quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You'd think so, wouldn't you? ... (Yes, I meant Tolstoy.)
Thought I was the only one confused...
On that count though, I also consider Shakespeare: "methinks thou doth protest too much." It's not a coincidence that OSC rails in his political writing about the ideals of family life, and then portrays the majority of his fictional families as dysfunctional, abusive, emotionally paralyzed. It doesn't tell you what his beliefs are or what his "real" feelings are, but it shows a great deal of concern about the topic.
I think of interviews I've read with OSC talking about his abusive relationship with his older brother, and how that, according to OSC, had no negative long term effects on him- and yet the character archetype of the abused, under-valued genius hero with abandonment issues is quite common in his fiction. Meh, go figure.
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: My favorite OSC book is Lost Boys, which he has said is the most autobiographical of his works-- and it is very much about a normal, happy, healthy family (albeit in a rotten situation.)
:spoilers:
What always strikes me about that book is the powerlessness of the father, Step. He is one of these people who wants nothing but the best for his family and himself, but for some reason, pride, shame, class consciousness- he's never able to really ask for or demand what he wants from people. He puts up a good front, but in reality he lets things slip by, and gives himself over to the momentum of events. I'm thinking about his huge decision to move his family to a new place, on the strength of an offer from a company he doesn't seem to know much about, only to find out that he could have had a much better offer, with a much better company, if he had been just a little more assertive. His frustration at the lack of control in his life is palpable throughout the book- even there, I think, the vision of a family is one of eternal obligation and disappointments. I mean, one of the children is murdered by a serial killer for God's sake.
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: My favorite OSC book is Lost Boys, which he has said is the most autobiographical of his works-- and it is very much about a normal, happy, healthy family (albeit in a rotten situation.)
:spoilers:
What always strikes me about that book is the powerlessness of the father, Step. He is one of these people who wants nothing but the best for his family and himself, but for some reason, pride, shame, class consciousness- he's never able to really ask for or demand what he wants from people. He puts up a good front, but in reality he lets things slip by, and gives himself over to the momentum of events. I'm thinking about his huge decision to move his family to a new place, on the strength of an offer from a company he doesn't seem to know much about, only to find out that he could have had a much better offer, with a much better company, if he had been just a little more assertive. His frustration at the lack of control in his life is palpable throughout the book- even there, I think, the vision of a family is one of eternal obligation and disappointments. I mean, one of the children is murdered by a serial killer for God's sake.
Makes sense. Sometimes his view of the family frustrates me. I'm torn. On one hand he's got good "family values". I was touched by that article about changing disgusting diapers, and there's a line in Lost Boys that makes me cry when I read it and it's such a nice thing to write. Lost Boys is one reason not to hate the guy based on his points of views that I don't agree with despite not knowing if he'd like me despite my points of views which are totally opposite. But sometimes I think our culture when it comes to family has warped concepts like about male dominance and female submission and that some conservatives don't think of the damage they do to families with some of the ideas they support.For example, having read Children of the Mind several times, it wasn't until some months ago I noticed a line by OSC in dra... I mean Valentine about Novinha's relationship with that guy she was married to before Ender which makes me think, how was he good for the family? When Ender came along everyone was so obviously damaged in part to that guy and by Novinha. There's no way having a domestic abuser in the family is GOOD for the children. They were all frazzled, especially Gregor, and it wasn't good that Libo kept getting pieces of Novinha's cake but took no responsibility for the crumbs. SO what if he was married to another woman? He's a wuss for not stepping up to that man and saying, you're out of line. The books are filled with things like that that frustrate me, that go from, aw, how nice, what a lovely family to, are you crazy? That's not how people are at all! Or at least not me. There's no way I'd want that. So yeah, having read many books by Orson Scott Card and his articles there is that aspect that frustrates me. As if an unhealthy nuclear family is better than a healthy non-traditional family. And don't get me started on his idea that single mothers should be stigmatized. Does he realize how much damage that did during the baby scoop era? How that doesn't help the mothers or the children or it sets up a no-win scenario where if you have an abortion, parent or make an adoption plan you'll be stoned by people who don't understand your situation either way and what it does to the kids as well? It's as if there is another side, an underside that is totally unseen altogether. But mostly he has nice portrayals of family for the most part in between dysfunctional ones so that is rather interesting.
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Well, if you think about it, OSC grew up in a social group that was entirely geared towards the concepts of marriage and family that he puts forth in his books, only he uses members of other societies (never his own) to be mouthpieces for the same ideology, but with ostensibly more logical and fundamentally rational reasons for doing so. That's Miro, for example, a Catholic with a Mormon's sense of family, or even better Ender, an agnostic with seemingly nonexistent sex drive- and let us not even mention a gay scientist who, for the sake of the web of humanity, marries a woman and has children.
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I don't read the book that way at all; it ends on a very hopeful and affirmative note and the struggles of Step I very much sympathise with, having had our own family struggles with employment.
But, I'm reading it from a completely different perspective than you are. I think our perspective as readers often colors what we take away from a story. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: I don't read the book that way at all; it ends on a very hopeful and affirmative note and the struggles of Step I very much sympathise with, having had our own family struggles with employment.
But, I'm reading it from a completely different perspective than you are. I think our perspective as readers often colors what we take away from a story.
Maybe. I like Step. I like how he stood up for his son and how he worked hard and sacrificed for his family, and prayed over his new son and looked at his kids while they were sleeping and thought that line that makes me cry. His wife sort of frustrated me a bit because I'm an introvert who didn't like playing with other kids as a kid so I didn't see how it was a big deal, as big a deal as him getting picked on by his teacher and the kids and it was awesome when Step cornered that rude woman for picking on a small, little child. I think that book is my favourite OSC book.
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I found myself not liking Step for some pretty basic reasons. I didn't like the way he constantly put himself in opposition to people, rather than working as part of a team. I realize the book is written to put him in conflict with others, but he does it even when he doesn't need to, and when he shouldn't. For instance, in dealing with the doctors or the psychiatrist, he really has no call for his feelings about them- the book doesn't show them acting in a way that matches what he feels about them. And his assumptions (and I think in this case it's 100% "author on board") about what they think of him, and how they think in general are not called for, are somewhat petty, and often just seem stubborn and mean-spirited.
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No, I think he does recognize it- it would be very hard to miss. I'm a little surprised no one else seems to bring it up other than me, but maybe they have and I haven't been paying attention.
To be clear though, a criticism of the character is not a criticism of the book. I just think most people are wrong to think that Step is a paradigm of virtue- I happen to think that the book shows most of his suffering to be, if not self-inflicted, then at least owing to his actions or attitudes. I can sympathize with that in a big way- but Step is certainly closer to a Holden type than most of OSC's protagonists (though most share these qualities in some respect or another). In a way I think the portrayal of Step's suffering or the consequences of his actions makes him falsely sympathetic- especially because he is a big critic of himself in the book. I think we are geared as readers to look on self-doubt and suffering in protagonists as a sign of modesty and virtue, but in Step's case, weirdly, his constant self-absorption about his worries over his family (which perhaps makes him feel virtuous and selfless) come across to me as a kind of inner false modesty... if that sequence of ideas makes any sense.
Basically, I see Step as trying very hard to care about his family, to a point at which he stops actually doing what's best for them, in order to make himself feel that he is trying as hard as he can. His observations of the children are always centered on what *he* needs to do or has done to help them, and every action of theirs is interpreted as a sign of some failing or virtue that he has, which has been mirrored in the child. I know that seems weird, but I always got the feeling in the book that the ultimate interest for Step, always unspoken and probably unthought, was that having a family was something he had to do to prove himself as a man, or at least as the kind of man he thought he should be. Again, I quite like the subtlety of that part of the book, and I think it must have come across to OSC when he wrote it; I just wonder how much.
If you think about it just a short time, you see that theme of the child becoming a surrogate for the designs of adults over and over. Worthing Saga, Enderverse- everywhere. In this case it just happened that the surrogate maker, rather than the surrogate, was the protagonist of the story.
posted
I'll have to keep that in mind next time I re-read Lost Boys, and see if I can agree. It's not an easy book for me to read.
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I think showing how Step brings on some of his own suffering is exactly the point OSC is trying to make - that the suffering we go through isn't always at the hands or actions of someone else and that sometimes we put ourselves through emotional struggles that we don't have to go through.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: It's not a coincidence that OSC rails in his political writing about the ideals of family life, and then portrays the majority of his fictional families as dysfunctional, abusive, emotionally paralyzed. It doesn't tell you what his beliefs are or what his "real" feelings are, but it shows a great deal of concern about the topic.
I think of interviews I've read with OSC talking about his abusive relationship with his older brother, and how that, according to OSC, had no negative long term effects on him- and yet the character archetype of the abused, under-valued genius hero with abandonment issues is quite common in his fiction. Meh, go figure.
Do you have any links to those interviews?
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There was an interview by Donna Minkowitz. I don't feel good about linking it, because the writeup was a horrible hit piece. She indulges in heavy, sarcastic editorializing and speculation about Card's mindset and motives. (I feel that where OSC errs in his political writing is in his characterization of those who disagree. Minkowitz does the same thing but in a very direct personal attack, while posing as a journalist.)
But the interview does indeed contain Card saying that the Ender/Peter relationship was based on his own childhood, so it's got one bit of interesting information in it. He also says he's gotten over it and sees his childhood experiences in a different way now that he's grown up.
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I read that article. I didn't think it was a horrible hit piece. It sounded more to me like a woman who greatly admired OSC but was disappointed by his point of view about things and issues she finds important. http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card/index.html I say it depends on your perspective whether or not you like the article. But it was interesting.
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*shrug* I think she went well beyond disappointment and disagreement, trying hard to make Card sound monstrous and dishonest, but maybe I'm not being fair in turn.
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Regardless of the tone, that portion of the interview does contain OSC saying what I reported- he's said it more than one place, but I can't now remember where.
And even if he had never admitted it, or even if that particular relationship didn't even exist (if he had never had a brother), his characterizations of family life are consistently focused on negative, narcissistic, dysfunctional, and abusive personalities and relationships- either that or his characters are simply ripped from their home environments entirely, or murdered. It makes for good fiction, yes, but it's even more interesting coming from someone who has positioned himself as a voice on the true greatness of the American family.
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quote:his characterizations of family life are consistently focused on negative, narcissistic, dysfunctional, and abusive personalities and relationships
I'm thinking back over the Card stories I've read, and in a sense you're right. There are lots of those things in his stories, especially his most famous ones.
But now I'm thinking of Lost Boys which, more than any other story he's written (or so it seems to me) can be said to be truly about family, and these things are entirely absent from within the family.
The scope of that story was, compared to others, quite small. Its focus was almost entirely on the members of the family, particularly father, mother, and son.
Other stories where horrible things happen to and within families are, to my recollection at least, as much about other things as they are family simultaneously.
In all the associated Ender stories, there's war, there's espionage, there's xenocide, there's desperate, grinding poverty, homelessness, and all the associated ruthless necessities those things bring. In fact in most of his longer stories, one or more of those elements are present.
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My recollection was that an underlying theme of Lost Boys was the parents' feelings of helplessness at their inability to protect their children from the increasing threats and dangers of life. The family wasn't dysfunctional, per se, but it was, well, haunted. So to speak.
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Here's what Card actually said in the interview. I don't think that it supports Orincoro's interpretation that OSC was abused by his older brother:
quote:"I had the experiences -- well, at least I perceived myself to have had the experiences -- that I show Ender having with an older brother when I was young. I see it differently now, but I was depicting what I thought was going on when I was a little kid. And I generally look back on my childhood as being quite a [Ray] Bradbury-esque safe childhood. There were problems, and they certainly did color my life, but I faced nothing like the trauma that kids who are homeless and desperate face. There is a hierarchy of suffering."
quote:his characterizations of family life are consistently focused on negative, narcissistic, dysfunctional, and abusive personalities and relationships
...and just as consistently, there are redeeming values in each of the families. Val, for example; Ela, Olhado, and Miro. The devotion Step's wife showed to their handicapped son.
Isib and Nafai, and their immediate families. Measure and Alvin. Peggy and her father, and Grandpappy.
I don't think your interpretation is complete, Orincoro.
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I don't want to get into armchair psychoanalysis, here, or any ridiculous speculation, but I do want to point out that a bunch of unhappy, dysfunctional families with redeeming values would be exactly what I'd expect from someone who looks back on a childhood of "problems" that nevertheless didn't approach homelessness and desperation.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Here's what Card actually said in the interview. I don't think that it supports Orincoro's interpretation that OSC was abused by his older brother:
quote:"I had the experiences -- well, at least I perceived myself to have had the experiences -- that I show Ender having with an older brother when I was young. I see it differently now, but I was depicting what I thought was going on when I was a little kid. And I generally look back on my childhood as being quite a [Ray] Bradbury-esque safe childhood. There were problems, and they certainly did color my life, but I faced nothing like the trauma that kids who are homeless and desperate face. There is a hierarchy of suffering."
quote:his characterizations of family life are consistently focused on negative, narcissistic, dysfunctional, and abusive personalities and relationships
...and just as consistently, there are redeeming values in each of the families. Val, for example; Ela, Olhado, and Miro. The devotion Step's wife showed to their handicapped son.
Isib and Nafai, and their immediate families. Measure and Alvin. Peggy and her father, and Grandpappy.
I don't think your interpretation is complete, Orincoro.
Of course, the tools I'm using to draw that conclusion leave a lot to be desired. However, if, (and taken only as an if) the Ender and Peter relationship is taken as autobiographical in nature, even loosely so, then it certainly speaks to me of psychological and physical abuse. Since I had a VERY similar experience (to the point of incredulity when I first read the book) with my older sister, who suffers from a personality disorder, and since she was abusive physically and psychologically, I naturally drew that conclusion about OSC's relationship with his brother. That isn't rock solid by any means, but it is my supposition, and I feel personally that it is quite likely. I don't think you can write so vividly about such an experience without having had it yourself.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: You mean, like, practically everyone in America?
Not everyone in America chooses to base their life's work on dealing with the fallout from such experiences. It could be argued that OSC has done that. Just saying.
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Dang... I hope his brother wasn't like Peter. He was so cruel! It annoyed me how his parents never noticed that and did something about it. He was incredibly mean.
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: Dang... I hope his brother wasn't like Peter. He was so cruel! It annoyed me how his parents never noticed that and did something about it. He was incredibly mean.
It's interesting to me that the Shadow books recast Ender's parents completely from blind fools and 3rd part players, mere extras in the story, into their own kinds of genius. To read the Shadow books, we are to believe that everything Ender perceived about his parents was wrong, and that in fact they were geniuses themselves, and fully aware of the conflict between him and his brother, and of all of Peter's and Valentine's activities.
Convenient that within the span of the series, he became the father of a family himself. I'm sure that was just a coincidence.
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: Dang... I hope his brother wasn't like Peter. He was so cruel! It annoyed me how his parents never noticed that and did something about it. He was incredibly mean.
It's interesting to me that the Shadow books recast Ender's parents completely from blind fools and 3rd part players, mere extras in the story, into their own kinds of genius. To read the Shadow books, we are to believe that everything Ender perceived about his parents was wrong, and that in fact they were geniuses themselves, and fully aware of the conflict between him and his brother, and of all of Peter's and Valentine's activities.
Convenient that within the span of the series, he became the father of a family himself. I'm sure that was just a coincidence.
That bugged that crap out of me, because I thought, if they knew what they were doing on the net, then why didn't they stop Peter from bullying the other kids? I can't abide bullying. I think if I had kids that would press my buttons way more than stomping or eye rolling. Grrr. Bullying. Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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...you know, those precise questions were specifically addressed. Is it just that you didn't agree with the answers? Because the Wiggins did have their reasons.
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Yes, Rakeesh, but my point was that those reasons were invented a good decade after the actions they justify were written about. Also, those reasons kind of sucked, in my estimation. Great books, but there came a point where suspension of disbelief was tried at how smart everybody was getting.
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The ease with which they all manipulate each other does strain credulity sometimes.
That's funny, Orincoro, it hadn't occurred to me that OSC had become a father by the time he (perhaps) retconned the parents into geniuses. Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Heh. To me that was blatant. The parents were clueless when he had no kids (or only very small ones). Once he had been the parent of teenagers, he rejected that notion in favor of them only appearing to be clueless.
Which I actually find very believable. In no small part, one must assume, because I have a teenager (almost 2) of my own. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:his characterizations of family life are consistently focused on negative, narcissistic, dysfunctional, and abusive personalities and relationships- either that or his characters are simply ripped from their home environments entirely, or murdered. It makes for good fiction, yes, but it's even more interesting coming from someone who has positioned himself as a voice on the true greatness of the American family.
It makes perfect sense once you take into account that OSC likes to make his characters SUFFER. (Think of the lead character in "A Thousand Deaths," for example, or the scene with the twick in Worthing Saga, or the punishments Asineth metes out in Hart's Hope, or anything in "Kingsmeat.")
If you believe that family is one of the most important things in life, then one of the most painful forms of suffering you can inflict on your characters is family dysfunction or loss.
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I'm sorry, but that explanation is rather weak. There are, as you mention, many ways of making people suffer. The family dynamics of so many characters are in place to do and show more than simple suffering.
If OSC does this simply to make his characters suffer, why doesn't he just do away with all characterization entirely and just depict endless torture scenes? Of course he doesn't because the stories are about characters, and the family dynamics of those characters are important to the story, and presumably of slight importance to the author.
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quote:If OSC does this simply to make his characters suffer, why doesn't he just do away with all characterization entirely and just depict endless torture scenes?
Because the stories are not about suffering per se, but about how the characters respond to suffering: what kind of people do they become as a result of what happens to them. This is made pretty clear in the Worthing Saga.
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Mhmm, and the situations described have no relevance to anything. That's good thinking there. You're a scholar.
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I see no point in trying to justify the idea (which OSC pushes about his own work), that it's all about the human condition, and devoid of baggage carried by the author himself. Since OSC is no exception in that his work is cluttered with the baggage of his personal battles, his claims to the contrary, or his implications to the contrary, are silly to me. Don't trust an author to tell you what his work is all about- there's no reason he should have a better answer to that than you do.
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There is no way anyone can truly separate themselves from the coloring their past experiences gives either their writing or their interpretations of someone elses writing. Our pasts are inextricably woven into who we are and as such influence what we write as an author and what we see as a reader. Much like Orincoro tuning into the experiences of Ender with his brother and extrapolating that OSC must have had similar experiences. I never thought of that not having gone through those kinds of experiences myself.
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Jinnayah- I think that Card uses the overall idea of "family" as one huge theme in many of his works. As others here may have already said-family is one of the most intricate aspects of humanity, and I think Card is very invested in the concept, as both an author and perhaps as a person. It seems natural to delve into all the webs of entanglement and attachment that can be delved into when that's an overlying theme.
Any action, when put in the context of a family, is then magnified- instead of being just good, it's heroic. Instead of being just evil- it's horrific. The idea of these close relationships & the stress and support that stem from them gives betrayal or self-sacrifice a whole new face. This may be another reason Card uses the family unit the way he does. And rather than saying he doesn't care for families, one might say he is just using this idea, that family actions are intensified, to the fullest.
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I think that's an interesting take on it, Chuckie. However, I'm not convinced. I'm not sure that I would magnify actions in a family context, either consciously or subconsciously.
In fact, I think it could go the other way. I think someone is more admirable and heroic who risks his life to save a total stranger than the one who risks his life to save his child. Even better if it's someone he has reason to hate. (I'm reminded of "Enemy Mine".)
Can you flesh out your idea a bit, to illustrate how the family context intensifies actions?
Is it really intensity, or is it simply repetition over time?
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I see your point--if you save someone to whom you have no previous connection to, isn't that more heroic than saving a loved one? That may be true. However, if we're saying that this type of sacrifice is more noble than the sacrifice one makes for family, then we're denigrating the importance of familial sacrifice.
Say you save a small child from being hit by a bus on the street, at a cost of injury to yourself. The fact that you don't know this person, that you don't love them, makes this action all the more noble. However, say that small child is your own and you recieve the same injury. One action is motivated by common decency, one is motivate by love. This may sound a little melodramtic, but what's the better motivation for such an act? And really, what is common decency? A love for society, for the greater good, for justice. So each act can be traced back to love, albeit slightly different veins of it. So I'd say that each act is just as heroic, in its own way.
To address the idea that family actions are magnified- the love and protection that the family unit offers lend themselves to this concept. As a small example-- I recently walked into a room and was immediately subject to "friendly" ribbing-- mockery from some of my peers that was disguised as just messing around but was actually speaking some underlying resentment towards me and therefore genuinely hurt me. My sister and brother were both present in the room, and it ws them that I looked to for support. However, my sister was the one leading the attack, and my brother sat by refusing to come to my aid when I asked him to mitigate. The mockery from others, that I could take. But the thing that made such a commonplace incident really hurt me was that two members of my family not only didn't stand up for me but also betrayed my trust by humiliating me in front of others. Here's what I mean by this- I had trusted my two sibilings since we are family. The others, I did not trust very much at all. They all had an equal part in the mockery, but the ones that hurt me the most by it were my sibilings. Does this give you a better picture of what I mean? When that family bond, that trust, is broken, it hurts & affects much more than if the same action came from a stranger.
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In response to the people making a Card/Step connection, I've always thought that Step is sort of a stand-in for some aspects of Card's personality. Obviously it's very presumptuous for me to make such a claim, but I get this feeling based on how fleshed-out Step and his family are compared to many of his other families and characters.
Card's characters usually start out as quite defined and unique, often even annoying, then bland out as they gain "character" in a Luke Skywalker sort of way. For example, Theresa and John Paul Wiggin (going back to First Meetings here) start out as snotty, egotistical conservative intellectuals and then (whether because OSC intended them to be hiding their intelligence since the beginning or because parents were merely needed for the story) lost their color and became a self-loathing family man and woman who didn't have their heart in it.
Same thing with Novinha and her family - they interact the most when they're bitchy and self-destructive. As they calm down and get over some of the trauma and walls between them they have much less to say to each other.
Now, snarky people could take this to mean that OSC's image of the perfect family is a sort of self-sacrificing confrontative mess. But I think it's more clear that Card is most interested in the types of stories that show people learning to understand each other and growing closer while sacrificing destructive behavior. The relationship between Step and DeAnne Fletcher, for example, is respectful and open. Miro and Val/Jane in fact are almost the perfect couple - intellectual, mostly whole people who have shared and private interests and are both comfortable and excited in each other's company.
I'm rambling here. I guess my point is that Card really only writes one character (while giving them enough warts and unique traits to keep them from blending together), which is far better than using stock or cliched characters as most thriller writers do, and I don't believe that any aspersions can be made into OSC's personal views or family life without being guilty of the same sort of simple thinking we might attempt to diagnose in such an attempt.
EDIT: If there's any words I feel comfortable putting into OSC's mouth they come from this review of "Dan in Real Life," a film Card gave high praise to:
quote:Dan in Real Life is a film willing to admit that love is messy and that family, no matter how strained, is still the most perfect cauldron within which to ferment all those things that make life worth living.
Actually Step and his family are based on Card and his actual family, perhaps Puppy can confirm this better, but a teacher like that teacher existed. I can't understand why Step felt so BAD about... confronting her because anyone who would bully a little child kind of deserves that.
The wrong people tend to be guilty in his books. I bet she wasn't even ashamed of being mean to a little boy.
Of course I could be wrong...
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I've found that people who act that way toward children who are teachers really aren't ashamed of it. In fact, they often think of it with a certain sense of pride in that they are being "honest" about things. Thankfully, in my experience, they haven't lasted long in education or have been moved to positions which put them as co-teachers with someone else whose presence tends to moderate their bullying tendencies.
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quote:Originally posted by Clumpy: Card's characters usually start out as quite defined and unique, often even annoying, then bland out as they gain "character" in a Luke Skywalker sort of way. For example, Theresa and John Paul Wiggin (going back to First Meetings here) start out as snotty, egotistical conservative intellectuals and then (whether because OSC intended them to be hiding their intelligence since the beginning or because parents were merely needed for the story) lost their color and became a self-loathing family man and woman who didn't have their heart in it.
Same thing with Novinha and her family - they interact the most when they're bitchy and self-destructive. As they calm down and get over some of the trauma and walls between them they have much less to say to each other.
From Tolstoy:
quote: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
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Grrr. Bullying. ![[No No]](graemlins/nono.gif)
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