In Defence of Some Guy's Writing About Some Other Guy

To quote Barack Obama — let me be clear. I don’t care about Brandon Sanderson. I don’t care about Jason Kehe. I don’t care about Wired. I don’t care about fantasy fiction. I definitely don’t care about fantasy fiction fans (at least in the sense of their interest in fantasy fiction — I’m sure I often care about them otherwise).

But I do care about writing. I care about people doing interesting writing — even if it ruffles feathers. So, I’m going to write about writing. Worse — I’m going to write about writing about writing.

I hate myself already.

Jason Kehe from Wired has written a profile of the uber-popular fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson. It has not been well-received. In fact — it’s being roundly abused in about 1000 quote-tweets.

And the replies? “This is such a weird article.” “Hacky hatchet job by a “wishing he were witty” writer.” “You really just seem bitter and jealous.”

“So rare to come away from a piece like this thinking the subject (Sanderson) seems fine and normal but the article’s writer is a pathetic piece of shit,” is one of the mellower responses.

But here’s the thing: what if that was kind of the point?

Let’s take a break and deal with some of the more incidental issues people have with the piece. Kehe “went so low as to make fun of [Sanderson’s] kid”. He said the teenager puts a lot of salt on his food. If Sanderson had said “please don’t mention my kids” then I’d agree that this would have been obnoxious. But if not — well, it isn’t like he made fun of the kid’s appearance, or his voice, or his manner. He puts a lot of salt on his food. So what? I used to put salt in pot noodles and on melted cheese.

Kehe “went out of his way to attack the fans at the convention”. He said the fans at a Sanderson convention blurred together “in a mass of pale, fleshy nerdery”. I defy you to suggest that the average fan at a fantasy fiction meet-up isn’t pale and fleshy. I’m a pro-wrestling fan and I guarantee that the average fan is pale and fleshy. It is what it is. Sure, it would be mean to dwell on it — but he’s just painting a picture. What do you want him to say? That it was full of bronzed Adonises?

Okay, back to the most important point. It isn’t accidental that Sanderson seems like a lovely bloke. Kehe is clear how hospitable he is. He’s uncynical about his creative impulses. He presents him as a very loving family man. I suppose it’s possible that Kehe is a stone-cold psychopath and didn’t realise that these are positive attributes. But I doubt it.

What Kehe does say is that Sanderson is a bad prose stylist. I’ve read a single page of Sanderson’s work — and only because I was going to write this — and the prose seemed pretty good!¹ That said, the guy has written about 10,987 books so it wouldn’t surprise me if Kehe was correct.

Kehe’s article is implicitly about the meaning of stories. He thinks Sanderson is less interested in words as a means of relating to our universe, as he thinks writers should use them, than in building his own semi-private Sandersalia in which his fans delight in the tropes of his fictional worlds. It’s world building to escape the world more than to reflect it (according to Kehe, that is) which helps to explain its ghettoised place in our culture. His last paragraph reads:

As I drive us back to the house, drop off the kid, and then stay in the car with Sanderson a bit longer, talking about life, talking about worlds, my ending takes shape. The surprise is that it was Sanderson’s ending all along, the ending of his best books. A character becomes a god, and the god beholds his planet below. If Sanderson is a writer, that is all he is doing. He is living his fantasy of godhead on Earth.

There’s derision here — but there’s also ambivalence. Kehe notes the innocent enthusiasm of Sanderson’s fans. He goes from describing him as a “bad writer” to saying, “A good writer? Who knows.” He doesn’t do what he could have done — as I assume he is at least something of a progressive — and dredged up Sanderson’s old quotes about his opposition to gay marriage. In fact, he doesn’t politicise Sanderson and his fans at all — making his piece as rare as an honest telemarketer. You can disagree with his interpretation, by all means, but it seems like an honest one — not just an attempt to shove a nerd into a locker. Hell, the fact that the Sanderson’s admirers are so annoyed substantiates his case. He’s a discourteous gatecrasher in Sandersalia. Kill him!

You can’t have an essay without a perspective. If writers tried to keep their opinions out of writing, it would be as boring as a TV programme about finance. If their opinions are shallow, and inflexible, and vicious that is a problem. But if it’s merely negative then it’s an invitation to disagree. And if it’s a bit mean along the way, well — fine! Are we not adults? Are fantasy fiction fans never going to come back from being called “fleshy”? There are people railing against this piece who I know think it’s hilarious to take offence at people using the wrong pronouns. So, don’t lose your rag over someone thinking graphic t-shirts are a bit lame. Don’t inhale the toxoplasma of rage.

Granted, I could sympathise if Sanderson himself was a bit offended that he welcomed Kehe into his home and the man described him a bad writer in an “ill-fitting blazer”. But he has taken it well — as you would expect such a nice man to. Plus, he is still a fantastically successful writer — whether or not Jason Kehe understands that.

Anyway, I’m done. I’ve spent my lunch hour writing about someone’s writing about someone’s writing. And now I’m writing about my writing about someone’s writing about someone’s writing. Feel free to write about it.

1. “Men often described the girl as having hair the color of wheat. Others called it the color of caramel, or occasionally the color of honey. The girl wondered why men so often used food to describe women's features. There was a hunger to such men that was best avoided.”