Tired of N and Everything He Represents

Reading Blog 9

TW: mentions of SA

His words are soft and gentle, the opposite of how I understand him as an abuser of women. His words feel disingenuous and sinister, and I feel nauseous as I attempt to read them. The dedication to his wife and his mother adds to this façade he is crafting that he is a lover of women rather than an abuser. Perhaps he truly believes that — didn’t Jon say that when N admitted to assaulting that woman in Sri Lanka, he said he felt “badly” about it? He writes of love and sadness, yet only considers her pain as an after-thought. I am so tired of consuming the art of abusers. I am tired of having to separate the art from the artist — I find it difficult to care that the work has merit, when its creator has none. I don’t feel safe to consider his words with the context of his person and his actions in mind. I don’t want to consider them at all really. He admits to SA in his memoir, and the world basically forgot. The world didn’t care to remember — they treated it like a new discovery once covering up the crimes of abusers went out of fashion (though not out of practice). I am so frustrated by that. I am so tired. 

My exhaustion with reading the work of terrible people does not stop with abusers, and my feelings on reading N’s work has me considering the work of other authors I have tolerated in the past due to the merit of their work. JK Rowling comes to mind, and various known racists and homophobes whose work I have consumed either personally or academically. I am drawn to think about the colonial narratives we have explored in this class, and those I have explored in past classes. The way to read the work of objectively bad people is always to maintain an understanding of their position in writing, your position in reading, and the overall position of the work. Positionality, as we have often discussed in this course, is vital to maintaining respect and preventing harm. It’s hard to read the work of those we don’t agree with, and even harder to read the work of those we know have done terrible things, or believe in / promote harm against others. In those times when we must, it’s vital to remain critical and vigilant when consuming those narratives.

Sorry I didn’t analyze a quote from N. I needed to reflect on my feelings about the reading, not the reading itself. I chose not to use his name — he didn’t use hers.