Aaron Tracy

It does make it more confusing.

Because on some level, the ridiculousness of being a person who's against others is expressed in his work.

There's a parodic, funny element to some of these characters.

And yet, did he see himself as a comic figure because he had this hate that he was living inside of?

I think probably not.

I think there's something about authors who write work for children that has really withstood the test of time.

And certainly that is work that I had a relationship when I was young, you know, that there is some part of the landscape of my psyche that belongs to Roald Dahl.

Just as there is the part of the landscape of my psyche belongs to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and she has her own problems.

And I would say that when that's your experience and you learn these pieces of biographical information, there is this sadness that comes with it.

It's a very specific sadness, and I think it's a sadness that cries out to be discussed, that needs to be acknowledged and talked about, needs to be discussed.

taken apart and looked at, we need to ask, why does this sadness exist?

And too often in this discussion, I feel like it's too absolute, and there's either somebody saying, you should absolutely throw out the books, or there's somebody saying, these things are separate, and we don't care, and you shouldn't care.

But what's most interesting to me is the fact that most of us live in the middle.

And I think that we actually are helping each other if we can say this is a bummer.

And yet the work is meaningful.

That is reality.

And I think when we talk about that, we're living in reality rather than in some fantasy land where the work must be separated or some other fantasy land where the work doesn't have meaning or cultural valence, which it does.

I mean, I'm just always really interested in acknowledging that our responses to this biographical information are emotional.

And I feel like so often when we're supposedly having these ethical conversations around these issues and people are defending their point of view, what's really happening is they're having a feeling.

This is art.