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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk have both been named in a criminal complaint filed to French authorities over alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” against Algerian boxer and newl crowned Olympic champion Imane Khelif.
Nabil Boudi, the Paris-based attorney of Khelif, confirmed to Variety that both figures were mentioned in the body of the complaint, posted to the anti-online hatred center of the Paris public prosecutor’s office on Friday.
The lawsuit was filed against X, which under French law means that it was filed against unknown persons. That “ensure[s] that the ‘prosecution has all the latitude to be able to investigate against all people,” including those who may have written hateful messages under pseudonyms, said Boudi. The complaint nevertheless mentions famously controversial figures.
Why does it bother you to analyze her writings?
It doesn’t bother me, it seems just a silly and far fetched way to retrofit opinions on her, using an invalid methodology (I.e., you don’t have to agree with every detail you write about in a fictional book - I don’t think the books are a good argument to show she thinks school should start at 11 and last 7 years, for example).
On a greater scale, IMHO it makes the arguments against her less compelling, as I can’t honestly take seriously an argument that is based on choosing a name for a character or something like this, or a person who unironically uses this argument.
So you believe that a writer can somehow completely remove their opinions, morals, and political leanings from their writing? I mean we literally go through books in high school English and pick a part their themes in relation to their lives, beliefs, etc.
But I’m sure Lovecraft kept his fear of foreigners and contempt for minorities out of his writings tho
No, I believe that not everything an author writes is a political manifesto for their ideas. I believe some is, and in fiction this could be a very variable amount. The chance of minor plot or character features being such a clear representation of the author’s views is even smaller, compared to general and major plot dynamics or characteristics of main characters. Your Lovecraft example I think is very fitting, as even I (who studied few of his works) know a bunch of short stories entirely focused on the issue of “others”. It’s way more reasonable to infer the views of the author when this is a recurring theme, core to some works etc.
BTW from a logical standpoint, the negation of “everything” is not “nothing”. Me saying that I don’t think every element in a book is a manifesto doesn’t mean no element is.
I do believe that is possible and I can tell you why- Roald Dahl was an unapologetic bigot. He absolutely loathed Jews. Even the museum devoted to him talks about it quite openly. But he never put any hint of that into his children’s books. To the point that my (Jewish) father, who was aware of it and very sensitive to antisemitism, still bought me Roald Dahl books.
I’ve read a fair amount of his adult fiction and don’t remember any antisemitism there either.
I don’t think that is the case for Rowling, however. I think her books, from what I have seen, are pretty openly bigoted.