone that they know is racist, for example, that's completely their prerogative. But is writing a 400-word rant against the author really relevant to the work? No. (Particularly if one has not read the work...) How about a 10 sentence GIF review against the author? Still no. And that sort of thing (in theory!) is what GoodReads is trying to stop.
But if you read Ender's Game and all you can read as subtext into every exchange between characters is the author's (potentially offensive) views? And it ruined the book for you? That's relevant to the reading experience!
So it's a blurry line, but there IS a difference.
As for our preference? Well, we'd like all authors to be awesome, hahaha. But failing that, we can usually separate the work from the author and judge each independently -- unless it becomes such a major news story that it's impossible to ignore.
I agree that it's unnecessary to write a really long rant against an author, but again, it's their own choice. In general, I try to do what makes me happy and focusing so much on negativity doesn't make me happy, but for some people it could be therapeutic. Who knows.
DeleteI think your take is a pretty well thought out attitude. Authors can become distractions, but in general I'll try to separate them from their work.
-P.E.
It definitely has an influence of me. When I saw the author-behave-badly situations on Goodreads, I decided I didn't want to support authors like that. So those books definitely went on a blacklist for me. And also the fact that it was because of negative reviews; I don't want to read a bad book written by an unkind author :)
ReplyDeleteThat's understandable. I know one of my friends kind of got attacked for a review and that really changed my view of the author. In general, I can't remember all the drama and try my best not to focus on it that much, but it's your right to support whomever you choose, especially financially.
Delete-P.E.
I don't usually stay very much up to date with authors gossip so to speak, but if I've read books by an author and haven't liked then it's quite less likely I'll read something by them.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Orson Scott Card, it's a very tough thing but his Ender's book are brilliant and quite surprising someone like him wrote them since they don't support the author's horrible statements.
I think that's fair as readers we judge an authors work and if we're disappointed we have the right to not return. As for Card, I think he is a good example of the art not always being the artist.
Delete-Mari
Honestly I don't care what the author is doing outside of the book. As long as they create awesome characters they can be despicable and morally questionable. I just block it out all out because it doesn't matter to me. If their actions doesn't directly affect what's happening in the book then it shouldn't be apart of reviews. I'm not saying everyone should ignore their behaviors but that's not the place to put it in reviews. If you want to have discussion posts, then go head and do that. I basically read reviews to see if I should give a novel a chance or not.
ReplyDeleteAly @ My Heart Hearts Books
That's fair. I know for some people, the author's behaviour does affect whether they'd like to read a book or not, but for the most part, it doesn't matter to me either. That being said, I'm okay with it in reviews. I feel like reviews are generally just random and all over the place anyway, so as long as the person writing it genuinely feels this information is useful to someone seeking out the book, then I have no problem with it.
Delete-P.E.
I think it is in the readers right to mention the author, to me it totally matters. If I hear about an author that attacked a reader or an author that is racist, I don't want to support that author with my money. I don't understand when readers write huge rants going on about the authors behavior, but I do think it should be something that is mentioned though (: Great post hun!
ReplyDeleteThat's also fair. I'm sure if an author did something absolutely deplorable, I wouldn't want to read the book. I know I stopped reading TVD after I heard that ghost writers had replaced L.J. Smith. It did affect my opinion of the book. In general though, I personally find it hard to remember all the drama, especially after the author apologized too. It definitely depends on the reader and reviewer though.
Delete-P.E.
Honestly I think I should be able to mention an author if I want. I don't think I should bash an author but I don't think that the author is that great and want to mention something I should be allowed to. For example. Once .... many many moons ago I had a group Q&A set up with Maggie Stiefvater on my goodreads group. I was so excited. Set the whole thing up... and she didn't like what group members were saying about her book in the discussion. So she canceled just a few days before. She went to another group and had the Q&A there and the group members in my group just followed her over there. I won't read anymore of her books and I think I should be able to mention that this happened. But now if I mention it goodreads will delete it. Just not right. Though I won't be leaving goodreads anytime soon...
ReplyDeleteMy feeling on Goodreads is that it is not a professional site, and so I don't see why they should police their reviews. Some people use Goodreads as a book diary, and I don't like the idea of someone using it as their public catalogue of books and remarking on someone's behaviour, and having it taken down. On the otherhand, I don't think the author's behaviour is a big deal in a review of their book. In general though, I think it's useful.
DeleteI'm really sorry to hear what Maggie Stiefvater did. I totally understanding not wanting to read her books because of that, and for an unofficial place like Goodreads, I think something like that should be mentioned.
-P.E.