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

a rambling reply

[barbarakelley.livejournal.com]

Very good questions--I know exactly what you mean, and I sometimes wrestle with that too. My dad has this thing about bad language in books--he doesn't mind reading them, but if, when I'm at his house, I pick up a book he knows has bad language in it, he will actively try to steer me away from it. I sometimes find his protectiveness mildly annoying (I am in my 40's) but also it is kind of funny. Bad language alone seldom bothers me; I hardly notice it, unless every other word is a curse word. And then it isn't so much that the language offends me, it is more that the character isn't someone I would want to spend time with if they were real. In effect, I'm simply evaluating the book as if the characters were real people, and reacting as I normally would. Some people I would simply avoid.

I've developed a kind of sense of there being differences in sexual content--at least according to my own perceptions. If a books seems to me to be written to titilate, or to revel in being "bad", then I will usually set it aside.

If the sex in the book seems to be presenting an aspect of humanity (good or bad) then it isn't usually offensive to me, even if it is something wicked. My perceptions of course might be different than another person's, and may not reflect the intentions of the writer at all, but they work for me.

One of the most "sinful" books (being about a sinful topic, I mean) I've read came to be spiritually helpful for me. I'm thinking of Nabokov's Lolita, in which the main character is a pedophile. Rather than being sickened and repulsed by it (the expected response to child abuse in real life) I was amazed at how the author could make this despicable character the protagonist of the story. As I was reading, I found myself (uncomfortably) understanding and relating to the character. Somehow, for me, the result was an understanding of sin as separate from the person, and a realization of how easily broken people can fall into terrible sins, and not even recognize the enormity of what they are doing. When I finished it, I felt like I understood humannkind just a little bit better. Though of course the understanding was dark and disturbing, too... but it helped me at the time.

Practically everything I read, I try to come up with some spiritual meaning in it. I don't always succeed, but usually there is something--even if only the wish that the author had been truer to goodness rather than writing the book the way they did.

I have just recently rejected a book--the sex scene didn't bother me, but the page after page of description of a fancy dress ball annoyed me. Oddly, this inflating the importance of the trivial was more offensive to me than the gratuitous sex.