I think that novels are tools of thought. They are moral philosophy with the theory left out, with just the examples of the moral situations left standing.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The novel is a penetrating study of morals and ethics.
Novels attempt to render human experience; that's really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character.
Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer.
But I think, and hope, that the novels can be understood and enjoyed as science fiction, on their own terms.
Novelists are no more moral or certain than anybody else; we are ideologically adrift, and if we are any good then our writing will live in several places at once. That is both our curse and our charm.
But novels are never about what they are about; that is, there is always deeper, or more general, significance. The author may not be aware of this till she is pretty far along with it.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
It's with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.
Readers of novels often fall into the bad habit of being overly exacting about the characters' moral flaws. They apply to these fictional beings standards that no one they know in real life could possibly meet.
Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.
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