Can you enjoy the work of an author if s/he is a total jerk?

[Cee-Jay Aurinko]

It won't matter much to me what type of persons authors are in their real life. Jerk or not, if the book is good, it's good. If it's bad, well...

Authors aren't really social creatures. A rare few might be, but not a lot. Writers spend a lot of time reading, writing, thinking, planning, repeating. Mentally, doing this from day to day, can be exhausting. This is why some authors can be really rude or just plain cold sometimes. Putting all that feeling and emotion down on paper takes a lot out of them.

[Rabidwerewolfie]

Spoken like someone who knows first hand.

[zeldas_lullaby]

It won't matter much to me what type of persons authors are in their real life. Jerk or not, if the book is good, it's good. If it's bad, well...

Authors aren't really social creatures. A rare few might be, but not a lot. Writers spend a lot of time reading, writing, thinking, planning, repeating. Mentally, doing this from day to day, can be exhausting. This is why some authors can be really rude or just plain cold sometimes. Putting all that feeling and emotion down on paper takes a lot out of them.

I found that quite insightful and it definitely has a ring of truth to it. With me, I'm absolutely not a social creature. I like socializing on the internet, but in person I'm a huge bundle of self-conscious frumpiness. :geek: Writing doesn't exhaust me, but I need to add that I'm unemployed and choose my own hours with both writing and home remodeling (currently in the kitchen). Putting the feeling and emotion on paper doesn't exhaust me either, but it takes me someplace and distracts me, which has the same effect of making me unreachable and possibly not fun to be with. (My dad bears the brunt of most of this.)

I liked your post!!

[sdavaloz88]

Do we really know everything about every author? No. So to be honest ultimately if the book is good then find out later the author did or said something terrible, so be it. I won't regret reading the book.

[zeldas_lullaby]

Let's make it more real. What about that Bill Cosby biography from which the author eliminated any reference to his sex crimes? On the one hand, it could add insight to his sickness, by reading between the lines. But on the other hand, reading it would support him and the biographer who deliberately left out something pretty inportant.

I would not buy that book for any of them to benefit financially. I might read it from a library or such.

[teacher_jane1]

I think this is part of the endless question, is the art part of the artist's larger context, or does it stand alone? I tend to think that art is best understood as an expression of an individual experience within a context, so before I wrote an author off as a "jerk" and quit reading their work I'd want to make sure that their jerkiness was actually just that, and not poorly chosen words. Then I'd want to make sure that their jerkiness tainted their art in a way that invalidate any truth or beauty that they worked to express. So if an author was really cruel to goldfish, completely pointlessly, but wrote a incredible book about growing up in Rwanda during the genocide, I'd probably read the novel without letting the goldfish cruelty affect it. But if the author was part of the genocide and killed a lot of people and wasn't repentant---I'd think harder about it.

[gali]

I can't separate the author from his work, so the answer is no.

[Max Tyrone]

Last semester, an author lectured a Princeton class, a class my friend partook in. It basically was a writing workshop that required a short story written for critique and revision. My friend submitted his story to the author, of who has won two Pulitzer's, and they debased it in front of everyone because it was sci-fi. It wasn't realistic enough. No one else had submitted sci-fi or fantasy works, and my friend suffered for it, since he had to write the genre required in the invisible fine-print.

I think the best case of this topic--and I know it's completely fictional (oops, to those who haven't read it)--is the classic "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov. The reader knows the narrator is a horrible man through his perversions and actions. And yet, to this day, it is regarded as one of the most important, and one of the most beautiful works of art in the postmodern era. Is it possible to separate the author and hers/his work? Obviously. Does appreciating the work of a crooked author make the reader a morally bad person? I think we're in the middle of that as a culture. I mean, examples are everywhere: the latest and most popular case of Bill Cosby; the myriad of rappers that rap about killing and robbing over sick beats. I think that's what Nabokov hints at in his multiple deceptions.

I live in both neighborhoods: I can't separate the two, yet I can read a work without thinking of the name that wrote it. Too much objectivity sours my milk. That's no way to enjoy it. And The Virgin Suicides was an alright movie. Could've used more dragons, though.

[zeldas_lullaby]

No one should be debased like that, for writing sci-fi fantasy, no less. What a jerk. I'd like to do something to him with his Pulitzers. It's great to win awards and feel good about yourself, but not if you're going to puff yourself up and push everyone around you down.

The Virgin Suicides? I was watching that movie once several years ago--maybe even several decades--and I noticed that the tree that was cut down was there again at the end of the movie. Weirdness. Talk about your awful mistakes directing a movie!! And I totally agree that the movie needed more dragons.

[Max Tyrone]

Tell me about it! Ethics of success haha

And I never noticed that in the movie, granted that I only saw it once. Editing only has one job!

[zeldas_lullaby]

I only saw it the one time too, which is why I've never been convinced that I witnessed a huge mistake (the tree being pivotal to the story).

Yeah, I'm telling ya, I encountered walking egos like that in college, and I just hate people like that! I mean, geez. How hard is it to criticize someone's story privately?

Welcome to the forums!

[Max Tyrone]

I STILL encounter them in college! An ounce of objectivity wouldn't hurt.

And thanks!

[Thesaurus Rex]

If I hated the work of everyone who was a jerk, then I wouldn't even like my own essays. Harhar!

[BlaqkViolette]

Personally I think I could read the novel of someone who is a "Jerk" if the novel is highly acclaimed, but that the story may perhaps be slightly tainted by as all I would think would be "How could someone that is so horrible write so beautifully?".

I don't expect authors to be social adept or by any mean an extrovert, but I do expect them to have manners and not be rude regarding other people's work if there is no justification or constructive criticism.

[Sophie14]

I am able to enjoy the work of an author, despite the fact that I find them to be jerks. Yet, if an author is a jerk, I do not necessarily go out of my way to read books written by them.