When Lives and Literature Are Inconsistent

Philip Larkin. Roald Dahl. Morrissey. Frances Hodgson Burnett. Emmanuel Kant. Aristotle. T.S. Eliot. Pablo Neruda. F. Scott Fitzgerald. H.P. Lovecraft. Ezra Pound.

You’re probably aware of where I’m going with this list. All brilliant people delivering brilliant thought and literature, words that have changed the world. Also, singly or together, racist, misogynist, antisemitic, fascist.

It’s not a new question. How do we regard artists (in this case I’m looking solely at writers, but the same question applies to visual artists and musicians and actors and a whole slew of other creatives as well) whose contributions to life—whether thought-provoking or uplifting or even merely entertaining—are significant, and yet whose public views on other people are questionable at best and scathingly horrible at worst? Do we ignore what they’ve done and said, or do we reject their entire opus because of it? Does knowing the toxic views of the artist in question affect your enjoyment of their work?

Can you ever separate art from the artists who practice it? Should you?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and have asked others how they answer those questions. One person said one should consider the issue of cultural relativism. Writers who are dead spoke out of their times, he argued; had they lived now, they might well have changed their views, as world literature has—largely, at least—moved away from some of the more overt and repugnant views espoused in the past. If they’re still alive, he said, and they remain bigoted and prejudiced, then there’s a “middle way” in which you can admire them but not buy their books or go to their concerts.

Yet is it possible to ignore them? The pendulum of politics is again on the move, and these concerns don’t belong exclusively to the past. In reading Pound, for example, we can’t ignore that he coding of Jews as illicitly wealthy and conspiring against democracy is becoming again a feature of European and American politics.

Another person said, “You can revere the art… I love Larkin’s work, and I don’t think I would have enjoyed his company at all.” The two, he said, can sit perfectly well side by side. James O’Brien, who I listen to regularly, adds that “these are people who are revered for their artistic brilliance, they are not people who are revered for their toxic views or their engagement in toxic behaviors.”

So… do we only read books written by nice people? Would the world be a better place if we only listen to inoffensive voices? Would that improve our lives?

And then there’s Neil Gaiman, who’s clearly made up his mind on the question, at least as regards Rudyard Kipling: “An incredibly good writer,” he says, “not always somebody I agree with, but thank God I’m allowed to read him.”

I like that. The decision to read or not read someone’s work may be a difficult one, but we can perhaps all agree that it is a personal one, one that others should not impose on us. Yet even that innocuous-sounding sentence is suspect: sometimes others really do know better than we do. Don’t they? But if we don’t hold every artist to the same standards, do we have the authority to tell people which writers are “cancelled,” and what literature they can no longer read?

Another person I listened to said she cannot read any of this work anymore, anyway. “The book itself feels dirty in my hands,” she says. “It’s a physical reaction. I just can’t do it.”

Is there a line to be drawn, further, between bad words and bad behavior? Is it easier to read something written by an author with fascist views than it is to read the words of someone convicted of a crime against another person? Does that affect your enjoyment of a poem or a novel?

And I wonder if it isn’t somehow a triumph of the human spirit to find beauty even in the midst of horror. It’s what we’re called to do when we read life-changing exquisite images “spoken” by a voice that appalls us. It’s also what we’re called to do in our daily lives. That’s a parallel that can’t be overlooked.

There’s a further step. The appalling offenses of figures like Nabokov or de Sade are routinely downplayed or overlooked if the alleged perpetrator is considered a great artist. On other occasions, their behavior is excused and even celebrated: they are the titillating “bad boys” of literature.

What do I think? Honestly, I struggle with the question. While we cannot simply regard works as a reflection of who their maker was, it's impossible, and unhelpful, to overlook this aspect entirely.

Eden Mor, writing in the student newspaper of one of my alma maters, comes to a conclusion that’s the closest I can imagine to something workable. She writes,

You won’t find me listening to artists I find to be racist, sexist or problematic in any way. But separating the art from the artist is an inherently personal decision. It’s up to you to figure out what you think is right or wrong. But if you choose to consume art created by problematic people, make sure you recognize what they did wrong. The last thing we need to be doing is idolizing people we shouldn’t be. 

Tongue in cheek, Helena Fitzgerald writes in Electric Lit that “the only truly feminist thing I have ever done is never finishing a Hemingway novel.” She’s got the separation things down pretty well, anyway!

“You will always wind up in places where you are morally uncomfortable with what you are defending,” says Gaiman. “But you better defend that stuff, because if you don’t, then nobody who is morally uncomfortable with the stuff that you’re making is going to come out for you.”

Maybe that’s the answer—that there’s human connection even when there’s disagreement. I honestly don’t know. And would very much welcome your opinions. Share them here, or on social media, or email me… but please do share them!