Never read McCarthy, but I’ve been following the Vanity Fair article outrage, etc, and also the Alice Munro fallout regarding her husband’s abuse of her daughter. In both cases, from what I gather, it’s not merely that the authors were sh**y people, but their sh**y lives and actions were the material for their work. Separation is thus mu…
Never read McCarthy, but I’ve been following the Vanity Fair article outrage, etc, and also the Alice Munro fallout regarding her husband’s abuse of her daughter. In both cases, from what I gather, it’s not merely that the authors were sh**y people, but their sh**y lives and actions were the material for their work. Separation is thus much more difficult on a moral, ethical and even intellectual level.
Just remembered this morning while reading a piece about Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the revelations concerning Le Carre/Cornwell and how he used his affairs, or at least the locations, in his work. I confess I felt a touch used as a reader. You took me here to get your rocks off, and writing another novel was a side piece, or was it the other way around? But time heals, as they say, and betrayal and misplaced loyalty were themes writ large in the Cold War, in our towns, small German towns and the great cities. Few captured that better. Le Carre wrote about his con man father. So many of us are caught in one spin cycle or another. If we can break one piece of its pattern, bend it toward the constructive, maybe that’s the best we can do.
Never read McCarthy, but I’ve been following the Vanity Fair article outrage, etc, and also the Alice Munro fallout regarding her husband’s abuse of her daughter. In both cases, from what I gather, it’s not merely that the authors were sh**y people, but their sh**y lives and actions were the material for their work. Separation is thus much more difficult on a moral, ethical and even intellectual level.
Just remembered this morning while reading a piece about Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the revelations concerning Le Carre/Cornwell and how he used his affairs, or at least the locations, in his work. I confess I felt a touch used as a reader. You took me here to get your rocks off, and writing another novel was a side piece, or was it the other way around? But time heals, as they say, and betrayal and misplaced loyalty were themes writ large in the Cold War, in our towns, small German towns and the great cities. Few captured that better. Le Carre wrote about his con man father. So many of us are caught in one spin cycle or another. If we can break one piece of its pattern, bend it toward the constructive, maybe that’s the best we can do.