Orson Scott Card's "Hamlet's Father"- AKA return of the gay menace

[roseembolism]

Orson Scott Card, (who based on his writing is "So far in the closet he can see Narnia"), has published a novella called "Hamlet's Father", that purports to improve the language, and tell us "what's really going on".

To spoil a book that really needs to be spoiled, what's going on, is that Hamlet has no angst, but is morally certain (none of that angst or questioning what happened after death). He also has no problems with Claudius, who is an excellent king, and completely innocent of murder. And best of all, Hamlet's father is an evil, hellbound gay homosexual pedophile, who molested prettyu much everyone in the court except for Hamlet. Yeah. I kid you not.

Oddly enough, reactions haven't been that positive. Amazon.com reviews haven't been positive,  Twitter launched a buyabiggaynovelforscottcardday hashtag. Writer Scott Lynch did a "so much less gay" treatment of Henry V in the vein of Card's revision. It's spawned a long discussion on metafilter, and even the Guardian has picked up the story.

Personally, I am not surprised. Orson Scott Card has not only been hateful and disturbing in his anti-gay obsession, but I also noted that even his earlier books such as Ender's Game really are propaganda for his two other beliefs: that child abuse is OK, and that as long as the intent is rightous, any action is aceptable. the main difference I see between Ender's Game and Hamlet's Father, is that back in the day, Card was more adept at hiding his message. Either the rumors that Card had assistance on Enders game is rue, or the Brain Eater has completely destroyed his ability to write.

Comments

[seawasp]

He couldn't be close to Narnia, the kids were always talking about how things were gay.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Is there supposed to be something after "for example"?

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

*sigh* yes, there was supposed to be an example. I should hire you to edit my posts.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

And for what it's worth, I decided against the example, because everyone has used that same example, and I didn't want to go digging through Google Books to find another.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

even his earlier books such as Ender's Game really are propaganda for his two other beliefs: that child abuse is OK, and that as long as the intent is rightous, any action is aceptable

Boy, that is not how I read his books (at least the earlier ones) at *all*. Regardless of what he thought he was telling, what he *showed* -- and what I think many (most?) readers took away -- is that child abuse is horrible and omnipresent, that parents are usually distant, unreliable, and/or manipulative, and that the only hope for abused children is to see each other with compassion, forming families of choice. The buggers (a name I do not think is coincidental) are not Ender's enemy, his father and teachers *are*.

OSC clearly thinks -- or tells himself he thinks -- that traditional, patriarchal families are the only good and real kind. But what he shows is that the patriarchal family is a nightmare.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

While I do think that Card presents abuse as horrific, I think he also portrays it as necessary. Even aside from Enders Game where it's the only way to save the world, abuse is shown in other books such as Hart's Hope and Songmaster as necessary to the moral development of the hero. Abuse may cause the hero to lose qualities he had as a child, but that's a necessary sacrifice to resolve the crisis, and in the process become a man.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I always read Card's books as showing the hero's moral development to be the struggle to deal with the abuse. He or she takes the abuse and turns it into a sacrifice, in the Christian sense, but that doesn't mean it was *necessary*.

I'm reading Hamlet's Father right now (wow, the prose is *not* very good) and Hamlet Sr. tells Hamlet that he had to be harsh and neglectful to make Hamlet a strong king -- very like the way Patience is treated in Wyrms. But my reading of both stories is that the abusive fathers are *wrong*: they're rationalizing, and we the readers are supposed to see through that.

But then, I also read Ender's Game completely differently: especially when combined with Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, I see Ender as not having saved the world *at all*, but at having been manipulated and abused by the adults he should have trusted into performing a horrible, evil act. He didn't save the world, he was abused because the adults didn't want to do the difficult work of peacemaking. The buggers (a name I do not think is coincidental) were not Ender's true enemy, the adults who were supposed to be taking care of him *were*.