posted
So I read the first five chapters of Magic Street, and I thought that it was very good, but in retrospect all I can remember is the story of the child crushing the kittens head. For some reason, this horribly vivid image is stuck in my brain... but I've become sidetracked...on to the question:
When your close family and friends read your stories, do they question where the inspiration for some of the more disturbing situations came from?
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Truth is, they know that all the "inspiration" for everything is my imagination. The good parts and the icky parts. I make it all up. They're ok with that, because I don't do any of it for real. It's safely contained within the pages of books and stories.
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If I hadn't known that was in there, I probably would have read it and handled it okay. But now, knowing that is in there... I can't convince myself to go start reading...
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It's not in the first chapter Farmgirl, so you can safely read that and then see if you want to continue (he said, knowing that once she'd read the first chapter Farmgirl would be unable to resist the lure of the other four).
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posted
Click on the "Edit/Delete Post" icon (that's the third icon from the left at the top of your post. It looks like a little piece of paper with a pencil over it) in the initial post of the thread. After doing so you'll be taken to a page in which you can edit your post. You'll see an editable text field labeled "Subject" (or something like that). Just click into that field and make whatever changes you'd like.
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Sorry I wasn't more clear Target. I thought I'd said "initial post", but I see that I didn't.
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quote:Truth is, they know that all the "inspiration" for everything is my imagination. The good parts and the icky parts. I make it all up. They're ok with that, because I don't do any of it for real. It's safely contained within the pages of books and stories.
That makes me wonder what would happen if OSC didn't have have his writing as an outlet... We'd probably be seeing him on the news
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I love cats. I wish I weren't so allergic to them. I not only would never hurt them, I never HAVE hurt them. Nor has anyone that I know personally ever tortured cats or killed them cruelly. And it is not described at ALL in Magic Street, beyond the bald statement of it that you have already read here. AND it is deplored by the point of view character.
What I wonder is: Someone so fainthearted that they can't read a book knowing that in it, there is mention of a kitten being killed - how do you ever read ANYTHING?
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posted
I tend not to enjoy OSC's realistic novels as much as the fast paced science fiction or fantasy type. I also refuse to read the first 5 chapters of anything without being able to buy it in a store immediately. What a teaser.
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When I read John Steakley's rip off of Starship Troopers called Armor (he admitted doing that in an interview), there was a chapter heading in there called 'Puppy in a Well'. If any of you have read that book, you will know there's a lot of description of gory fighting, but that one chaper describing a puppy in a well with its back legs broken disturbed me more than anything else in the book.
People are funny that way I think... unless the victim is a helpless innocent, there's less emotional involvement.
I've only read the first chapter of Magic Street... sufficent for me to want to read it. I didn't want to spoil too much of it for my self. I didn't get to the part about the cat.
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Armor is also the name of a novel that was referrenced in my paperback version of Ender's Game in a letter by a fan. I believe it was titled Armour though, but the fan made the point that he identified with both Ender and the main character of Armour. Is this the same novel that you are talking about? I keep meaning to check this out of the library, and always forget.
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I have the book here in the truck with me, and it is spelled 'Armor'. The main character is Felix, but the story is told from two perspectives... From Felix's part of the time and Jack Crow's in others.
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By the way... I liked the book, and I wish Steakly had written a sequel. But, as far as I know, the only other thing he wrote was Vampire$.
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Yes, I distinctly remember the character mentioned as Felix in the foreword to the Ender's Game paperback. What an interesting coincidence.
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I keep hearing one of my favorite evil songs in my head now: Stephen Lynch's "Kill a Kitten" :-(.
"if the one you love isn't quite as smitten, she'll like you better if you KILL A KITTEN!"
<shivers w/ salacious glee>
<disclaimer>: I have not, nor will I ever, kill or maim a kitten. I cannot say the same for my rabbit, he's a feisty lil' fellow and he's stood up to dogs twice his size. . .
ok, I should really read those 5 chapters now, huh. :-[
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You can get him back by feeding him misinformation the next time he comes to you looking for information on Salvic culture, folklore, and the like. Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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All has been corrected. This is now officially the "No Cats Were Killed Here"-Thread. That should give everyone a warm fuzzy, and allow me to redeem myself in the eyes of those who think that I've accused Mr. Card of killing kittens. Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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I like OSC's work because he doesn't sugar-coat the violence inherent in human nature. When I read "Ender's Game", I totally believed the violence and I came to understand that I also have that dark core. And killing the kitten, while disturbing, was an essential part of characterization. ALSO, it was critical to raising the sense of danger and moving the plot along.
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Farmgirl- A dog is poisoned to death in Enchantment and I'm pretty sure that was your favorite. There is also that guy they are stealing the eyes from who is eventually put out of his misery. It was certainly below that level if ick. He wasn't even describing it happening, just saying that one of the characters (a "bad guy" if I may be so bold) had done it once. And don't worry, if you wish to avoid it you can read as far as the "thing in a bag" being found.
Wow, this book has homestarrunner references all through it.
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I'm not sure that Farmgirl was serious about being so traumatized that she could no longer read the book.
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quote: What I wonder is: Someone so fainthearted that they can't read a book knowing that in it, there is mention of a kitten being killed - how do you ever read ANYTHING?
Yeah -- I was kind of being facetious a bit. After all, I live on a farm and have been known to pull the heads off chickens to butcher them.
That said -- usually I handle these types of things in stories (like the squirrel in Ender's Game, etc.) better if I don't know they are there first. Just run across them in context.
Probably over half of Maps in a Mirror I would never have read if I had any idea how horrible it was and how much it would affect me. But read it I did, and I don't regret it - even though some of those mental images are very firmly stuck in my mind. And I would probably read it again - at least some of the stories. I don't know that I could ever read A Thousand Deaths again.
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This may sound somewhat morbid, but I got a lot more worked up about the death of the kitten then the possible death of the kid. I tend to pity animals a lot more than I do humans. The first example that comes to mind is from All Quiet on the Western Front, by Eric Maria Remarque. He mentioned, very offhand, that a horse had to be put out of its misery, and that upset me so much more than the gruesome deaths of the soldiers that he had previously been describing. Does anyone else care more about the animals than the humans? Just thinking, it's the humans' fault, not the animals- they had no choice.
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Are you suggesting that it is the fault of the common soldiers that war happens? Because if you are, then I beg to differ.
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To clarify, I think that it's not the soldiers fault, however it is their decision to be involved(in most cases). Where as a horse is a horse, of course, and nobody can ask a horse if it wants to be involved.
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Thanks, Target. I just didn't like the fact that humans can defend themselves but animals, for the most part, can't. And it's usually the humans fault that the animals are injured.
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posted
Thank you, Jenny. Would you please follow me around and defend my work to others who find evil in it? <grin>
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Folks, irl, cats have come in for some pretty horrible treatment over the centuries. Even recently, there was some guy in Liberty, Missouri, who was caught grilling a living kitten in his back yard with his friends. One of his neighbors, an animal lover but far from a member of PETA in political orientation, heard the kitten's cries and the laughter of the gathered torturers and came over to see what was happening. She saved the kitten, but it had to be put down. She was going to press charges but backed off when the guy made threats to kill her.
Anyone who reads my posts knows that I love cats. My cats are like my children. And one thing that really concerns me about representation of animal abuse--especially cats **because** they seem, for some reason, to be peculiar targets of horrible people--is that sadistic people will take such representations to mean that this sort of thing is acceptable in our culture. This is especially true if they happen to admire the person who is presenting it. Honestly, I think representing the torture of a human child would be "safer" (although not, of course, "better") because at *least* there are severe penalities and public censure for doing that...while cat abuse is often treated light-heartedly as if it were a joke, even by otherwise normal people.
I haven't read the book...and can't now, though written by a man whose work I admire, because I don't read books that include animal abuse of any kind. It's just all I can do to say that this is completely unacceptable to me, even though I know that OSC did certainly NOT intend to convey that he hates cats or accords ANY kind of approval to animal or cat abusers. Of *course* no rational or humane person would think otherwise!
But someone who is so highly thought of by so many people must also realize that he is dealing in fantasy as well as in fiction, and for that fact I ask of him consideration of the point:
God gave us humans a holy charge to protect the earth, his earth, and the creatures in it, his creatures. (I wouldn't have backed down because of that, as the woman in Liberty did.) Whatever part of the definition of "dominion" that includes "use" doesn't include "abuse."
I'm asking you, one of my favorite authors, and anyone who might be reading this thread, to consider this what I believe to be an important and serious viewpoint.
Thanks so much for your kindness and compassionate interest,
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"I haven't read the book...and can't now, though written by a man whose work I admire, because I don't read books that include animal abuse of any kind."
It's not what you think. Basically, a boy we're meant to sympathize with is forced to make a moral choice and renounce his friendship with a boy we're clearly supposed to find not only a bad influence but actively dangerous -- and to help establish the latter trait, OSC has the first boy recall (briefly and without much detail) the killing of a cat.
It's not particularly gruesome -- and certainly not glamorous or gratuitous.
Considering you've read Ender's Game, Ele, in which children are abused and killed "on-screen," so to speak, I find it surprising that this would put you off.
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I love the polarization that occurs when people either misconstrue a situation to the point it's no longer even recognizable or just immediately fling themselves into the fray to espound on their ideaology concerning a twisted version of the topic.
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