Personally, I feel that this would all depend on the exposure
and regularity of the writers’ creative pieces. While reading John Cheever’s The
Swimmer I was aware that Cheever was an alcoholic but this did not come to mind
during reading. This was even the case when I read Cheever’s Goodbye my
brother, though it is acutely obvious that alcohol is present. But just
because alcohol is present in a number of his works, surely this doesn’t
clarify as evidence in itself to suggest that he was an alcoholic, and thus
distract you from the works? After all...
-- Roland Barthes
In line with Barthes theory on the death of the author, I treat the two as separate entities, and don’t find it at all distracting. If anything it deepens the piece because
there’s a cornel of truth behind it. Take F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great
Gatsby, for example. I did not examine the text when in school and only lightly
read it last year – thoroughly enjoying its tight structure. Even so, I only
found out earlier this year that Fitzgerald’s narrator, Nick Caraway, could potentially
be read as a homosexual. While there is no concurrent proof that The Great
Gatsby’s writer, Fitzgerald was a homosexual, it is said that he was ‘famously sensitive about his masculinity’. This again does not distract from the narrative but merely adds another facet to it.
To conclude, I disagree with the above statement and cite that quality of a work exceeds the reputation of the writer – and that if prior knowledge of the writer is known, then this would enlighten rather than distract.
Really good Sam. I disagree as well. I think that there will always be a little piece of the writer in the text, that really can't be helped, but I think that makes the text more believable and meaningful. Cheever's character's may be flawed, but at the end of the day, human beings are flawed. To reject a book because we disapprove of an unconventional, flawed protagonist would be kind of like ignoring reality. No one is perfect, so why should characters in literature be so?
ReplyDeleteI suppose in writing you always want a flawed protagonist; someone's who's perfect isn't interesting, it's the faults and struggles of the characters that we that connect with as readers. But as writers, whose flaws do we know better than our own? After all, the only person you’ll ever truly know is yourself. So I believe that the flaws of the writer will likely be present in their work in some way or another, put in their consciously or not, but as you say how well this may work is at the discretion of the author.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes the writing good or bad isn't determined by whether the flaws and weaknesses of the writer are present in their work (as I feel this is unavoidable). but rather their skill as a writer.