“There’s a Japanese method or repair known as kintsugi, where cracked bowls are glued back together with lacquer mixed with precious metal. The repair becomes a feature, a thing of beauty, not a shameful breakage to be hidden or denied.”
I used to have an acquaintance who had a mantra “Everything in my life has prepared me for this moment”. I sometimes think about that statement when faced with life’s vicissitudes. “I am who I am because of my experiences, not ‘inspite of the bad stuff’. “
Another compelling post, Katy, thank you for sharing.
Marvelous essay. The stories about Gaiman are troubling and this helps me make sense of them. He's a terrific author; if he's also a monster how do we reconcile that with his work? (American Gods is really good - give it another chance. His translation/cleaning up of Norse myths is also wonderful - and both of those are pretty dark). There's a parallel issue with judges: sometimes admired judges turn out to be terrible people in their personal lives. Sol Wachtler was thought to be one of the great judges in the US (Chief Judge of the NY Court of Appeals (top level court) in the 1980s). Then it came out he made terrible threats against a former lover and her daughter, which led him to be criminally convicted and serve time in prison. So how do we treat his brilliant legal opinions as a judge? The Oklahoma Supreme Court had multiple justices on the payroll of a lawyer for decades; when it came out they'd taken bribes in so many cases that they couldn't remember which ones, the judiciary had to figure out how to treat those decades of precedents. (Oklahoma pretty much punted - only if there was proof that a particular decision was the result of the bribes would it be disregarded; yet there was no proof because there were so many.....). Perhaps a comparison of bad men/good author-judge could be a law journal article for you!
Thank you so much. Yes, my sister told me to persist with American Gods too, for almost identical reasons to those you’ve stated, which is why I still have it there on the shelf, for a rainy day. If you know what I mean, I might not have been in the right mood for it when I read it.
The point about judges who have this issue is a great one. A former High Court Judge here was accused of harassing his female associates, and the government compensated three of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_Heydon.
Heydon is responsible for a lot of erudite legal works and cases. Some people have said that they have avoided his works since the allegations were made public. I do refer to his decisions and texts (where relevant) in my work. For me, the question regarding his academic work is whether he gets the law right, and whether he makes points I think are worth considering.
This is great, Katy. Just to highlight one of the reasons it's great - the way you've approached it, the story you've created, mirrors the nature of the issue and so internally reinforces the final point about the unfortunate complexity of real evil behavior by real people. I can only say that the essays selected in the competition must have been stellar, but I fear we're not.
Thanks so much Tony. I suspect I made the long list, so I shall take that as a feather in my cap. Your endorsement means a lot to me.
I keep thinking: people are weird. Some of the things I’ve seen in cases or in legal practice—if I wrote them in fiction, no one would believe it. We’re complex beings.
We are such complex creatures, and the current tendency to define people by one aspect rather than admitting to nuance is disturbing.
That said, I do realise that there is a point at which an act is so heinous that it overrides all other considerations; I cannot imagine trying to point our that a proven mass murderer was actually really nice to his cats, for example, and the bar for such beyond-the-pale behaviour will differ from person to person. I get why people are cancelled for acts which I personally would condemn but see as part of a changing and complex whole.
Slightly chaotic thoughts; sorry. Your essay has made me think, and for that I am grateful.
Thank you. Yes, there is a point where you can’t put it aside easily. I can’t think of anyone specific, but I’m sure there’s a point where someone could be such a heinous person that I couldn’t read their writing and enjoy it.
You’re also right that people might have different points where they can’t deal with someone’s conduct. If someone wants to throw out all Gaiman’s books because they don’t enjoy them any more, I would totally understand, and I wouldn’t criticise them. There’s not an easy answer. I find it weird that people get upset with authors when they turn out to have different views on political or religious matters and have to reject them, but i suspect I’m a “high decoupler”.
The main thing is that I wouldn’t demand anyone have the same response as me. I resent it when people say, “You have to respond exactly like *this*, or you are complicit in this person’s actions, because you refuse to reject every single thing that they ever did.” It is possible to condone bad behaviour and have a more complex view on the person’s work.
A perceptive and sensitive essay - thank you Katy. All the way through i was thinking of one of my favourite authors, Alice Munro - not a fantasy writer and not a sexual abuser but her 2nd husband was. When her daughter went to her with the story, she refused to believe it. This is a terrible betrayal and hard to square up with a writer who can describe the lives of girls and women in such loving detail. I still dont know how i feel about it. I think of the title of Carson McCuller's masterpiece:
“There’s a Japanese method or repair known as kintsugi, where cracked bowls are glued back together with lacquer mixed with precious metal. The repair becomes a feature, a thing of beauty, not a shameful breakage to be hidden or denied.”
I used to have an acquaintance who had a mantra “Everything in my life has prepared me for this moment”. I sometimes think about that statement when faced with life’s vicissitudes. “I am who I am because of my experiences, not ‘inspite of the bad stuff’. “
Another compelling post, Katy, thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much. And yes, these things shape us in important ways.
Marvelous essay. The stories about Gaiman are troubling and this helps me make sense of them. He's a terrific author; if he's also a monster how do we reconcile that with his work? (American Gods is really good - give it another chance. His translation/cleaning up of Norse myths is also wonderful - and both of those are pretty dark). There's a parallel issue with judges: sometimes admired judges turn out to be terrible people in their personal lives. Sol Wachtler was thought to be one of the great judges in the US (Chief Judge of the NY Court of Appeals (top level court) in the 1980s). Then it came out he made terrible threats against a former lover and her daughter, which led him to be criminally convicted and serve time in prison. So how do we treat his brilliant legal opinions as a judge? The Oklahoma Supreme Court had multiple justices on the payroll of a lawyer for decades; when it came out they'd taken bribes in so many cases that they couldn't remember which ones, the judiciary had to figure out how to treat those decades of precedents. (Oklahoma pretty much punted - only if there was proof that a particular decision was the result of the bribes would it be disregarded; yet there was no proof because there were so many.....). Perhaps a comparison of bad men/good author-judge could be a law journal article for you!
Thank you so much. Yes, my sister told me to persist with American Gods too, for almost identical reasons to those you’ve stated, which is why I still have it there on the shelf, for a rainy day. If you know what I mean, I might not have been in the right mood for it when I read it.
The point about judges who have this issue is a great one. A former High Court Judge here was accused of harassing his female associates, and the government compensated three of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_Heydon.
Heydon is responsible for a lot of erudite legal works and cases. Some people have said that they have avoided his works since the allegations were made public. I do refer to his decisions and texts (where relevant) in my work. For me, the question regarding his academic work is whether he gets the law right, and whether he makes points I think are worth considering.
This is great, Katy. Just to highlight one of the reasons it's great - the way you've approached it, the story you've created, mirrors the nature of the issue and so internally reinforces the final point about the unfortunate complexity of real evil behavior by real people. I can only say that the essays selected in the competition must have been stellar, but I fear we're not.
Thanks so much Tony. I suspect I made the long list, so I shall take that as a feather in my cap. Your endorsement means a lot to me.
I keep thinking: people are weird. Some of the things I’ve seen in cases or in legal practice—if I wrote them in fiction, no one would believe it. We’re complex beings.
Beautifully written, and very perceptive.
We are such complex creatures, and the current tendency to define people by one aspect rather than admitting to nuance is disturbing.
That said, I do realise that there is a point at which an act is so heinous that it overrides all other considerations; I cannot imagine trying to point our that a proven mass murderer was actually really nice to his cats, for example, and the bar for such beyond-the-pale behaviour will differ from person to person. I get why people are cancelled for acts which I personally would condemn but see as part of a changing and complex whole.
Slightly chaotic thoughts; sorry. Your essay has made me think, and for that I am grateful.
Thank you. Yes, there is a point where you can’t put it aside easily. I can’t think of anyone specific, but I’m sure there’s a point where someone could be such a heinous person that I couldn’t read their writing and enjoy it.
You’re also right that people might have different points where they can’t deal with someone’s conduct. If someone wants to throw out all Gaiman’s books because they don’t enjoy them any more, I would totally understand, and I wouldn’t criticise them. There’s not an easy answer. I find it weird that people get upset with authors when they turn out to have different views on political or religious matters and have to reject them, but i suspect I’m a “high decoupler”.
The main thing is that I wouldn’t demand anyone have the same response as me. I resent it when people say, “You have to respond exactly like *this*, or you are complicit in this person’s actions, because you refuse to reject every single thing that they ever did.” It is possible to condone bad behaviour and have a more complex view on the person’s work.
A perceptive and sensitive essay - thank you Katy. All the way through i was thinking of one of my favourite authors, Alice Munro - not a fantasy writer and not a sexual abuser but her 2nd husband was. When her daughter went to her with the story, she refused to believe it. This is a terrible betrayal and hard to square up with a writer who can describe the lives of girls and women in such loving detail. I still dont know how i feel about it. I think of the title of Carson McCuller's masterpiece:
the heart is a lonely hunter.
Yes - a very similar tale. And then one thinks - how can this person be so perceptive?
“The heart is a lonely hunter” is such a brilliant phrase. Always been one of my favourites.