Arthur Conan Doyle's "To An Undiscerning Critic" (many props to the HoIF folk for digging this up!)

[azurelunatic]

"To An Undiscerning Critic"
Arthur Conan Doyle, 1915

'Sure there are times when one cries with acidity,
'Where are the limits of human stupidity?'
Here is a critic who says as a platitude
That I am guilty because 'in gratitude
Sherlock, the sleuth-hound, with motives ulterior,
Sneers at Poe's Dupin as "very inferior"."
Have you not learned, my esteemed communicator,
That the created is not the creator?
As the creator I've praised to satiety
Poe's Monsieur Dupin, his skill and variety,
And have admitted that in my detective work
I owe to my model a deal of selective work.
But is it not on the verge of inanity
To put down to me my creation's crude vanity?
He, the created, would scoff and would sneer,
Where I, the creator, would bow and revere.
So please grip this fact with your cerebral tentacle:
The doll and its maker are never identical.'

There are some people out in the fandom who despise authors because of the attitudes of their characters. Particular pet peeve: thinking that Lackey hates Crowley because her Fire Mage Guy dissed him. It was perfectly in character for the guy to do so. There is someone who everyone on the List knows who needs to wrap her head around this. I haven't the foggiest what Lackey thinks of Crowley -- and neither does anyone who reads that book and doesn't hear it out of Lackey's own pen writing as herself.

Comments

[boojum.livejournal.com]

I realize it was a rant, and I mostly agree with it, but I'm going to treat it as a serious conversation-opener. Feel free to ignore me or converse, whichever.

Characters' opinions do not necessarily reflect their authors, but you can learn about the authors from the books. For instance, I've read four of Mary Brown's books. Two of them (_The Unlikely Ones_ and _Pigs Don't Fly_) had very similar plots and characters: young woman is abandoned by mother figure at beginning of book, picks up a host of animal (and one human, I think, though it's now been a while) friends on her cross-country rambling, finds out that mother figure was lying when she had said that main character was a rotten no-good horribleness all those years, and finds true-love-with-a-twist. I would be very surprised to find out that Ms. Brown had a good relationship with her mother. Even if some of Lackey's informational notes giving hotlines and such hadn't said so, it would be pretty clear that child abuse is a hot button of Lackey's. That sort of thing.

[azurelunatic]

Guessing author-attitude from a recurring book theme is one thing. Concluding and ranting about author-attitude from a few throwaway lines establishing historical context and plausibility for plot twish is less of a safe bet.

The opinions of characters that are closer in attitude and outlook to the author are usually to be given more weight when they talk about stuff. Wolf-guy didn't strike me as a Gary Stu. Diana Tregarde could very easily be mistaken for Mary Sue Tregarde, and therefore Lackey's attitude towards Satanists is unlikely to be warm and friendly, recalling the portrayal of the bunch as inneffectual posers.

IIRC, it was decided that the child-abuse thing had gone beyond an Issue into an Axe, and it was no longer being ground, but instead used to bludgeon the readers upside the head with.

[azurelunatic]

That was based on the Fire Rose characters. Now that the Indian Girl In England With Snakes thing is something I've read -- yeah, Lackey probably has it in for Crowley, though that's still very In-Character for mages of the time, to shun him like hot damn.

[azurelunatic]

rm "to an undiscerning critic" as tag, as it was a one-hit wonder.