Comments on: BTT: Too Much Information

By: Nymeth

Nymeth — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:26:54 +0000

I believe in separating art from the artist too, but I confess I can have trouble doing so sometimes. But if anything is likely to bother me, it’s not the author’s personal ideology in itself, but what can be seen in the books (always taking historical context into account, of course).

By: Literate Housewife

Literate Housewife — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:32:59 +0000

I agree completely! Art should always be separate from the artist. You can never look at the art in the same way as the creating artist anyway. I touched on that when I wrote about Andrew Wyeth’s passing.

By: JLS Hall

JLS Hall — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:17:34 +0000

I agree – if I learned something really horrible about an author, I might not want to spend time with the person. But I don’t think it would affect my opinion of the work. Some of my favorite books were written by people I probably wouldn’t want to pal around with.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:36:07 +0000

I don’t generally read biographies of authors either, so I would say no too.

By: caite

caite — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:42:20 +0000

I think that some knowledge about an author’s life might give you more insight into their work but no, I don’t think that it has made be either want to read their work or made me not want to read it. Hopefully what they write is separate or maybe beyond their personal life experience alone.

By: Beth F

Beth F — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:30:41 +0000

I’ve just added the following edit to my blog post on this topic: I absolutely believe that a horrible person can be a brilliant writer. Knowing that the author is a horrible person may cool my desire to read more by him or her, but wouldn’t stop me from reading if I truly loved his or her books. I don’t believe in banning books or authors.