I just finished reading two books, Maria Vale’s Season of the Wolf and Carl Hiaasen’s Squeeze Me. Both made me think about the role of politics in fiction.
In Vale’s The Legend of All Wolves series, the reader sees human incursion into nature and man’s love of sport hunting from the perspective of wolves. Vale doesn’t use phrases like climate change and habitat loss, but her point is inescapable: Humanity is wreaking havoc on the wild.
In Hiaasen’s Squeeze Me, the world is on a fast track to hell and a good portion of that can be blamed on the President of the United States–a not even thinly disguised Donald Trump–well into his second term. The President, known only as Mastodon, his Secret Service code name, would make a turkey look like a Nobel prize winning scientist, his ethics are on par with Boss Tweed, and his self-absorption makes Joan Crawford look like Mother Teresa. He’s a caricature of indolent evil. To read this book is to be advised, page after page, that the man in the Winter White House is a turd.
I’ve read other books by Hiaasen–he’s a fearsomely talented writer and while I enjoyed parts of Squeeze Me, I found much of it a slog. To read it was to be, albeit very humorously, hectored. Furthermore, after a day spent, in part, reading the news, encountering overt political messaging just made me, well, tired.
I didn’t have that sense while reading Vale’s books. There, the reader see the world as the wolves do and is left to, on her own, think about why the wolves are so threatened and what part we, those who live in the real world, might play in that. No story, and certainly not Vale’s, exists outside a political context. But in her fictional world, the political context is just that, context. It’s not the main message.
Reading both books made me realize–yet again–how little I like to be hectored in books. Squeeze Me felt like hyper-politicized idea masquerading as a novel. Season of the Wolf’s story, on the other hand, is a superb tale that just happens to make one think about environmentalism. I am a reader who vastly prefers the latter.
How about you? Do you like politics and political themes in your novels? What books do you think do politics well? Are there books you’ve felt harangued by? Let us know.
Nope. NPolitics has saturated everything around of us –or at least that seems to be the case. But no matter what is happening in my personal life or the world around me, I have always found a book to comfort me. They are my best friend, my healer, so any books with political topic or content, I’d avoid like the plague –and especially now with so many worries (my kids, my grandkids, the pandemic, the economic uncertainty, jobs, etc. etc. etc. I need my books to soothe me, entertain me, to make me smile, laugh or sigh. I’ll take tall, dark and handsome over any politics any day, thank you very much.
I think several posts have made it clear that it isn’t politics per se that many readers don’t like, it’s BAD WRITING. All too often, politics in fiction is badly written fiction.
I agree, it’s one subject where a lot of writers immediately get heavy handed and lose all sense of nuance.
Politics isn’t this thing separate from life. It’s not something that happens somewhere else. It’s the way a person thinks, feels, acts. It inevitably comes out in what a writer does, the attitudes she takes.
However, there is a difference between that, and preaching. That can be on almost any subject, not just politics. Religion is another culprit. So is morality, and sex. Some authors will do it on purpose, and others can tell a riveting story and still get their point across. Have you read “Farneheit 451,” “Animal Farm,” “Primary Colors,” or even “War and Peace”? They all have political attitudes. Even some journalists retelling a factual story can turn it into a cracking read.
Under another name I wrote a trilogy set in Washington, DC, where the heroine of one of the books was the daughter of the President. But I wasn’t writing about politics, I was writing an erotic romance, so I kept the politics in the background and kept them middle-of-the-road. I wanted to write about what happens when the daughter of someone who had a position to take in society decides she wants an alternative lifestyle.
Preachy books of any kind don’t stay on my bookshelf for long. Only long enough for me to identify them. It’s a form of telling-not-showing which can be very boring.
BTW, not relevant to this discussion, but your site is broken on Firefox. It’s just a bunch of text, no header or anything. Anyone else got that problem?
Switching from Chrome to Firefox….
Nope. No problems with the page for me using Firefox.
I agree about the preaching. I’m up for any book that educates me rather than preaches at me. Including inspirationals! ;-)
‘Politics in fiction’ paints with a broad brush. :-) Anybody picking up a Carl Hiaasen book has to know they are getting a polemic; he’s been doing that for a long time. (In other words if someone is *surprised* that a Carl Hiaasen book is a polemic, they have not done their homework.)
This came up tangentially in a few other discussions here recently so I see why it’s an Ask. Personally, I’m a tree-hugging hippie. I pick up litter, killed my lawn, feed the yard birds, and drive a hybrid, or at least I will if I ever drive again (have been remote-working for six months and husband still sees clients, so he does the hunting and gathering). I am a white woman married to a dark-skinned man, which informs my views, as does the fact that we hosted my sister’s wedding to her longtime girlfriend here in California because they couldn’t get married back home in North Carolina. I lived for 22 years in the state of Georgia, where I saw a lot of open racism, sexism, and homophobia. Now I’ve lived for 25 years in California, where I also see a lot of open racism, sexism, and homophobia – mostly outside the cities – but where the state government tends toward ‘let’s take care of each other’ not toward ‘every man for himself.’
Racism, sexism, and homophobia are moral *and* political issues. If recognizing that these and other social injustices exist and believing that they are social problems properly addressed at the governmental level makes me ‘woke,’ then yeah.
All of which says nothing about politics in romance fiction. :-)
Politics in America are and always have been a flashpoint because this is not your average nation. There is no other country made up of fifty-three separate political entities which have been stitched together in less than 250 years. The US survives despite a civil war that many still think ought to have ended differently. Historically speaking, we are overdue for another such war. We should be GLAD that people are talking about things. Talking (even arguing) is always superior to war.
Writers are entitled to have a point of view. If I happen not to care for the way they express it in their fiction, the solution is easy: don’t buy books from that author.
I hear you, but in my defense I’d say I’ve read about ten of Hiaasen’s books and this is the first one I felt this way about.
Yes, and I realized – too late to edit – how tactless that sounded. Like ‘OMG that sounds like I’m calling out Dabney’ which was not what was intended. I’m sorry! I’m with you, by the way – I enjoyed a few of Hiaasen’s earlier books but the last one I picked up I was like No.
NO WORRIES!!!
I am not interested in reading fiction about politics. Politics are about party platforms, campaigns, and congressional infighting, among other things. If I’m interested in that sort of reading, I turn to nonfiction books and articles. I do like some political content on tv series now and then, though. Shows like The Americans (so underrated!) or The West Wing can present political issues thoughtfully without losing dramatic content, great writing, and marvelous acting, as well as watchability, but they are few and far between.
Social issues, on the other hand, such as child abuse, drug use, women’s rights, racism, etc., can be effectively written about in many kinds of fiction. I don’t want to be beaten over the head with with anyone’s agenda, but a romance novel with a protagonist who works with runaway teens (or any group of marginalized people) can be moving and profound while still being romantic. I’ve read plenty of romance books where someone realizes someone else is being victimized and helps them, or gets involved in social justice issues and those books can still be enjoyable and sexy. The skill of the author makes a huge difference in books like that.
Right now though I read to escape, so I don’t want any heavy topics. I want comforting, even predictable, stories with humor and heart. I’m re-reading favorites these days precisely because I know how they end, and I know if there is angst or violence or despair.