quillori

I think my guilt about not reading fiction is possibly also related to being a bit of a snob, though: I feel sure there are all sorts of important novels out there that I should be entranced by, and here I am reading things just because they're informative and I want to learn from them. Although perhaps I've just accidentally internalized the idea that doing things you enjoy is recreational and therefore not really valuable, which when I think about it is pretty silly, especially given that one of the things I most enjoy is learning stuff. (Actually, it occurs to me that that would explain a great deal, including why I have an unshakeable conviction that I'm a terrible, lazy, no good student who never works at anything, even when I know that's objectively not true: anything I learn I undoubtedly enjoyed, because I enjoy learning, so it doesn't count, and only my failures were unenjoyable and therefore important. Huh. Perhaps I should work on that.)

I find the whole rejecting authors on their beliefs thing boggling. And yet the people who do it are so earnest, and so sure wanting to like something written by someone with the wrong beliefs is a serious moral dilemma, and I just don't understand it at all. That you think someone wrong on some points hardly implies they have nothing worthwhile to say about anything, or that they can't be talented and create enjoyable work. And as you say, that level of disapproval must tend to make life rather dreary.