Lady Fingers

Darn you, Orson Scott Card!

There's an author whose writing I like a lot.  It's not just a fun read, there seems to be a lot of societal wisdom in his writing.  However, when I went back and read some of his earliest books, right in the middle of his best known novel, there was an extremely bigotted passage which really did nothing to advance the plot.  The bigotry in this section related to a category of people to which I belong.

I forgave him--it was 20 years ago, after all.  I would like to think he has matured some since then.

So today I read a blog of his.  To be truthful, I read a reaction to his comments first, and then tracked down what he had written.  I found it extremely insulting, not to my group (the group I felt he had attacked in his first book) but to a different category of people.

I'm feeling less than forgiving at the moment.  But I also have to examine my own motives.  Is my indignation greater because this blog was written now rather than in the fairly far past?  Or is it my own prejudice which leads me to defend the (weak) others more vehemently than I defend my own (strong) group?  Or is it because once twice bigoted shows a trend, where once doesn't.

I don't know.  But I don't think I'll be reading any Orson Scott Card books for a while.

Published Aug 12 2008, 01:39 PM by Lady Fingers

Comments

 

Soldier___Of___Fowl said:

Dogger has sworn off him, and it's kind of sad because he was one of his favorite authors.  But I believe he read the same blog post and said he'd just about had enough of Orson Scott Card.

August 21, 2008 8:33 AM
 

Lady Fingers said:

I read Ender's Shadow first, and really liked it.  I know Ender's Game was written 20 years earlier, but still I was a bit stunned when I hit the gratuitous anti-Semitic chapter in the middle.  But I put that aside, because there was so much good, thoughtful stuff in that series.  Aside, but not forgotten, and it cast a pall over the rest of his books for me.

Sadly, that means his blog suggesting that legalizing marriage for gay people would and should lead to a revolt against the government, shocked me only in its intensity, not so much in its bigotry.  By I tried to give the guy his due--maybe I was taking this too strongly.  Nope.  I did a bit of searching, and it turns out that he has written a number of times about homosexuality.  He calls it a sin.  He says that is it is a genetic preference, then anyone who regularly gives in to such a sinful desire cannot be considered an adult.  He opines that marriage and sex exist purely for reproduction.  Because our planet is so dangerously underpopulated, I guess.

The only question I'm left with is:  If he is so very wrong (in my eyes) about this, should I try to unlearn the other, seemingly valid and worthwhile, things which I learned from his books?

August 25, 2008 12:49 PM

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