Off At A Tangent

[poliphilo]

Actually politics has very little to do with whether I like a writer or not.

I'm talking writers of substance here- writers with settled reputations-  writers of classic status.

For instance I love Evelyn Waugh and dislike George Orwell- even though politically I'm on Orwell's side and against Waugh.

Aldous Huxley is a writer whose views I largely share.  I find him creepy.

Yeats was a deeply unpleasant man and a proto-fascist. I adore him.

I'm not sure I can explain any of this. I was going to say that one of the things I dislike in Orwell is his do-gooding preachiness,  but Dickens, who I love, is full of do-gooding preachiness, so that can't be it.

There's a randomness about it.  I love Agatha Christie and dislike Dorothy L. Sayers.  I love Tolkien and dislike C.S. Lewis. I love Balzac and dislike Zola.

I think it's all down to pheromones. Literary pheromones. Some people turn me on, some repel me.

It's not the least bit reasonable.

Comments

[wokenbyart.livejournal.com]

"Literary pheromones". I love that!!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

[mariko-writing.livejournal.com]

I definitely grapple with separating the writer and the work. For example, I adore Ezra Pound but I just can't get behind his fascism. I love the term "pheremones"!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The further back in time the writer is, the easier it is to separate them from their work.

As Auden wrote:

"Time that forgives Rudyard Kipling
And will forgive Paul Claudel
Forgives because they wrote so well."

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

"Literary pheromones" --- that explains the strange attraction I have to certain writers, even though like you I may find their politics appalling or ther personal lives disgusting. I have added that label to my working vocabulary, but will give you credit if I use it in writing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[sovay]

I don't know if I have that many writers I dislike; there are writers whose work I don't feel compelled to read more of, but that's usually a deficit in their storytelling skills rather than a personal turn-off. (And sometimes it's book-by-book. I bounced very hard off A.S. Byatt's Possession, but I fell head over heels for Angels & Insects.) John Norman's views on gender are appalling, but my contempt for his arguments pales beside the awesome, hemorrhagic awfulness of his prose style.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Of course bad writing is the biggest turn off of all.

But I do find I'm often repelled by people whose style I admire- Orwell is a good example.

And then there are people I love and hate. On the whole I detest D.H. Lawrence, but there are one of two of his poems I find deeply moving