Someone in this forum suggested that Ayn Rand and Heinlein wrote great novels, and people discount them as writers because they disagree with their ideas. I think I can fairly say I dislike them as writers also, but it did make me wonder what authors I was unfairly dismissing.
What books burst your bubble? – in that they don’t change your mind, but you think they are really worthwhile.
Here’s some of my personal examples:
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Evelyn Waugh was a right-wing catholic, this book is very much an argument for right-wing Catholicism, and yet despite being neither, I adore it. The way it describes family relationships, being in love, disillusionment and regret – it’s tragic and beautiful, and the writing is just lovely. It’s also surprisingly funny in a bleak way.
The Gulag, a history by Anne Applebaum. Applebaum was very much associated with neoliberalism in the 90s and I thought of her as someone I deeply politically disagreed with when I picked up this book. I admire it very much, although I didn’t enjoy it, I cried after reading some of it. What I am deeply impressed by is how much breadth of human experience she looks for, at a time when most people writing such things would have focused on the better known political prisoners. She has chapters on people who were imprisoned for organised crime, on children born into the Gulag, on the people who just worked there. I thought she was extremely humane and insightful, really trying to understand people both perpetrators and victims. I still think of the ideas she championed were very damaging and helped get Russia into its current state, but I understand them a lot more.
I’ve also got a soft spot for Kipling, all the way back to loving the Jungle Book as a kid. Some of his jingoistic poems are dreadful but I love a lot of his writing.
by HauntedHovel
25 Comments
I actually used to love teaching Ayn Rand’s Anthem. It’s an interesting read and can get at some thought-provoking things. The *best* part was the end when the main character does *exactly* what he’s been ranting about and against the entire book. He just sets up the same sort of society, but with him in charge and, somehow, that’s supposed to be better (insert eye roll.) Having that discussion with high school students, especially with context of history repeating itself and so many factions doing the same thing, over and over, just convincing themselves their actions are somehow more justified, was always fun.
And it had the added bonus of making students more skeptical about Rand in general. Which would make them more skeptical about any author that was set atop a pedestal by their elders.
So, I could teach a story and author that my highly conservative community approved heartily of — all while teaching kids to think critically and logically.
I’m not a huge fan of Rand, but I always loved how well that worked out.
I wouldn’t say “loved” but I really enjoyed the first 6 or so books of David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, despite loathing the pro-military, anti-social welfare, right wing politics of the books.
These politics are exemplified by the main antagonist of the early books being a republic who is forced to conquer new territories in order to afford the basic universal income it pays to its citizens–that’s right, the agressors are evil because they spend too much on welfare.
But the whole female Horatio Hornblower in space thing is just good pulpy fun and I’m able to overlook it.
The usual – Mishima, Celine, Waugh, Naipaul. There’s like a half dozen or so genuinely great right wing authors, and they really are great.
Applebaum’s just a bit of an idiot though. One of the few Cold War liberals who genuinely never twigged that they were on the same side as the far right until it bit her on the arse. Watching the news and going “gee, how come all my old dinner guests are part of this fascist party now? Could it possibly be that they weren’t the very anticommunist liberals they said they were?”
Disagreeing with the ideas in Heinlein does not necessarily mean you disagree with Heinlein. He used his writing to explore ideas, not advocate for them.
Narnia. I’m not a fan of chistianity, and turkish honey sucks, but I’ve got just enough nostalgia to enjoy it
A tree grows in brooklyn. I think there are very obvious undertones of moral relativism throughout the novel, yet I appreciate how nuanced and tactful the author’s treatment still is of the moral life. Plus it’s just a beautiful coming of age story.
Sidenote, this was assigned summer reading to us when I was 14. I’m SO glad I didn’t choose it then. Nothing would have resonated with me since I obviously had not yet come of age but reading it as a 30 year old, it was a fantastic experience.
Kipling’s *marvelous.*
Like a lot of people who lived a long time, he went through a whole bunch of different phases. His early life as an Anglo-Indian journalist produced some amazing fiction and poetry – The Jungle Books are all-time classics, Gunga Din and The Ballad of East and West are the opposite of racist, Barrack-Room Ballads shattered class barriers, and Naipaul call Kim “the best book ever written about India by a non-Indian.”
And then he got famous and became the Bard of Empire and sort of shat the bed. The White Man’s Burden tells us a lot about the British Empire, but as poetry… 😬
Then World War I, and bitter regret:
If any question why we died
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
I enjoy reading P.J. O’Rourke.
Very little either of would agree on but there’s something about his style I really enjoy.
Yep. For me it’s Lewis Carroll’s (non-Alice) poems, so evocative.
Thank you goes out to a fifth grade teacher, Mrs Sampson, for teaching us to love Jabberwocky!!
I JUST read Starship Troopers and yes very much disagree with Heinlein’s politics and his political messaging in the book. I wouldn’t say I loved the book but I did really really like it. I love that it was an important the pre-cursor to a ton of stuff especially Ender’s Game a book I love but definitely disagree with and The Expanse which is very much love and agree with.
I am a Jewish atheist but GK Chesterton moves me deeply; I also love David Baldacci even though I hate his military might is right bullshit
I’ve read Jane Eyre several times in spite of finding several aspects of the plot morally abhorrent.
Gone with the Wind
First one that comes to mind for me is Laura Ingalls – casual racism, stealing of land, etc. Rose Wilder Lane was an exteme “Libertarian” which seeped into the narrative. It helped to read a great bio (Prairie Fires) to put everything in historical context, especially when explaining or discussing the books with my kids.
This is a great post thank you
Not a specific book, but a couple of authors: Tolkien, Gene Wolfe, Ursula K. Le Guin. I’m not a Catholic, nor do I lean far left, and I’m not _entirely_ sure I agree with Tolkien’s famous stance on allegory, but these guys are geniuses far beyond my understanding and their works inspire me every day.
Pretty much anything by Hunter S. Thompson. As a life long risk adverse person, I find his lifestyle choices and general attitude towards death baffling, but I love his work. He’s such a compelling writer.
I actually found is bizare that Orson Scott Card could be such an arsehole and write the books he wrote about understanding people that are different to you.
The Bean, saga (Ender’s shadow), was definitely more him than the Ender’s Saga, because it got very obsessed with breeding by the end.
I don’t agree with Heinlein’s politics, sexism, or pro-incest agenda, but I grew up reading his books and there are still some things about his writing that I think are pretty good.
He did something refreshingly different for the genre at the time, by getting rid of infodumps and writing stories set in the future as if the reader were also in that setting. No beginning a story with, “It is the distant year 2024, and computers are so ubiquitous that even the average middle class family has one in their own home, and mankind has established a station on the moon” yadda yadda yadda.
But more like “Steve Smith woke up, and while brushing his teeth told the bathroom terminal to tune into the news report from Luna. The political situation had finally settled down enough to allow regular flights again. “One first class ticket to Luna, for this afternoon” he instructed the terminal.
Or something like that, don’t have a direct quote handy at the moment. But anyway, I do admire his skill at integrating the setting details into the story and “catching the reader up” in ways that didn’t drag down the momentum. Now, the incessant author inserts with paragraphs of old-man lectures? Yeah, those *did* bog down the momentum, lol.
As a deep lover of nature, I really appreciate the writings of transcendentalists like John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, even though I don’t believe nature has spiritual powers.
I’m pretty sure *Anna Karenina* is a long argument for the sanctity of marriage vows and the virtues of country over city life, neither of which I am especially down with, but I love that book.
Kazuo Ishiguro. His writing can be maddening, especially his women characters, but it’s also beautiful.
Orson Scott Card’s *Ender’s Game* blew me away, even though I disagree with some of his personal views. The intense story of young Ender’s journey through the brutal training and moral dilemmas of war was impossible to put down and left a lasting impression on me.
I absolutely love Gone With the Wind. I read it high school and when I finished I went back to the beginning and read it again. But it glamorizes the pre-Civil War South. And tries to downplay the institution of slavery. I try to think of it as entertainment and not a history lesson.
George Orwell’s essay **To Shoot an Elephant** left the biggest impression on me. I read it in college. What is cowardice vs courage? What would I have done?
I attended Robert Frost Jr High and I always wanted, hoped and vainly assumed I’d be the person brave enough to choose “the road less traveled by” as Frost suggests would have “made all the difference”…
But Orwell made me realize the deep cowardice in all of us, not just me. I reread this from time to time. (While this essay will never be required reading anymore do to certain inappropriate words, it is still more powerful to me than anything I have ever read… Orwell’s fucking message will resonate forever.
It is just a short essay. George Orwell was a young man. It hurts to read.
What would any of us do in this situation? I don’t disagree with Orwell’s essay. Not at all. And OP specifically asks what books we disagree with.
But I disagree with myself that I’m not the person I should be still. I’m not the person I want to be. Reading Orwell’s essay “has made no difference” I’m still the coward I thought I was 50 years later…