Sexuality! and Poor Writing! - JKR's Mistake

[Carol]

Mike wrote:
<snip> I can understand some people's desire for JKR to include a gay
character to make a statement. But I never read these books to get a
morality message from JKR, I feel I've got a handle on that all by
myself, thank you very much. <snip>

Carol responds:
That raises an interesting point. It seems to me that many readers
these days, not just those on this list, judge a book by the political
statements that it makes. If it includes a gay character, for example,
or disapproves of racial prejudice or pollution or global warming or
abuse of animals or shows women as equal to men or whatever cause you
choose (to name only liberal causes--I'm sure conservative readers
have their own list but their not as vocal) it's a good book. If it
doesn't advocate those values or seems to advocate the "wrong" values,
it's a bad book.

I don't know about most members of this list, but I don't read fiction
to see whether the author shares my values. Very often he or she
doesn't. ("Moby Dick" is about killing whales and Starbuck, who kills
whales for his living, is a good guy. Does that make me want to stop
rereading "Moby Dick"? Of course not. Of course, Melville was sending
a few messages with, among other things, his humanitarian cannibal,
but I don't reread the book for its moral messages. I read it for its
beauty and its many layers of meaning and because I find the
characters and their dilemma fascinating. Tolkien was a Catholic and a
nature lover, opposed to the industrialization of England, and traces
of those views come through in his writing, but the books are not
*about* his beliefs. They are not moral or religious or political
statements. And I doubt that I would read them if they were. I can't
stand "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and never bothered to
read the other Narnia books because I didn't want to be hit over the
head with a message.)

Anyway, I simply do not understand this idea of passing judgment on a
book based on its content, and particularly passing moral judgment
based on political content. (It's politically correct; therefore, it's
a good book.) I, OTOH, judge a book by its entertainment value (its
re-readability, if that's a word), its style, its ability to move me
to laughter or tears, its characters (are they memorable? Do they have
individual voices and distinctive personalities? Do I care about
them?), its appeal to universal concerns (love, death, growing up,
growing old, joy, suffering, courage, hope, despair ad infinitum). I
absolutely do not want to be preached at (which is one reason that I
hated SPEW) even if it's an imaginary cause.

Thank goodness, I have no idea how JKR feels about, say, global
warming. I get the idea that she disapproves of child abuse, but so
does virtually every intelligent reader, and we can see the Dursleys'
treatment of Harry as a plot device, not a reason for getting upset.
(Someone call child Protective Services!) Obviously, she approves of
interracial dating, but thank goodness, it's just quietly there in the
books, not leaping off the page as a *noble cause*. 

I can't say that I don't sometimes find an author's views congenial,
but I'd rather not know those views at all. I'd rather read "Gone with
the Wind" than "Uncle Tom's Cabin" regardless of its romanticized
depiction of the antebellum South. Why? Because it's better written
and more entertaining. And, as I said, I don't want to be preached at
no matter how good the cause.

Does JKR's announcement that she has always imagined Dumbledore as gay
somehow make the books better (or worse) than they were? How so? It's
not in the books at all. It just makes the author's political views a
little more visible--as if her membership in Amnesty International
didn't already do that. I guess that's why some readers are upset that
she didn't free the House-Elves. Me? I wish she'd just leave politics
out of both the books and the discussions. That's not how *I* judge a
good book.

Carol, who would (almost) rather eat mud than listen to a political debate