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6/21/2010 11:21:22 AM
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Janet Hutchings
Posts 34
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Fiction writers who are also crusaders for a cause are nothing new. Sometimes the literary value of such writers’ works will stand wholly apart from their success or failure in creating societal change, as with the great works of Dickens. Sometimes, as with, for example, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel (or story) may achieve profound and lasting importance because of its power to effect change, without withstanding artistic criticism well.
Mystery writers have tried, through art, to further their share of causes—sometimes explicitly, sometimes not. Andrew Vachss, a legal advocate for children, has devoted his fiction-writing career to raising awareness of various forms of child abuse; John D. MacDonald was considered by many readers of his Travis McGee novels to be a crusader for the environment; more recently, the Sookie Stackhouse books of Charlaine Harris have been praised for containing a message of tolerance, especially towards sexual minorities. . . . The list goes on.
If a cause is present in a work of fiction—and doesn’t every work of fiction, in one way or another, express attitudes towards issues with which the society in which it is set is engaged?—it works best for me if it’s presented on a level that stands above partisan politics. However, as our society becomes more and more polarized—with cable talk shows seeming to find a partisan slant in just about everything under the sun—it’s becoming more difficult to avoid offending some camp or other. A friend of a very different political persuasion from mine once told me he thought we all want the same things in the end, we just differ about how to get there. Whether that’s true or not, I think it’s generally best in fiction, which—at its best—aims to touch something common to everyman, to avoid the polemical. In the days shortly after 9/11 I got into an interesting correspondence with an author I highly respect about a story whose purpose was clearly, and very explicitly, to offer criticism of a law that had just been passed. The author’s view was that it was my responsibility to publish the story as long as it stood up artistically (which it did). As the editor of a magazine whose primary purpose is entertainment, and which hosts a readership with very diverse backgrounds and opinions, I felt it was, on the contrary, my responsibility to keep politics, as far as possible, out of our pages.
But of course, it’s not quite as simple as that. If one were to strip away from almost any work of fiction everything that could possibly be controversial, the author’s passion would go with it, and the work would likely turn vapid. Fiction necessarily (even inadvertently) presents points of view that aren’t going to meet with universal acceptance (especially in today’s polarized world). But fiction also has the unique potential to show readers things they might not have seen before, where no amount of polemic could. Charlaine Harris’s books are a good example: Readers who love her characters and see, for themselves, a parallel between their circumstances and those of sexual minorities in the real world, may take away from the work something they could never get from debate about the latest proposition or law before a legislature.
What do you think about causes and whether (and how) they should be addressed in fiction? Any examples come to mind?
Janet Hutchings
Editor
EQMM
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6/21/2010 12:37:55 PM
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Tog
Posts 146
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I've always thought that social examination was one of the founding points of Science Fiction. The writer takes one aspect of real life, exaggerates it, then asks, "what if". Orwell did this very well. So did Bradbury. However, there are few in their league.
There is a fine line between making people aware of something and being preachy about it. I think the preachy aspect comes out far too often. IN a fiction story, I think the point being made should either be subtle enough to border on the subliminal, or it should have both side represented more or less equally. In a mystery, I don't really think there is room to support the latter.
My feeling as a reader is that I would prefer to make up my own mind about something as opposed to being told what to think about it by the writer. For a compilation of stories intended for mainly entertainment, I think the editor and publisher are perfectly justified in declining a story that comes off as too political, provided that they are fair about it. Declining a story with a strong anti{issue-x} message is fine, as long as the pro{issue-x} message story is refused on the same grounds. Failing to do this will slant the readership to one camp or the other.
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6/21/2010 9:10:01 PM
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Jeff Baker
Posts 132
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Sometimes an author may draw attention to a great social ill by making it a character's weakness. This explains why Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle made Sherlock Holmes a coccaine addict. At the time, Doyle was in the minority in believing the drug was not healthful. Dr. Watson voices his concerns, esp. in The Sign Of Four...
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6/22/2010 2:44:29 AM
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Tog
Posts 146
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That's a good example of what I was thinking when I said that it could be something that borders on the subliminal. I knew Holmes used it, but I didn't know it was a social issue at the time, so I never made the connection. Holmes also defends the use in a way that it came off (to me) as being more or less justified in his case, so both sides were represented.
Either way, it wasn't the driving force behind any of the stories that I can recall. This is in contrast to the very heavy-handed "Communists are evil" story lines from the radio shows in the fifties, or the "Drugs are bad" story lines from the eighties and nineties TV shows. Seems like they all had at least one episode where a main character turned into an addict, hit rock bottom, and was reprieved in the span of one to four episodes.
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6/22/2010 4:49:13 PM
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stanbrown
Posts 16
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One example that comes immediately to mind is the Ellery Queen novel The Glass Village. At the very least, it is about xenophobia (people believe a foreigner, an immigrant passing through the very small farming village, is the killer) and insularity (the villagers distrust any outside authority). On another level, it seems to be an allegory of the anti-Communist paranoia (but as that it is anachronistic, more a representation of the 1920s than the 1950s, as it is a Polish immigrant who is the object of suspicion, not a home-grown liberal/avant garde type). It is an excellent mystery though--the political purpose doesn't overpower the puzzle. There is a Mr. and Mrs. North novel that revolves around a radio commentator--I'm not sure if there is any real figure that inspires this. He is depicted as a folksy demagogue--like the Andy Griffith movie A Face in the Crowd where the Griffith character becomes a popular TV personality strictly as a folksy entertainer and then tries to spin that into powerful political influence. The politics don't go very far in the North mystery--but you do get Jerry North's point of view on the commentator, and he clearly didn't like him.
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6/23/2010 1:58:16 AM
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Yoshinori Todo
Posts 232
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Interesting topic!
I think most people lean either to the left or the right, and editors are no different. I don't think there's anything wrong with showing that ("I am the editor of this magazine, and I mostly select stories that agree with my political views--whenever presented with a choice"). However, like Tog said, unless it's a political magazine or publication, stories or articles shouldn't be too overtly or heavy-handedly political, or you risk offending some group of readers. There is a fine line between slanting to a particular viewpoint and actually pushing an agenda.
If you think about it, most TV-shows that deal with crime or other social issues lean toward the left or the right. 24, for example, leans probably more to the right . . . but then, of course, the spy genre is a conservative genre to start with; you can’t have a spy show if you want to be friends with everybody. Law and Order, on the other hand, leans heavily toward the left, as Bill O'Reilly so irately pointed out. But most people don't care about such things, because these shows have such compelling storylines and characters, and when it comes to entertainment fiction and TV-shows, these things stand above all else.
--
Josh
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6/25/2010 1:35:44 PM
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Jon L. Breen
Posts 67
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Josh is right. There's nothing wrong with having a point of view. There are novels I remember fondly from far-right-wing writers (Richard S. Prather's THE TROJAN HEARSE) and far-left-wing writers (Gordon DeMarco's THE CANVAS PRISON). When a story is on a particular controversial issue, the writer will inevitably slant the events to support his or her point of view. But when the arguments are made, the opposing point of view should at least be represented by its strongest arguments, not by straw men. I would urge my students in writing argument essays to find the best argument on the other side, not the weakest, to shoot down. Howard Fast did a book called THE TRIAL OF ABIGAIL GOODMAN, and while I agreed with his pro-choice position, I thought it harmed the effectiveness of his polemic when he refused to see any sincerity or any formidable arguments on the other side.
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6/26/2010 8:29:26 PM
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Robert Lopresti
Posts 67
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James McClure wrote an excellent series of novels , 1970s-190s, about a South African cop named Trompie Kramer. He was on the surface, a dedicated member of South African society, committed to apartheid, but his partner, who he would have gladly died for, was a Black man. They could no way acknowledge their friendship in public and struggled to defend a system they knew was injust. Most of the crimes were deeply rooted in apartheid, for example the murder motive in one being (in part) that the victim appears white and isn't.
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6/29/2010 1:09:31 PM
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James A. Ritchie
Posts 142
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I want a good story, I want good, empathetic, memorable characters, and I want a few hours of entertainment. This always comes first. If novel is nothing more than a platform for a message, if it turns into preaching, if it's polemic, I throw it away. I don't read fiction because I want the wirter's opinion of anything. If the writer can give me his opinion with a solid story wrapped around it, and filled with the right characters, I'm all for it, but the moment the writer himself intrudes, he loses me.
It's much like the news. Just tell me what happened and skip the spin doctors. I'll decide for myself what events mean.
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7/3/2010 3:37:10 AM
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Dixon
Posts 39
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Hmmm… While I agree with the above-expressed desire to find a “good read” first, I must admit that the parts of John D. MacDonald’s writing that really stick with me--the parts that have me going back to again re-read his work--are those in which he slips into diatribe against some aspect of (then) contemporary society. They’re like small crystal gems that sparkle and shed light into previously dark areas. I love them. Yet, they’re clearly socio-political in nature. Even when I disagree with the sentiment expressed, which occasionally happens, I still find the writing too delicious to pass up.
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