I'm a little confused.
What else is new?
Yesterday, I received an email from the producer of the Midmorning radio program that I took part in on Monday. He said he thought yesterday's comic (radio daze) was funny [I thought it was disturbing and kind of made me feel sick].
He also expressed concern that I may have thought the questioning was unfair or that I was mistreated.
Well... I don't know anything about being mistreated, but I do think the questions posed by the show's host were... well... like I implied on the cartoon yesterday... kind of weird.
As a matter of fact, right off the bat, I was kind of "weirded out" by the first things said to me, and I know that this is maybe more to do with me than anyone else. It's because I'm a pretty straightforward, cut-to-the-chase kind of person. So to say that the questions were rather circuitous (and I'll admit I have an attention-scattering-processing problem) and contained an awful lot of ideas, to me, is a gentled estimation.
Here's the other thing I'll admit to: When I hear things -- when people talk to me -- I see their words as type in my head. I know that's crazy, but I really do see words on a screen. This is probably the biggest reason why I wrote my next novel, Stick, the way I did. But that's beside the point.
Let me show you the words I saw from the first two questions:
So Andrew, I want to start with you because as I've said, Meghan specifically mentioned your newest novel... She said she... she feels that it exemplifies this kind of criminal violence and the dark themes that show up in Young Adult fiction and I have to say I know one of the scenes she was thinking of is one that I read this weekend in which a teenager has been kidnapped, it looks like he's gonna be raped by another man... it's a pretty explicit scene... you said you were surprised that she would single out your novel for criticism like that, but I have to say having read... uh... some of the novel it does seem like there is some violence and darkness there. To that you say what?
My head wanted to explode.
I didn't know what "that" I was supposed to say "what" to.
Criminal violence? Dark themes? How the host read one scene from a book I'd provided the previous Tuesday (this was Monday)? My surprise at being singled out? My novel "seeming" to have some violence and darkness?
See the opening line.
Confused.
But the thing that stuck out was the being surprised about being singled out. I don't think I ever expressed surprise at any time. Like I said, I was kind of flattered. I never felt persecuted, either. I never said anything bad or contentious about Meghan Cox Gurdon at all. So I was...
Confused.
Like I told the producer in our pre-broadcast chat (which was a really cool talk, by the way): No book is for "everyone." That would be absurd. There are always going to be people who object to, or find fault with anything that anyone ever writes. That's part of the beauty of being a human being.
But when I said as much to the host, well... that wasn't good enough.
And here was how question number two flowed across the teletype screen in my brain:
Yeah but I don't know that that's a sufficient argument to say that well somebody's gonna find critique enough about anything that anyone writes I mean specifically to this point that she's making that I'm asking you about after having read some of these themes in your novel I mean this is this young boy kidnapped he's threatened with knives he's threatened with male rape and... and there is a lot of explicit violence in that scene and and through this novel and I'd like you to say to to tell me why you don't think that either the criticism is apt or why this is the kind of fiction that teens want to read and if it's appropriate that they read it.
(About this time, I think I extended my index finger and pantomimed a gun to my temple)
I didn't know what I was supposed to say. Again.
Why isn't it a sufficient response?
It's what I believe.
And the "some themes" the host goes on to describe... well... again, um... (obviously didn't read the book because there's stuff in that description that isn't... um... in the... book. Just sayin'. Don't be mad).
<3
And then to go on and finish with this ... I'd like you to say to to tell me why you don't think that either the criticism is apt or why this is the kind of fiction that teens want to read and if it's appropriate that they read it.
Well... I was (sorry) confused.
I wanted to please.
But I didn't want to say what she told me she wanted me to say.
I wanted to go "off the board" and choose an option that wasn't available in Minnesota.
I know.
I'm a bad person for not saying what I was supposed to say.
But it was all so confusing.
Really.
I give up.
8 comments:
That male rape thing was really weird. I don't remember that at all in the book. Sure, there was like maybe a hint, and you could decide for yourself what you thought happened, but that weirded me out too.
She kept harping on it. Probably because it's near the beginning and that was the only part she read. But why say it that way?
"Male rape. Male rape. Male rape."
What the fuck does that mean? Was she trying to make clear the rape she pictured was not carried out by an alien of unknown gender?
(BTW I was kind of sitting here shaking a little as I listened in the beginning, not because I was angry, but because I was like "OMG what is Andrew going to say to this?" I'm so shy and get so nervous I couldn't imagine how you were going to handle it, but you did fine)
Besides, I'm sorry, but that just isn't in the book. I may have to check my copy again, but I don't remember any explicit mentions of any penises being inserted into any cavities. Yeah, there ARE two sex scenes, but they're brief, subtle, and NOT EXPLICIT.
And you have to read almost the whole book to find the second one, something obviously none of these people did, excpet the librarian.
Anyway, sorry for going off, but that woman was very ill prepared to do her job that day.
I mean just looking at her speaking as it's transcribed here ... was she nervous? Scared she was going to offend you? Not speaking her native language?
I don't know, but she really wasn't very well spoken, very articulate, or I'm sad to say, seemingly very intelligent.
Most of her questions made no sense, or asked far too many things at once.
On the other hand, I really think the whole thing worked out in your favor. The host sounded like a moron, you and the librarian sounded calm and wise, but more importantly than anything, the young people out there in this country clearly aren't as stupid, ignorant, deviant or depraved as Miss Gurdon thinks they are.
Andrew, give yourself some credit.
Overall, it seems the entire conversation was a twisted little experiment.
When that one caller skewered Karen and all librarians for not possibly having the ability to know what is right for each individual read I yelled. Out loud. And I never yell.
I agree, there was frustration abound, but an almost age old argument is bound to be awkward and peculiar when it's filtered into the tiny space of an hour.
Like I said, give yourself some damn credit. You held your own and got young readers fired up. No regrets, okay?
For lack of a better word for whatever it is we do, "art" should never be defended. It exists in a state defined by the beholder, but that's as far as it goes.
Listening to the interview, that seemed to be the theme you held to. Here's the thing, though. That wasn't an interview. That was a cross examination - something that she did not do with the MCG interview. There was not challenge to MCG's position that the measure of "too much" darkness has at last been reached in literature.
So, in fact, I would argue that you were not treated fairly. Despite your feelings of surrender, I think you held her own. By not responding to her loaded questions, you dictated your part of the discussion. And that is a job well done.
I agree with the crew. She threw some bait down with many different hooks and you carefully didn't do what she wanted but redirected to where you wanted to go. I can't believe I just wrote that sentence.
Anyway. My head was also going to explode from her first salvo. There was just so much to answer and where do you start. The breaking down of her question was brilliant.I was trying to figure out what I would have said and I have absolutely no idea. My chest was in my throat and I was making, "Ack, ack, ack," sounds at the screen.
Confused? I was too. The interviewer had an agenda to create controversy over this - no doubt. Stephen is right in that it came across as a cross-examination.
Also, in my world, interviewers lose all credibility the moment they say they only read the beginning of a book.
As I said yesterday, you were pretty sharp and with a librarian and a bunch of young people on your side, the line held.
Although, Michael Grant's comment yesterday about turning young people into vampires had me laughing out loud.
I did a little Facebook poll of GONE fans, and gave them a menu of choices for what they liked least about the series. One of the options was violence. Out of over a hundred responses, IIRC two named violence, and only of those two was a kid. More said they loved the violence. Girls as well as boys.
In fact there was far more controversy over the fact that I included religious characters thinking about God. Understand these were not people saying I'd attacked religion, rather the opposite. Basically, they didn't want me polluting their sex and violence with religion.
Adults think teenagers are delicate flowers, easily upset by imagery in the media. How the hell anyone who actually knows a teenager can think this is beyond me. Teenagers are bulletproof and immortal. You think we can damage them with words on paper? Really?
The kids aren't delicate, their striving, pushy, over-protective, desperate-to-be-perfect parents are. Maybe the adults don't understand the difference between fiction and reality, maybe the adults are easily scared or easily led around by media influences, but the kids sure as hell aren't.
I'm a mother of a teenage boy that has read The Marbury Lens, I can vouch that he wasn't bothered by the Freddy scenes and he hasn't had a single thought of committing any acts of violence. He also has no thoughts or plans of nailing body parts on our walls (or any wall) either. The only influence the book had on him was how great it was and how it was the best story he has ever read. And he wants his buddy to return it so he can read it again.
I'm with everyone else here. You did a great job under that cross examination (aptly named, Stephen). I had the exact same reaction Matthew did: OMG what is Andrew going to say to this? Verbatim. You did amazingly well. Had I been in your shoes, my brain *would* have exploded, and I'd have been reduced to a mumbling pile of mush. :)
One of the things I like most about you is your ability to march to your own drum. If there's a bandwagon in the vicinity, you'll wave as it goes by, and then go in your own direction. It might be the same direction, but you still won't be on the bandwagon. That takes great courage, which you showed in this interview. You had balanced and honest answers, which is more than many people can say.
So, yeah, give yourself some credit. :)
BTW, I'd also love to have a rational, academic conversation with Gurdon over this whole thing. That would be really interesting.
I think Michael points out what should be the real focus of Meghan's piece. I'm 25 and I am still in a similar mindset I was just ten years ago, I just face different decisions these days.
As a 15 year old kid, I was not delicate or needing protection. I WAS impressionable, but thank goodness I had books that were darker than my reality and showed me I had a way out of my sucky life.
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