When Morals and Books Collide

[main-hoon-emily.livejournal.com]

I was going to just post this on my journal, but then I thought it might be better received here.

When it comes to what you read, how do you respond to characters or themes or plots that go against what you consider to be morally or religiously right?

Generally, I won't put down a book that has morally questionable content unless I dislike the writing style or the plot. But then, I'm not talking about truly repugnant subjects but things like, do the characters sleep together even though they aren't married? Does someone keep taking the Lord's name in vain or using the f-word every time they talk? Are the unpleasant activities described because they're necessary to the plot, or is this just a chance to wallow in filth?

There are a lot of books I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, though, because of what I know them to contain (either I started reading them and came across something distasteful, or I've heard about it from someone who did read them), and I've just been curious how others approach this. I don't want to give specific examples because I don't want to turn this into a debate about whether such-and-such a book was bad or good, but just in general. And, if you want to go a step beyond that, are you satisfied with the lines you have or haven't drawn, or do you feel that you're too permissive or too conservative?

Bleh, I hope this all makes sense!

Comments

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

well it depends...I could think of examples
of writers whom I know to be,or to have been,
engaged in things that seem to me outside
what I would call Christian morality and also
who, or others who, are not Christian in belief
and whom nonetheless I cut a lot of slack for...
for various reasons, a sense of a nonetheless
real spiritual and artistic value etc.
recognition of a real inner quest etc.

but just now I am looking at a book called The
Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen which I read
yeats ago and now, going to see the snow leopards
at the Central Park Zoo on Saturday ,I pick up again.

Matthiessen's book describes his travel across the
plateau of Tibet hoping to see a rare snow leopard
and it becomes a spiritual quest. There is some
beautiful writing.
On the other hand I dislike on some level that he is
a Buddhist, presumably having started out as some sort
of Christian in background.
Let it be a prejudice but anyone who has left Christianity
and taken up another religion, not as something he admires
along side of his Christianity, but as his sole faith, anyone
like that starts with a couple of strikes against him in my
book...
Also he is leaving his wife with whom he had a rocky marriage
behind for this trip which he was able to do being a rich
cultured guy whereas most guys , or in another way wives of
course, but most guys can just go to a football game or
something when things are tough at home.
something about the whole business seems self indulgent...

I cannot say that I have drawn lines that hold from one
case to another but this is a book I have trouble with
and do not have a good feeling of.

this is what occurs to me to say in response to this just now
yours
+Seraphim