Issues- I have them
Sep. 18th, 2011 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gryphonseggI've been uncharacteristically quiet about the most recent round of Orson Scott Card being Wrong in print and on the internet. I feel compelled to say something because I used to be such a fan and because my own Card issues are so huge and far-reaching and all-pervasive. Yet I've also been unsure that I could handle any in-depth discussion of some of the subjects that might arise because, like I said, huge, far-reaching, all-pervasive issues. He's one of the writers whose repugnant extra-textual opinions and Author On Board skeeviness I just can't let go. Part of that is simply because they're so extreme, but part if it is because, as gross as it may be, I must admit to some commonality with him. After all, I must have had some reason for being a fan of his long ago, some reason why his earlier works resonated with my younger self the way they did. Although the community in which I was raised was not Mormon (Perish the thought! The more devout among us thought Mormonism was the worst thing since the Fall), it did have some similar expectations about gender roles and sexuality. I didn't fit those expectations. I never could. Like many other former Card fans, I suspect that Card grew up with a great deal of dissonance between his natural inclinations and the expectations of the social and religious community around him. I think that's why the terrible realities he built for his characters struck me so hard as an adolescent. I think it's also why my sorrow and anger over the direction he took are so much more personal than my reactions to other writers who have turned out to be less compassionate than I would have liked. There's some overlap between the issues that repeatedly emerge in his writing and the issues I've struggled with my whole life. I walked away from the community that was hurting me, whereas Card became fanatical (a word I don't use carelessly) in efforts to conform to and force others to conform to a similarly oppressive set of norms.
But I can't let go, at least not yet. Even though I walked away, I still feel dirty. I still feel soiled and defiled and, on my worse days, I feel like a defilement, as if my presence were an instance of pollution of this world. Sometimes I suspect that I'll never feel clean as long as I live. Other times, my hope is stronger and I become certain, however temporarily, that someday I'll know what it's like not to feel dirty all the time. One of the most often repeated qualities of Card's work, and one of the qualities that resonates most strongly with me, is a certain sense of defilement. It's very, very clear to me that he understands what it is to live with a long-term sense of being polluted and a fear of oneself as a source of pollution. I believe that I shouldn't feel that way, and that it will be a good thing if I no longer do. And one of my former favorite authors believes that I should feel that way.
But I can't let go, at least not yet. Even though I walked away, I still feel dirty. I still feel soiled and defiled and, on my worse days, I feel like a defilement, as if my presence were an instance of pollution of this world. Sometimes I suspect that I'll never feel clean as long as I live. Other times, my hope is stronger and I become certain, however temporarily, that someday I'll know what it's like not to feel dirty all the time. One of the most often repeated qualities of Card's work, and one of the qualities that resonates most strongly with me, is a certain sense of defilement. It's very, very clear to me that he understands what it is to live with a long-term sense of being polluted and a fear of oneself as a source of pollution. I believe that I shouldn't feel that way, and that it will be a good thing if I no longer do. And one of my former favorite authors believes that I should feel that way.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-19 12:34 am (UTC)Thank you for sharing, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-19 02:01 am (UTC)I'm actually not feeling bad today. It's a long-term sense of wrongness that is always there in the back of my mind. It erupts into something worse on bad days, but today is not one of those days. I just thought I should explain why my issues with Card are what they are. It seems weird to me that I can neither let go and ignore him nor post a simple, coherent statement of disapproval.