Book Club Time!
Jul. 6th, 2013 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodyrosemccoyToday's Discussion Question:
Show of hands, people. Did anyone else here besides me just not like Ender's Game? I'm not talking about the prevalent opinion of "Love the book. Shame about the author's raging douchenozzlery," which is a totally fair opinion to have. I'm talking about just being ragingly, compulsively unimpressed by the book itself.
I read it back in junior high, see. I think it was before I knew that Orson Scott Motherfucking Card was an unmitigated jackass, but I can't be entirely sure, since he's also a big source of pride for Utah and for a while he wrote a column for the Deseret News, the conservative Mormon paper around here.* I do recall getting a sense that he was a jerk from the book, but a poll of my classmates (we read it for class--Utah pride, remember) told me that nobody else got that sense,** and I've met a lot of cool folks since then who also didn't get that vibe.
But anyway, the upshot is that Ender's Game has always left me cold. I did not like or care about the characters. I did not really care about their fear of aliens, or their Battle Room strategies, or the kids' petty squabbles, or Val and Peter's Blogging For Change campaign. I spotted the twists before they happened and just thought the fact that Ender didn't made him seem kind of dim. The only thing I really liked was the revelation of the buggers' Oh Shit Moment when they realized they'd made a grievous assumption--and that was mostly an aside.
I know a lot of folks love it--pretty much everyone I talk to. So I'm just wondering--did anybody else have this response? Or was it just me?
*I'm not sure if he still does; frankly, I don't feel like looking it up.
**This doesn't prove anything, though, since some years later in high school only a select few of my classmates picked up on the fact that the chapter in Dickens' Our Mutual Friend in which the terrifyingly intense creepy stalker dude confesses to the hapless object of his desires that he is pretty literally crazy for her and he wants--and DESERVES!--to live inside her skin and breathe her breaths or somesuch was not supposed to be SWOONINGLY ROMANTIC. In retrospect, that discussion was a pretty good predictor of the success of Twilight.
Show of hands, people. Did anyone else here besides me just not like Ender's Game? I'm not talking about the prevalent opinion of "Love the book. Shame about the author's raging douchenozzlery," which is a totally fair opinion to have. I'm talking about just being ragingly, compulsively unimpressed by the book itself.
I read it back in junior high, see. I think it was before I knew that Orson Scott Motherfucking Card was an unmitigated jackass, but I can't be entirely sure, since he's also a big source of pride for Utah and for a while he wrote a column for the Deseret News, the conservative Mormon paper around here.* I do recall getting a sense that he was a jerk from the book, but a poll of my classmates (we read it for class--Utah pride, remember) told me that nobody else got that sense,** and I've met a lot of cool folks since then who also didn't get that vibe.
But anyway, the upshot is that Ender's Game has always left me cold. I did not like or care about the characters. I did not really care about their fear of aliens, or their Battle Room strategies, or the kids' petty squabbles, or Val and Peter's Blogging For Change campaign. I spotted the twists before they happened and just thought the fact that Ender didn't made him seem kind of dim. The only thing I really liked was the revelation of the buggers' Oh Shit Moment when they realized they'd made a grievous assumption--and that was mostly an aside.
I know a lot of folks love it--pretty much everyone I talk to. So I'm just wondering--did anybody else have this response? Or was it just me?
*I'm not sure if he still does; frankly, I don't feel like looking it up.
**This doesn't prove anything, though, since some years later in high school only a select few of my classmates picked up on the fact that the chapter in Dickens' Our Mutual Friend in which the terrifyingly intense creepy stalker dude confesses to the hapless object of his desires that he is pretty literally crazy for her and he wants--and DESERVES!--to live inside her skin and breathe her breaths or somesuch was not supposed to be SWOONINGLY ROMANTIC. In retrospect, that discussion was a pretty good predictor of the success of Twilight.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-06 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-07 12:31 am (UTC)Possibly--but I fit that description when I read it, and it did nothing for me except frustrate me.
I think it's still possible to pick up on a vague hostility from the author toward everyone who isn't a white straight Mormon male just from the book--but like I said, I'm not sure if I'm making that up or not.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-07 12:38 am (UTC)Books can be funny like that: even if they aren't that good, you can latch onto them if you read them in the right mood. Or the opposite. And picking up on Card's hostility to demographics you like (and are) might have killed any fellow-feeling with the protagonist.
ETA: other thought. It could also be the reaction of the character: a lot of books aimed at kids and teens are about kids/teens who don't fit, but then what happens changes. Kelandry and Harry Potter have different plots, but both enter as not fitting. Harry moves on to a wizarding school where he is able to make friends, and instead of being 'the weird cousin the school bully picks on' he is 'unintentionally famous'; Kel befriends another outcast (or Neal befriends her) and slowly other people warm up to her as they get past their 'girl cooties' to realize she's a strong and interesting person (who tries to help improve the world around her).
* And apparently what Card had heard.