To compare India Knight to Alice Munro?

[Heyyoupleasekeepgoing]

Just finished the brilliant piece in the New Yorker Magazine Here about how Alice Munro ignored the abuse of her daughter by her husband, and the general opinion (although easier to hold now she is dead) that her work should no longer be respected and read as it was.

AIBU to think of the vastly less celebrated but nonetheless still writing for the Times etc India Knight, who stood by her own paedophile partner (Eric Joyce) and was named as a mitigating factor in his sentencing for viewing and downloading the most extreme category of CSA - ie supporting his support of the severe abuse of someone’s children (and babies according to the court case)? As their promised “explanations” have not been forthcoming, please can we stop publishing/ reading her now?

Men are often forgiven, and sometimes feted, when they ARE pedophiles and rapists.

Women are often cancelled for being apologists.

Both of those things is dreadful to the children involved. But without the first, the second wouldn't exist. And since AM was raped and abused herself, and trauma can do terrible things to your ability to set boundaries with men, there's some understanding that can be afforded her that can't be afforded the abusive men.

I can't say that I've read AM recently or IK ever, but I don't think I would treat it the same as I treat Micheal Jackson or Roman Polanski, who I avoid entirely.

This is not true, loads of kids still read Enid Blyton books.

I think if you think that knowing about past abuse is ethically or legally the same as actually committing it, it might be as well to say this if you get called for jury duty.

I have no interest in anything India Knight has to say. She's a disgrace. I remember her and her pal Sali Hughes on twitter threatening to 'send Eric round' to people who they thought were trolling them. This was in some way related to Sali Hughes' baffling campaign against online bullying (I think she wanted to close Tattle down because people were saying mean things about her).

I really don't care for cancel culture..Munro is a writer of brilliance and deserves her many honours. As a mother she sinks to the bottom of the pile but I never expected her to mother me.
If musicians and artists.and literary folk could be cancelled on the grounds of their personal life, we wouldn't have much music or art or literature left.

I am a csa survivor. I think it would be interesting to find out whether the pp thinking it's OK to still read these writers (honestly never heard of either but not the point) have ever been a victim of this sort of crime or know anyone who has.
I personally would not want to have anything to do with abuse apologists of any kind.

IK now runs a sub stack/newsletter online thing with a paywall. 1000s of subscribers from what I have read. Still living the ‘Good life’ in rural Suffolk but never mentions partner. I suspect they’re still together but she thinks better than to bring him up

Blyton’s books were taken off the shelves of my primary school in West London 40 years ago. I’m always surprised when people reference her. They're utterly of a bygone and best forgotten era to me.

I don’t know where I stand on separating the art from the artist. Pretty sure Alice Munro’s work was informed by her personal and family history. Does she apologise for or excuse any of the dark aspects in her work? Not in anything that I’ve read. The nuance and intricacy and understanding of human relationships is what’s appealing; but was she able to write with such nuance and intricacy and understanding because of her and her daughter’s experiences? Despite them? Probably one or both. But that’s still not the same as condoning her actions. She could have gone to her grave haunted with deep regrets. Fact remains, she wasn’t on the side of morally right. She was a coward in real life. That might change what I think of her as a person…but the work still stands. So is she just a fraud? Writing under false pretenses?

I don’t really know what to think. Other than that there are many great and unproblematic writers in the world to read.

I remember that too. My opinion of Hughes plummeted when that happened. Knight is a rubbish beauty writer whose recommendations always cost squillions and never live up to her extravagant promises. She actually stood up for Joyce in court and played a part in him not getting a jail sentence. She should be hanging her head in shame.

Same.

I don't feel like I'm doing it to her, I just can't read her stuff without thinking about paedophiles, which isnt something i like to think about, especially when I used to enjoy her for light entertainment.

T. S. Eliot. Virginia Woolf. D. H. Lawrence. Mark Twain. Wyndham Lewis. Roald Dahl. Frances Hodgson Burnett. John Middleton Murry. E. M. Forster. Lewis Carroll. Arthur Ransome. Charles Dickens. All are writers with dubious if not downright disturbing political views or questionable personal behaviour (and most make Enid Blyton and her antics look like Mary Poppins). Should they all be expunged from the canon?

This is neither apologism for abusers or a commendation of racists. Art and artists are separate. Individuals can make their own choices about whether they choose to support those still living by buying or engaging with their work. I don't endorse a culture of censorship as I don't care for where this leads.

Absolutely. Happily this is an occasion when a grim abuse enabling prig is also a shite writer.

What her partner did isn't relevant to her job of writing about make-up.

She isn't a teacher/nursery worker/volunteer with kids where his conduct might be relevant.

After the conviction wasn’t she writing relationship advice columns or some such?

I can see why they shunted her into make up but she is definitely someone who has her job because of who she knows so I have very little sympathy for her

and someone upthread said they may not be together anymore - I think she would be shouting it from the roof tops!!

The school announced it was taking her books off the shelves? I don’t actually remember them ever being on the shelves at my school, I read my mum’s or library versions.

At DD’s junior school the five find outers series was a popular read, and Malory Towers and Famous Five have new BBC adaptations. I read with junior school kids and one picked The Enchanted Wood the other day (from the school library). Kate Winslet reads the audio version. I could go on 😂

From a quick Google, you can buy new boxsets of several series. The new versions are edited in parts. There was a whole thing about it a few years ago.

IK’s (disabled, vulnerable) daughter had to go and live with her father because IK stayed with EJ.

That isn’t the point. What kind of person actively keeps a paedophile out of jail and sends her teenage daughter to live with her father to preserve that relationship? She’s utterly brazen.

India has always written about make-up and things like that I think. I bought a hairbrush she recommended years ago!

Separating the art from the artist is one thing but supporting them anf in the case of IK their peadophile partner financially is another thing altogether, there’s something particularly odious about contributing to the the coffers of a woman who lives with a a paedophile and thus by extension supporting the paedophile.

once people are dead it feels like a more simple question, do you like the art? What lens do you view it through? but directly contributing to EJs ability to have a nice life, not for me thanks.

and I cannot understand the logistics, if find it really difficult to have a relationship with someone who stood by an abuser, how do commissioning editors and colleagues handle it? Does he get invited to the work party? Do they listen whilst EK talks about their fabulous weekend away? 🤢

Knight has had her make-up column for a long time.
She’s had other ST columns inn the strength of that.
One was an opener OP-ED that didn’t last long.
And a cooking / homemaking one that was waffle.

I can see how, a long time ago, where I come from…
Things were covered up. My aunty knew. Of course.
She didn’t want to divorce until my granny was dead.
Doesn’t make it right. But modern women standing by?

I agree about it coming down to choosing where to spend your money. And India’s substack is too pricey anyway!

Thanks all it has been very interesting reading this. I think the silence regarding the abuse and the lack of condemnation for abusers is so frustrating, equally the points about cancel culture have been something to reflect on as I had not considered it in that light. I wish IK would explain or publicly distance herself but apparently she thinks it is fine to support him in court, and keep him in the family without explanation on her part. It just seems to put her on the wrong side of things for me.

In Munro’s defence, she herself had a problematic view of boundaries, possibly caused by the physical abuse she suffered as a child, her own rape, and/or the fact that her husband (the abuser) was a bully who isolated her from friends and family. They had, I imagine, a codependent relationship where he created a void around her which enabled her to write, and she deferred to him to make decisions. She also didn’t know about her daughter’s ordeal until years later. Her writing shows this preyed heavily on her mind, as she revisited the subject in a number of stories.

I’m pleased that DC will be studying a Munro short story as part of their English GCSE. She is the voice of rural, lower class North American (Canadian) women in the second part of the 20th century, imperfect as she was. Even with her terrible shortcomings as a human being, her contribution is essential and must not be obliterated by the crimes of a man.

The world would be a poorer place without Munro’s writing. I don’t think she ever claimed virtue; but she is a virtuoso, and that’s what matters as far as art is concerned.

The issue with separating the artist from the art, is that the artist often doesn't do that. The art will be based on or inspired from other people's (sometimes children's) pain ,trauma abuse. At times inflicted by the artist either actively and passively. Can you really enjoy and admire that?

In this particular case, it's a lot more complicated. I also see no criticism for the step mum, or dad, or adult sister, you know the ones who deliberately kept Alice in the dark, encouraged Andrea to do so and allowed the abuse to continue.

Why would people criticise complete unknowns?

I do think the Munro case is a lot more nuanced than the India knight one though