Quote:
Originally Posted by Geralt
One more thing and I'll stop.
If anyone can answer this that'd be great.
How can you enjoy any story, really get into it, forget everything around you and enjoy the pure blissfulness of being transported into another world, if you judge every paragraph, every word by your prism of gender issues or political correctness?
|
I agree with JSWolf - you cannot, and I doubt many people read that way. I read and enjoy books, but sometimes something makes me stumble out of that other world. It can be a clumsy infodump, or an anachronism in a historical novel, or the realization that I'm quite far into the book and haven't seen a woman speak or interact with the protagonist at all. If the book is good enough, I'll read on, but maybe notice more easily the next infodump, or anachroniscm, or continued lack of women.
Sometimes I'll only realise when I've finished the book and think back on it. Huh, there were only two non-straight persons in the book - and those were a gay man who preyed on young male servants, and a bisexual sadistic rapist. Not cool. *)
And sometimes I'll only realize when I read a review. Blatant anti-semitism? I read that book and didn't notice any. * Rereads * Oh, ouch. That evil moneylender character -- how did I miss all those ugly stereotypes? Ouch, ouch, ouch.
And published as late as 1950? That's really disappointing. **)
Some years ago, I glanced through my children's schoolbooks, and skimmed a chapter on altruism in a book on religion and ethics. It had four mini biographies on admirable people who had made great sacrifices to help others. I noticed right away that all of them were Christians, and was mildly annoyed. They couldn't find any great altruists among atheists or people of other religions? How biased!
Later, I reread that chapter, and noticed that all these admirable people were white Europeans. I didn't notice that at all the first time I read it.
I'll leave as an excercise for the reader to guess whether I'm a Christian, and whether I'm a white European...
So, I'm usually not surprised when others mention that they don't notice bias in books, even when it's really obvious to me. And it is, of course, especially hard to notice something that's missing.
*) Gabaldon's Outlander
**) Heyer's The Grand Sophy