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

[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."