Do Political Views of Fiction Authors Matter?

Recently, one of my former students came to me and asked for some book recommendations for over winter break because she had recently finished The Book Theif on my recommendation, and hadn’t been able to find anything that came close to its awesomeness since. (Note: I haven’t either.) Knowing she also loved The Hunger Games trilogy, I recommended several books with dystopian or fantasy settings, including Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I read Ender’s Game in junior high and was absolutely obsessed with it (it has a kicker of an ending!), and I thought she would really enjoy the book.

This morning, as I was browsing through my Google Reader, I found this article by Dave Astor, questioning “Should a Novelist’s Anti-Gay Marriage Views Matter?” in which he describes how he enjoyed Card’s Lost Boys so much he did some research on the author himself, only to find out that Card is vehemently anti-gay.

This struck me as particularly important this morning because the student to whom I am recommending this book came out to me last year, and we have remained in touch because I was supportive, and she was struggling with her family.

Now, it’s been a LONG time since I’ve read Ender’s Game, and, in seventh grade, I wasn’t too focused on anti-gay sentiments in fiction, but the only political overtone I recall seemed overwhelmingly anti-war. However, knowing other artists’ and corporations’ political leanings has lead me to seek entertainment and places to purchase products elsewhere. Knowing some of my friends’ political leanings has lead me to soften ties with them. So why shouldn’t it be the same with fiction?

The true question, for me, is: Can I truly enjoy a novel knowing that the author is homophobic, racist,  misogynist, or otherwise actively preaches against my political views? And a more important question is: Can I share these authors’ works with my students who may be struggling with some of the issues about which these authors speak in their personal communications?

The fact of the matter is that, whether or not I can overlook novelists’ political leanings is unimportant in comparison to whether or not my students can. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend a book that has anti-gay (or anti anything else, for that matter) themes and, similarly, I cannot recommend a book whose author has anti-gay viewpoints. True, literature – like all great art – can be appreciated without knowing anything about its creator, but what if my student loved this book so much that she, too, decided to research Orson Scott Card, only to find out that he rejects her very being? No, I do not think I can do that.

I don’t know that I will research every single author out there before I recommend a book (maybe I should), but if I come to find information like this, I’ll have to cross the books off of my stock list of books to recommend to students.

Goodbye, Ender’s Game .

Such a shame that such great art has to be created by such awful artists.

2 replies on “Do Political Views of Fiction Authors Matter?”

  1. This is really disappointing. I loved this book when I was growing up and now I feel like I’ve somehow betrayed myself for supporting an author who disagrees with my lifestyle and beliefs.

    In a poetry class last year, we briefly debated the issue of whether or not an author’s individual beliefs or actions cause us to dislike his or her works. Walt Whitman may have been a pedophile and T.S. Eliot made some anti-Semitic statements. So is the poetry itself tainted? It’s a tough question to answer.

  2. I would say that yes, absolutely we should consider how an author’s personal beliefs shape a narrative. If we know we need to take archaic social mores into account in older works than it we should also think about how current debates shape current literature. However, if a student is looking for a fun read, you want to give them something that is affirming.

    Have you read Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series? I thought it was a pretty good YA dystopian trilogy.