Quote:
Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze
Judging a novel based on whether or not you approve of its politics is juvenile.
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I'm just taking a different side of the old art-for-art's-sake discussion than you are. If you want me to consider the other side, saying I'm being juvenile is not a wise way to go IMHO.
Politics does not always, or usually, matter. It mostly depends on how political the novel is.
I recall that in Elizabeth Gaskill's
Life of Charlotte Brontė, Gaskill relates conversations between Brontė and other still-admired English novelists where they discuss how they wish they could write something like
Uncle Tom's Cabin. This wasn't because they thought
Uncle Tom's Cabin worked better as a novel than
Jane Eyre and
Vanity Fair. It was because
Uncle Tom's Cabin struck a mighty blow against slavery. They approved the politics, and judged the novel better for it. Nothing juvenile there.
Just as striking a blow against bigotry can make a novel better, going in the opposite direction can make it worse. I know that a lot of readers did not find
The Yiddish Policemen's Union to be the morality tale that I did. But if I'm right that the book is a 9/11 morality tale, it doesn't make sense to ignore the morals.
Have you read
Darkness at Noon? Aside from the politics, it has excellent, fully realized, characters. But it would IMHO be ridiculous to call it a great book if you think Arthur Koestler was wrong about Stalinism.