An excellent newsletter, and really thoughtful, thought-provoking comments too. I wondered after watching the MJ documentary, and believing his victims, whether his music would be ruined for me. I sometimes still listen to it - it feels different now. And I'm always a little surprised when he gets played on the radio.
I think sometimes, it depends what you care about in the artist's work. If it's important to their work that they be broadly decent people, finding out that they did bad things can really affect how you feel about it. This sounds facetious but isn't meant to be - I think Bob Dylan is kind of an arse, but his music doesn't pretend to be otherwise, so it doesn't affect my enjoyment. If I ever found out about an incontrovertible bad thing about Bruce Springsteen (won't happen), it would be a different matter, because his music is about decency and kindness.
For me, it's uncomplicated if the artist is dead. I can acknowledge their hurtful words or actions and enjoy (or criticise) their work at face value. But if I'm financially contributing to a living artist it's more complicated. If someone has been convicted for whatever they've done, do I really want to contribute to their future in any way? If they have allegedly done something that hasn't been proven, should I be the person judging them and whether they deserve my coin if they have created something I would be interesting in watching/listening to/reading?
What concerns me is when people won't read/listen/view anything created by someone with different politics to them. Why would you shut yourself off from any ideas that might be different from your own? We're all complicated, and I personally enjoy challenging my own views.
Loved this week's newsletter. My first thought when I saw the title was Michael Jackson. Very topical with the Thriller album having its 40 year anniversary.
A bookstagram account I follow, and really like, had a post a while back about authors whose work the account author would never read because of the author's personality or political affiliations. I can't remember all of them but I remember Delia Owens, wanted for questioning in Zambia in relation to the imperialistic murders of poachers that her ex husband was suspected of, and Elif Shafak, because of her affiliations with the 'wrong party' in Turkish politics. I was interested to hear the background information about these novelists, of course, but I don't think it would stop me reading more of their books. I dislike the idea of shaming people for reading authors who haven't got a squeaky clean mark sheet. The art is an independent piece.
All that said, the day after the docu came out about MJ, my choir and I were due to sing 'Man in the Mirror' at a concert. We held off...but it is a song that is still in the general set list. As is 'I Believe I Can Fly'. Sure there'd be no songs left to sing if we were cutting them on that basis!
I am myself a man, which is probably an impossible disclaimer, but I read Larkin’s “The Less Deceived” recently and don’t remember seeing anything that treats a woman who died to sexual violence as a full human in quite the same way. The sense of not letting her become only a victim, but still be a full person and an intelligent one, a rage at how she could be reduced to just a story. I don’t mean to say “and therefore he was always a feminist!” Just that maybe sometimes he had vile views about women, and sometimes he had thoughtfully empathetic ones.
My understanding of Barthes’ point in Death of the Author was that any work of art isn’t written by figures like “Philip Larkin,” because those figures don’t really exist. All of us have ugly moments and better moments, and contradict ourselves.
Books are written over lots of different moments and we’re not completely consistent between them— sometimes the entity that ends up producing them is different to the person you catch in a moment, I guess. But also sometimes people do have consistently uncomfortable views, and I imagine that’s probably true with Larkin and race, so I don’t know.
Probably I’m suspicious of the idea people’s essences are always in their work, because it’s hard to believe after writing things myself. I never really agree with the things I write reading them back? It’d be uncomfortable if someone thought they were all consistent, and took the most unpleasant ones as the baseline for the consistency.
I think it's a mistake to simply stop egaging in art because the artist held unsavory or even evil opinions or engaged in terrible acts. It is important to make it part of the discussion, part of the context.
On a far more trivial level I wonder if people feel an artist's personality effects their enjoyment of their work. E.G If we find out an artist is just a bit of a dick - do we like their work less? You've met lots of great writers now - I wonder if you prefer the work of those writers who you felt you had the best connection or nicest time with? Don't worry, that question can be rhetorical!
Great article Hattie. This speaks to an interesting question around what art is itself. Yes there's an obvious line from the money an artist makes from you purchasing, say, a concert ticket to go and see them while they're alive. But once they're gone, is the art they've created really there's anymore? I know this risks dipping into the airy fairy a little bit. But, to me an artist is tapping into something that already exists in the world, they've just used their unique combination of biology/psychology to bring it into a form that we can consume. Unless the art itself is informed by some of the awful thing they've done in their lives, I separate the two entirely.
I think you did an excellent job in this piece of grappling with the question. It's important to be unsure. It's easy for me to say I would avoid Chris Brown. I wasn't interested in his work in the first place. Larkin is different. For the reasons you elucidate, I wouldn't want to impoverish my own enjoyment of the world, which includes enjoyment of his poetry. And I'm reluctant to throw anyone's writing into the dustbin, really. People say vile things on Monday and turn around Tuesday and do wonderful, kind things. I prefer a world of literature in which that full spectrum exists, villainy to saintliness.
And there's something odd in the whole question, which is so common now: "Should I spend money that might go to a 'bad' person?" All of our purchases are so tainted with immorality--the slave labor that provides most goods, the exploitation inherent in the free-market economy, etc--but all of that horror feels very distant and out of our control, and it's much easier to point at one individual author/actor/musician and say, "No, I won't give money to HIM." It's a way to feel like we have control over where our money goes, when we rarely if ever do.
In some ways, it's like not tipping a waiter who did a terrible job of serving at a restaurant. It's one arena where we do have control of who gets our money, and if we hated that waiter, then why should we pay him? (That isn't an argument I agree with, by the way. Tip your waiters, please.) But because books and music are elective purchases, and because we know of writers and musicians as individuals, we feel more control in those transactions and we have the ability to "punish" the individuals we feel are unworthy.
It's a slippery question, and there's something truly strange in it. I don't claim any particular answer--we should all use our own best judgment. I'm always pleased when I see anyone else publicly grappling with it, though. None of this is easy or clear.
Yes, totally! I struggle because I like a lot of GK Chesterton’s stuff, but then he also keeps saying absurdly awful things in-between the things I like, and then I don’t really know what to do. I thought I might just plagiarise his stuff and not tell anyone, then they wouldn’t have to look at the horrible bits
It's so interesting the way these aspects of Larkin's biography were duly swept under the carpet for the recent anniversary and a series of (actually really good) documentaries about him on the BBC. There was one sweeping reference and then tumbleweed....
I've been sitting here pondering whether or not to share this personal story...
I was abused by a schoolmaster at a boarding school in the sixties. His colleagues must have suspected what was going on. The schoolmaster subsequently became an award winning writer and quite famous. He continued to groom myself and my brother and became a friend of our family. Thirty years later he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment having been convicted as a paedophile. His name appears on the sexual offences register together with Jimmy Savile and others. He was a manipulative, damaged man, who thought he was 'helping' the boys he abused.
How do I feel about his work now? If one of his plays came on the radio I would probably listen to it partly out of curiosity and partly because it's likely that I accompanied him to the BBC studio as a teenager when it was recorded. So it would have a certain nostalgic value. That doesn't change my feelings of revulsion towards him and what he did to me and the way he treated my family.
I wasn't aware of Philip Larkin's racism. His poems are beautiful, they have affected me, changed me. My relationship with Larkin is mediated through his poetry. As a man he sounds horrendous and it's unlikely we would have been friends. The work is separate to the artist, it exists in its own right and communicates directly. This is part of the magic of creating art.
I'll dance to 'Billie Jean' because it's a great disco track, sublime. And when I sit down I might think about the damaged individual who was Michael Jackson, but probably not.
An excellent newsletter, and really thoughtful, thought-provoking comments too. I wondered after watching the MJ documentary, and believing his victims, whether his music would be ruined for me. I sometimes still listen to it - it feels different now. And I'm always a little surprised when he gets played on the radio.
I think sometimes, it depends what you care about in the artist's work. If it's important to their work that they be broadly decent people, finding out that they did bad things can really affect how you feel about it. This sounds facetious but isn't meant to be - I think Bob Dylan is kind of an arse, but his music doesn't pretend to be otherwise, so it doesn't affect my enjoyment. If I ever found out about an incontrovertible bad thing about Bruce Springsteen (won't happen), it would be a different matter, because his music is about decency and kindness.
For me, it's uncomplicated if the artist is dead. I can acknowledge their hurtful words or actions and enjoy (or criticise) their work at face value. But if I'm financially contributing to a living artist it's more complicated. If someone has been convicted for whatever they've done, do I really want to contribute to their future in any way? If they have allegedly done something that hasn't been proven, should I be the person judging them and whether they deserve my coin if they have created something I would be interesting in watching/listening to/reading?
What concerns me is when people won't read/listen/view anything created by someone with different politics to them. Why would you shut yourself off from any ideas that might be different from your own? We're all complicated, and I personally enjoy challenging my own views.
Loved this week's newsletter. My first thought when I saw the title was Michael Jackson. Very topical with the Thriller album having its 40 year anniversary.
A bookstagram account I follow, and really like, had a post a while back about authors whose work the account author would never read because of the author's personality or political affiliations. I can't remember all of them but I remember Delia Owens, wanted for questioning in Zambia in relation to the imperialistic murders of poachers that her ex husband was suspected of, and Elif Shafak, because of her affiliations with the 'wrong party' in Turkish politics. I was interested to hear the background information about these novelists, of course, but I don't think it would stop me reading more of their books. I dislike the idea of shaming people for reading authors who haven't got a squeaky clean mark sheet. The art is an independent piece.
All that said, the day after the docu came out about MJ, my choir and I were due to sing 'Man in the Mirror' at a concert. We held off...but it is a song that is still in the general set list. As is 'I Believe I Can Fly'. Sure there'd be no songs left to sing if we were cutting them on that basis!
I am myself a man, which is probably an impossible disclaimer, but I read Larkin’s “The Less Deceived” recently and don’t remember seeing anything that treats a woman who died to sexual violence as a full human in quite the same way. The sense of not letting her become only a victim, but still be a full person and an intelligent one, a rage at how she could be reduced to just a story. I don’t mean to say “and therefore he was always a feminist!” Just that maybe sometimes he had vile views about women, and sometimes he had thoughtfully empathetic ones.
My understanding of Barthes’ point in Death of the Author was that any work of art isn’t written by figures like “Philip Larkin,” because those figures don’t really exist. All of us have ugly moments and better moments, and contradict ourselves.
Books are written over lots of different moments and we’re not completely consistent between them— sometimes the entity that ends up producing them is different to the person you catch in a moment, I guess. But also sometimes people do have consistently uncomfortable views, and I imagine that’s probably true with Larkin and race, so I don’t know.
Probably I’m suspicious of the idea people’s essences are always in their work, because it’s hard to believe after writing things myself. I never really agree with the things I write reading them back? It’d be uncomfortable if someone thought they were all consistent, and took the most unpleasant ones as the baseline for the consistency.
I think it's a mistake to simply stop egaging in art because the artist held unsavory or even evil opinions or engaged in terrible acts. It is important to make it part of the discussion, part of the context.
On a far more trivial level I wonder if people feel an artist's personality effects their enjoyment of their work. E.G If we find out an artist is just a bit of a dick - do we like their work less? You've met lots of great writers now - I wonder if you prefer the work of those writers who you felt you had the best connection or nicest time with? Don't worry, that question can be rhetorical!
Great article Hattie. This speaks to an interesting question around what art is itself. Yes there's an obvious line from the money an artist makes from you purchasing, say, a concert ticket to go and see them while they're alive. But once they're gone, is the art they've created really there's anymore? I know this risks dipping into the airy fairy a little bit. But, to me an artist is tapping into something that already exists in the world, they've just used their unique combination of biology/psychology to bring it into a form that we can consume. Unless the art itself is informed by some of the awful thing they've done in their lives, I separate the two entirely.
I think you did an excellent job in this piece of grappling with the question. It's important to be unsure. It's easy for me to say I would avoid Chris Brown. I wasn't interested in his work in the first place. Larkin is different. For the reasons you elucidate, I wouldn't want to impoverish my own enjoyment of the world, which includes enjoyment of his poetry. And I'm reluctant to throw anyone's writing into the dustbin, really. People say vile things on Monday and turn around Tuesday and do wonderful, kind things. I prefer a world of literature in which that full spectrum exists, villainy to saintliness.
And there's something odd in the whole question, which is so common now: "Should I spend money that might go to a 'bad' person?" All of our purchases are so tainted with immorality--the slave labor that provides most goods, the exploitation inherent in the free-market economy, etc--but all of that horror feels very distant and out of our control, and it's much easier to point at one individual author/actor/musician and say, "No, I won't give money to HIM." It's a way to feel like we have control over where our money goes, when we rarely if ever do.
In some ways, it's like not tipping a waiter who did a terrible job of serving at a restaurant. It's one arena where we do have control of who gets our money, and if we hated that waiter, then why should we pay him? (That isn't an argument I agree with, by the way. Tip your waiters, please.) But because books and music are elective purchases, and because we know of writers and musicians as individuals, we feel more control in those transactions and we have the ability to "punish" the individuals we feel are unworthy.
It's a slippery question, and there's something truly strange in it. I don't claim any particular answer--we should all use our own best judgment. I'm always pleased when I see anyone else publicly grappling with it, though. None of this is easy or clear.
Yes, totally! I struggle because I like a lot of GK Chesterton’s stuff, but then he also keeps saying absurdly awful things in-between the things I like, and then I don’t really know what to do. I thought I might just plagiarise his stuff and not tell anyone, then they wouldn’t have to look at the horrible bits
It's so interesting the way these aspects of Larkin's biography were duly swept under the carpet for the recent anniversary and a series of (actually really good) documentaries about him on the BBC. There was one sweeping reference and then tumbleweed....
Celene comes to mind, but I can't think less of his genius because of it.
I've been sitting here pondering whether or not to share this personal story...
I was abused by a schoolmaster at a boarding school in the sixties. His colleagues must have suspected what was going on. The schoolmaster subsequently became an award winning writer and quite famous. He continued to groom myself and my brother and became a friend of our family. Thirty years later he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment having been convicted as a paedophile. His name appears on the sexual offences register together with Jimmy Savile and others. He was a manipulative, damaged man, who thought he was 'helping' the boys he abused.
How do I feel about his work now? If one of his plays came on the radio I would probably listen to it partly out of curiosity and partly because it's likely that I accompanied him to the BBC studio as a teenager when it was recorded. So it would have a certain nostalgic value. That doesn't change my feelings of revulsion towards him and what he did to me and the way he treated my family.
I wasn't aware of Philip Larkin's racism. His poems are beautiful, they have affected me, changed me. My relationship with Larkin is mediated through his poetry. As a man he sounds horrendous and it's unlikely we would have been friends. The work is separate to the artist, it exists in its own right and communicates directly. This is part of the magic of creating art.
I'll dance to 'Billie Jean' because it's a great disco track, sublime. And when I sit down I might think about the damaged individual who was Michael Jackson, but probably not.