Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Chuvok]

I've made a new rule for myself that I'm not going to try and learn about the authors I read.


Why, you ask?


Well, time and time again I find a good book that appeals to me, read it with pleasure, then go looking for other books the author has written. Eventually I look online to see who the author actually is... and almost always it seems I discover something about the author that is distasteful and lowers my opinion of them, and by proxy, their writing.

For example, a couple of years I read 'Fight Club' by Chuck Palahniuk. Surely, most people have seen the movie. The book is much better! Palahniuk... I figured he was a Slav of some sort, living in the US. The type of person who is very skeptical about culture, young-ish, average guy with something to say.

So, I do a Google search and find a website that appears to be the official Palahniuk site. I click on the forum, and what do I see as topic??? "Chuck Palahniuk is gay". Not just gay, but an Uber-homo!

Now, I don't really care if people are gay. I'm not gay. Live and let live. But when I enjoyed a book like 'Fight Club', which happens to be about a young man who dreams up an idealised male alter ego/friend.... well, discovering Palahniuk is gay made me wonder why he wrote the book. Was Tyler Durden a homosexual fantasy of some sort? At the time the book's lack of female characters (Marla Singer being a very weak character) was refreshing, with none of the typical male/female politics, sort of like going fishing with your father and brothers, no need to think about girlfriends or wives and mother for a few hours! But again, learning Palahniuk is gay ruined that. The book became a homosexual's way of maginalising women. One line of the book stands out; "I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need." of course not, if you're a gay author, you want men men men...



Another recent example is Orson Scott Card. The author best known for his 'Ender's Game' series. Again, I read a number of his books, enjoyed them a great deal, and found myself doing a Wikipedia search to see who he is. Turns out he's a rather nutty Mormon with some really foul conservative political views, and an ego the size of Siberia. So what? Well, again knowing who he is in real life taints his books for me. I don't want to read any more of an a**hole's books.


So, as I've said, my new rule is not to look-up authors. I'll just read their books (or listen to audio books) and pretend they are good people.

[JMO]

When I found out that my favorite ever carver line(and his style) was created by his editor, I was kind of sad.

[Poemer]

There are much better reasons to dislike Chuck Palahniuk's writing--like, for instance, the fact that he is a hack.

[HapKi]

If you had read Invisible Monsters first I'm sure you would have a different tune.

[Poemer]

[Koveras]

[Poemer]

I'm not familiar with him, but from the wiki description of his prose style, i'm curious now. How is is stuff?

What made you ask?

[Koveras]

[Poemer]

"certified classic" huh? "academic" lit is as full of fads as "pop" lit. I enjoy stuff that's good, not certified by someone else. So, you're not gonna catch me out that way

[Poemer]

It's also ironic that Chuck Palahniuk is my Thomas Clayton Wolfe for the purposes of weeding out people whose literary opinions I can discard.

[Omkara]

Happened to me when I read the Bible.