Excellent, excellent thoughts. I agree with every word.

Very nice site. Just added you to my blogroll and given you a shoutout in this morning's update. Sorry not to have stumbled here sooner.

Re: art and the political, my thoughts have been evolving on this (as they often do in my posts), and I've commented on some other sites as well. I remain pretty firm in the opinion that when art is pressed into the service of the political, it becomes, well, bad art. Socialist realism is only the most obvious example (although, ironically, Soviet printmaking and graphic arts through the same period are truly extraordinary pieces of work); as I go on to say in my "Distinction without a Difference" posting, what I'm anxious to find are the kinds of work that will be held up down the line as portraits of our day, as Musil and Bulgakov and Steinbeck are of theirs.

I also agree with Cheney's point even as I find it a bit of semantic niggling. I'm talking about politics in a broader sense, beyond an artist's own views but rather as a mirror of the zeitgeist of the age.

And obviously, all of this is to some extent predicated on sharing my own (political) view that these are extremely serious times we're living through.

Oh, as for Card - borrow him from the library!

It would be a straw man if I was twisting Maud's position around. But I wasn't. It was clear enough ("another sci-fi writer I won't be reading") and Maud was kind enough to clarify. Like Mark, I was trying to come up with a subdued example, rather than the more immediate, heavy-handed authors. And like Mark, I believe the question here is semantic. If human behavior is viewed as political, then of course it can be concluded that all novels will be political. Some people will see Anna Karenina throwing herself in front of a train as a political choice. Others, looking at the novel from a character viewpoint, will see it as a sign of anxiety that follows in the proud dismal tradition of Bovary.

I think the larger issue being left out here is the reader's reaction. The reader comes in with his own education, opinions and sensibilities (including political ones) and decides to what extent Orwell or Steinbeck is political.

I think when you say "political," you mean what I would mean if I said "overtly political." That being the case, then yes, the question is semantic.

I guess I am uncomfortable with character-driven novels and political novels being seen as somehow two different things, as if our characters, and fictional characters, and our readings of fictional characters, weren't of necessity all politicized in various ways. It's when the two come together that a book really flies for me.

I don't really think that we are disagreeing.

Skipping over momentarily to comics, Dave Sim (who just finished the 300th issue of Cerebus) is an interesting example: because it's easier to pretend you've separated the "art" of comics from the implications of the story that's told and the politics of the world that's built, you have a very sharp line drawn within comics fans and critics, who all admire his artistry and his technical achievements, but deplore his (odious) politics (and, usually, what those politics and his polemic did to the last half-to-a-third of his monumental comic--sheer cartooning chops aside). (You also have those who think he is right, or at least has a point, but they are few and far between, and so we'll gloss right past them: poof!)

The reader's an important part of any reading, of course, and you can bring to bear on Ender's Game everything from an utter ignorance of Card's homophobia to a dogged determination to puzzle out whether or not he is, in fact, deeply, self-closeted. (It's not an uncommon assertion, though it's pretty much a useless gotcha point, of course impossible to prove.) --Winter's Tale was a very different book the second time I read it, after I'd learned that Mark Helprin was a rock-ribbed Republican: meaner (in both senses of the word), darker, less generous. How much of that change was due to my reading more closely what was meant, and how much was due to my reading through my newly prejudiced idea of what was meant, is impossible to tease out and kind of immaterial anyway.

Was the book more political now, or less? Neither; it was just--different. (You can no more read the same book twice than step in the same yadda yadda.) --Was my reaction to it more politicized? That might be the better question, and I'd have to say yes, it was. So is it my fault that I couldn't unlearn what I'd found out, or stop my knee from jerking, couldn't help but peer closely at every scene through this new lens? Probably. --If so, I paid a price: I rather miss the old book, and don't much like the new one that I got in its place.

Holy crap! I bet Dave Sim has a hard time getting a date. Respect the light; subdue the void.

It's interesting that you bring up Mark Helprin. My dad loved Winter's Tale and insisted that I read it. But while I could understand why he was so taken, there was something about it that kept me at arm's length. The more I found out about Helprin, the more I understood what that was.

You say you miss the old book, but the new one you got in it's place is probably the one Helprin wrote. As you say, you wrote the other. (Time to sue for royalties.)