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Read the novels and forget everything else

hedgehogreview.com

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Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#11

Post by move-on-by »

magarnicle wrote: post #8
magicmicah85 wrote: post #5

I loved the Peter Weir adaptation and was always hopeful there would be more, particularly with that ending leaving it open like that. I picked up the first book recently so that I could read through it on vacation. I do tend to agree with Jan Morris in that only people who knew the author have reason to care about his personal life. Of course there are limits, and given the author has been dead for 26 years and the…

I think the best heuristic for separating artist from their work is: How much does the artist try to put their own personality into it? Woody Allen films are very much soaked through with Woody Allen. I don't get the sense that O'Brian's books are to the same degree.

I read Atlas Shrugged recently. I went in not knowing anything about the book or author. I liked it for maybe half way through and despised it by the end. Reading about the author after finishing the book, it had a lot of her personality in it.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#12

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

That can be difficult, depending on who the "author" may be.

I still love Apple, even though Steve Jobs was a ... shall we say ... complicated ... man; but I have a problem, watching certain movies or TV shows, because the actors or producers got up to some unsavory hijinks.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#13

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

dwd wrote: post #10
magarnicle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best heuristic for separating artist from their work is: How much does the artist try to put their own personality into it? Woody Allen films are very much soaked through with Woody Allen. I don't get the sense that O'Brian's books are to the same degree.

You have to question what of the person filtered through to their works. As a teen I voraciously read my way through the Belgariad, and later the Malloreon, Elenium and the Tamuli. Shocked to learn that Eddings and his wife were both convicted and jailed for child abuse prior to writing those novels.

I still like those books, and, for some reason, that didn't affect me. Other people, however, have. Science fiction/fantasy has a long, turgid history of weird and unsavory authors. I tend to ignore that.

I think books have a firewall between the author and the characters on the page. Actors, however, are a different matter. They are the medium.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#14

Post by nabbed »

>And then it all went bad. The Daily Telegraph, following up on biographical discrepancy in a BBC documentary, uncovered proof that Patrick O’Brian…was not Patrick O’Brian.

About 15 years ago, I decided to know as little as possible about the musicians/artists/writers whose work I was consuming, because I didn't want my enjoyment of their work to be influenced or spoiled by what I knew about them (even superficial things, e.g., how they looked).

I remember mentioning that to a co-worker, when discussing a band I had just learned about and enjoyed, and he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person. I figured if the person was bad enough, the information would get to me somehow.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#15

Post by msla »

Forgetting the infelicities of Patrick Russ is reasonable because he's both dead and his estate isn't (to my knowledge) funneling money from the sale of his books to odious causes. Would that I could say the same about other authors.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#16

Post by tclancy »

He is a completely flawed man. The books are borderline flawless (will admit when I reread them now I skip the last 2 or 3 because he clearly felt the creep of time and started killing off characters I loved deeply).

>O’Brian as “an artificer” whose work lacked the “frisson” one finds “in the presence of creative greatness”

Absolutely zero idea what that even means. The books are wonderful as escapist superhero stuff, as an entry into British history and as a study of human relationships. "Jane Austen on the high seas" isn't far from the truth. The books track an incredible friendship, a couple of hard-won marriages and the meaning of work. A lot of what I learned/ think about the management of multi-person projects is influenced by Jack Aubrey: you don't necessarily have to be right, but you have to decide if you're going to lead. And trying to manage a team larger than can fit in a longboat is a hard road to choose.

The article skips my favorite funny line, "Your friend has a singular genius for striking the wrong note."

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#18

Post by ridgeguy »

Sometime in the mid-90s, after I'd read M&C and the two following books, I heard Patrick O’Brian interviewed on the radio as I was driving to work in Sunnyvale. The interview included about 20 minutes of his reading from M&C.

After listening to him read for about 30 seconds, I pulled onto the shoulder of 101 around Ames lab, shut down my car and just listened to him. I'd never before heard someone give voice to the English language in what sounded to me as such a profoundly perfect form. I remember thinking that I'd love to have heard him read Shakespeare.

I appreciate the post. I had no idea he was such a flawed person, and it's illuminating to learn that. But it doesn't affect my happy memory of hearing my native tongue (if I may claim that, even though I'm American) employed with such superlative skill.

Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#19

Post by DHPersonal »

I had a similar author shock when I learned James Herriot’s books were not the autobiographies I thought they were but instead were the fictionalized compilations of stories from multiple veterinarians. I had such a great time reading the books as a young man and was dismayed to learn they weren’t authentic. I appreciated learning the truth but wondered if perhaps believing the lie would’ve been better for something relatively unimportant.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#20

Post by SanjayMehta »

nabbed wrote: post #14

>And then it all went bad. The Daily Telegraph, following up on biographical discrepancy in a BBC documentary, uncovered proof that Patrick O’Brian…was not Patrick O’Brian. About 15 years ago, I decided to know as little as possible about the musicians/artists/writers whose work I was consuming, because I didn't want my enjoyment of their work to be influenced or spoiled by what I knew about them (even superficial th…

> he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person

Does your friend use a smartphone?

He could be funding very bad people.

https://voiceofenvironment.com/2019/06/21/conflict-minerals-...

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