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Members, I want to get your take on something.

This might be a strange topic but I’ve kind of been wondering about this for a while now. I liked James Franco in some of the movies he’s been in but a while back I read this article about his bad writing. (unfortunately I can't find that article anymore). I agree that his writing is really bad and his grammar usage in some instances were terrible from the extracts given. But this wouldn’t necessarily put me off someone. What struck me is this extract they had from one of his short stories:

“And what do we say about all this obsession with innocence? Salinger would be a companion to young women, real young women, for years, and then, one fateful night, he would sleep with them and the friendship would end. After that, after he fucked them, they were no longer the innocent ones running through the rye to be caught before they went over the cliff. They had gone over, and he had been the one to push them.�

(here is the url for the full short story, "Bungalow 89" but it’s so boring I couldn’t bring myself to read everything) ...

The above quote seems incredibly sexist to me and ever since I read this I cringe every time I see him. My respect and liking for him instantly dropped to zero after I read that. My problem is that he makes it sound as if women are not in charge of their own lives, they are either “saved� from falling off a cliff a la Catcher in the Rye style or their lives are messed up by the men in their lives, not through their own decisions. I can’t tell you how much this ticked me off. My dilemma is, am I being fair in my disliking of him as a person? I am always hesitant to jump to conclusions about people I don’t know personally, but even his other writings seem to be just about everything: sexist, racist, homophobic, you name it � for example this other story of his, Palo Alto, about teenagers where apparently all the girls are depicted as sluts etc. Does this reflect his own feelings or is it the characters he created? It's why I am unsure about his true personality.

To me it’s not as if he is so important that I need to talk about it, it’s more like I’m not sure my judgments about him are correct, for lack of enough evidence I suppose and I don’t want to feel loathing towards someone if this is not in reality who they are.

Is he a misogynist? I don’t know, I have typed that question into google and it seems from many articles that he is and it is infuriating. As for the writing, in a funny way this short story makes me more endeared to D.J. Salinger. Even though I’ve never liked Catcher in the Rye, at least Salinger could write :P

Cool topic, Yolande!
I've seen some negative reviews on Palo Alto, and I must admit it had me curious - and even more so now after your thought-provoking post. Will come back and say more when I have more time, but anyway, I am curious enough to want to read his work now, but I don't want to really support it with my money if it is bad and if he is sexist. :P Will look at the library. ;o

While I am not particularly familiar with J. D. Sallinger or James Franco, I definitely sympathize with your dilemma, Yolande.

I've long been a fan of Orson Scott Card, who has a reputation For being vociferously anti-homosexual, and Dan Simmons, who has been described as irrationally anti-muslim. In both cases my reading of their works predates my knowledge of their personal views, so I've found myself wondering if I would find hints if I looked with a different lens.

On the one hand, I don't think anyone would suggest Nabokov was a paedophile or Toni Morrison a murderer based upon the fiction they've written; on the other hand I'd say George R. R. Martin's work and Robert Heinlein's work are clear evidence they're pigs, but that's just my opinion.

Personally I try to keep my knowledge of authors as limited as possible so that I can evaluate the work in isolation. I don't think fiction is necessarily a reflection of an author's views, because there are many reasons to write something, including, I suspect, fascination with something you find distasteful. More than anything, fiction is simply unreliable.

Sometimes it's hard not to think you're reading the truth between the lines, though.

You make a good point Puddin.