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Dear Mr. Card, After reading all of your ‘hug’ threads, and seeing what kind of responses that you’re getting, I was hard-pressed to find something original to say that wouldn’t make me sound like some half-wit school girl attempting to make contact with an obviously out of reach author, or like one of the other people whose lives you’ve changed through your brilliant writings. That being said, I am in no means a girl, and I’m perfectly aware that you do exist, and it is possible to write the things you have ( . . . at least, I think so . . . ).
I confess that I’ve only read perhaps ten of your books, ranging from nearly all of the Ender’s Series (except Shadow of the Giant, which I will promptly purchase this weekend if it’s in stock), to the first four books of your Memory of Earth saga. I would have continued in Memory of Earth, but after the deaths of Nafai and Elemek, I simply lost the heart in reading it (I’m 16, I’m sorry.). In the last few months, I found myself grounded from many of my favorite leisurely activities, and found solace in reading the bible, several fiction novels that I had acquired throughout my past, and rereading for the 4th time all of your Ender’s Novels. I really enjoyed the Ender half to it, and I hopefully anticipate the novel proceeding Children of the Mind. I have also read Wyrms, which I also found to be enlightening.
The thing I admire most in all of your writings, Mr. Card, is your ability to seed each of your novels with such ideal and belief, I find myself attributing much of my character and philosophical findings to most of your writings (the rest I get from my friends . . . how’s that for peer pressure?). Maybe you don’t mean to, or maybe you do it on purpose, or maybe it’s all a lie, but reading into all of your supposed beliefs that you reveal through the values of your characters is always something I look forward to each time I happen to reread your novels.
It is always with this in mind that I try to become your best characters. I thoroughly admire Bean, for his ability to analyze, and his separation from emotion, a trait which I try in vain to attain. I idolize Ender (and you as well . . .) for his innate ability to see the good in people, and understand them to the point that he loves them. It is from Ender that I derive much of my values about the world, and it is from Ender that I emulate in communicating with my surroundings. However, I also admire Achilles, for his ability to see the desires of everyone around them. Being a sociopath in nature (though I’m not proud), exploiting weakness is an innate ability that I have, even though I try not to use it.
However, my personal character and behavioral mannerisms are not the only things I derive from you. I one day hope to emulate your ability to write and express the imagery and feelings that you portray in your novel. It is my aspiration to be able to put into words my feelings and ideas to a point that anyone can understand them. Really, I just want to become a good author, and forgive me if I use you as a model in which to mold myself.
Getting away from this love letter that I’m apparently writing to you, I just wanted to say: Thank you, for writing the Ender’s series, and all of your other books (which I’ll get around to reading, I promise). I hope one day to meet you in person, and show you who I am. Until then, Mr. Card, take care of yourself, and be sure not to fall on your head or anything. Heaven forbid we would hate for that brain of yours to be damaged.
I don't just think outside the box, I think outside the room that the box is sitting in . . .
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What makes you think the box is in a room? <grin>
I thank you for your generous assessment of my fiction ... but let me take up one particular idea you mentioned: The philosophical issues addressed in my fiction.
This is especially pertinent, because you mentioned Wyrms.
Wyrms contains some serious discussions of real philosophical issues (as Worthing does); and characters do express some of my best thinking on these subjects, because after all, I can't have a character say anything that I haven't thought of - so my characters can go no deeper into a subject than I am capable of going.
In that sense, then, these books DO reflect my thinking. But these are not "opinions" in the sense of political or religious beliefs, where good and wise people can disagree (something that certain people sometimes forget, and immediately condemn any opponents they run into).
Rather, they are considerations of theoretical issues - like free will in Wyrms (prompted by the name of the character Will, and the fact that so many characters are struggling to resist the potentially species-destroying "Cranning call"). When Will talks about "will," he does say a lot of things I've thought about.
But they aren't my opinions in the sense that my beliefs about religion or politics are. My beliefs in those realms prompt ACTION and a desire to PERSUADE. Which is why I try to keep my opinions OUT of my fiction, lest my stories become servants of my polemic.
With philosophical inquiries, I have no qualms about doing an idea-dump, because I have no ALLEGIANCE to these ideas. I put my characters in situations where they must decide on issues that remain purely metaphoricalo, metaphysical, or at least theoretical to me. I could change my mind, if presented with a better idea, without have the least apology for any actions based on my previous ideas. Does that make sense?
So I hope there IS value in my philosophical maunderings. Sometimes they can kill a book for some readers - I think some of the issues about human identity in Children of the Mind contribute to its relative lack of popularity compared to the earlier books.
ALL my books, though, have what I think of as profound philosophical issues in them; sometimes I disguise them better than others, that's all <grin>. There are moral and ethical issues surrounding the House of Moose and Squirrel in Crystal City, for instance - but you could read it without ever caring much about that, because you're focusing entirely on the story. And that's what I hope for!
But if you do want to examine these issues, I hope I've dealt with them with clarity and good sense. I don't want to be a philosopher a la Bertrand Russell or Rene Descartes. I have no serious mathematical aspirations. The philosophy I deal with moves somewhere between Plato and Montaigne (not in idea, but in depth) - always attempting to keep my ideas accessible, fully referent to the real world, and nontrivial.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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